I followed Gernot's advi ce and checked the Boston telephone directory and
found one person,
Eichorn (one H--but the other was a misspelling on my part).
Anyway, Sciurus is Latin for squirrel. And I was wondering if our Johann
Michael might have been named Eichhorn. Often German composers changed
their names to be fashionable, e.g., Colombo for Daube, or Rossetti for
R�ssler. I notice now that there was a professor of Hebrew at the
University of K�nigsberg named Eichhorn who also used the pen-name Sciurus.
Anyway Sciurus was chamber musician and lutenist at the court of
Anhalt-Coethen from 1724 until about 1754, being appointed a few months
after J.S. Bach's departure.. Marcus mentions his book of chorales
arranged for lute, "Canzoni devotti tradotti nell'liuto da me J[ohann]
M[ichael] Sciurius, 1742" Mus Ms 40151 in Cracow (formerly in Berlin), a
collection of over 200 chorales.
They are rather intersting arrangements, because the chorales are adapted
to the lute, and are fairly easy pieces, mostly a bass line with the
melody. But the spacing is such that the sound is fuller than one might
expect from such a thin texture. Most of chorales are taken from a
collection by Freylingshausen, and the lute arrangemets are often grouped
by key and function into suites.
Thus a section of 6 "Glaubens- und Liebes-Lieder" on pages 68-73 are in g
and Bb, the next section of "Liebes-Lieder" (pages 74-79) are on d and F
One wonders for whom Sciurus penned this collection of pieces intended
probably for private devotionals. Well, the cover carries a clue with the
embossed initials C. A. A. Pr. D.' A. / 1740.
The book was for Christina Anna Agnera Princesse of Anhalt-C�then. She
also played the harpsichord and had been a student of J. S. Bach when he
was director of music at C�then.
Markus also mentions a book of charales into which Wilhelm Friedrich Rust
added the lute part for one of his three sonatas for lute and violin. The
chorales are in a different hand, and I doubt they are by Rust. He surely
was an important and noted composer. And had quite a grandson, also named
Wilhelm. The grandson re-wrote some of his grandfather's music changing it
so that it sounded like Beethoven. The grandson then claimed that his
granfather was the source for Beethoven's musical style. Alas he was found
out, and "Der Fall Rust" ("The Rust Case") was quite a musical scandal
around 1902.
Rust was Kapellmeister at the duchal court of Anhalt-Dessau. And who was
duchess of Anhalt-Dessau? Our Bach/Sciurus student, Christina Anna Agnera.
So the sonatas were also probably written for her.
AJN.
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