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Artist
Brüder Hess
2+ albums
swissgerman18th centurypolish16th century
about
Paulus and Bartholomäus Hess were mid-sixteenth-century professional wind players active in the city of Breslau (today Wrocław), where they served as salaried Stadtpfeifer—municipal instrumentalists responsible for civic ceremonies, public music-making, and the maintenance of local instrumental traditions. Almost nothing is known about their personal lives, training, or exact dates, but their importance rests securely on a single, remarkable publication: the 1555 Breslau dance anthology Etlicher gutter teutscher und polnischer Tentz. Compiled “with special diligence” by the two brothers and printed by Crispin Scharffenberg, the collection contains more than 150 German and Polish dances for four and five parts, intended for flexible performance on “allerley Instrumenten.” It is one of the earliest large-scale instrumental dance collections printed in Central Europe and a major witness to the repertory and performance practice of Renaissance civic wind bands. The music shows a lively mix of popular dance types—passamezzo, saltarello, tanz, nachtanz—artfully arranged for consort performance. Though the brothers Hess vanish from the historical record after this publication, their anthology has become fundamental to our understanding of sixteenth-century instrumental culture, and modern ensembles such as Capella de la Torre have helped restore their work to the living repertoire. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may app
