Heinrich Schütz

In 1590 the family moved to Weißenfels, where his father managed the inn "Zum güldenen Ring". His father eventually served as burgomaster in Weißenfels, and in 1615 purchased another inn known as both "Zur güldenen Sackpfeife" and "Zum güldenen Esel" – which he renamed "Zum Schützen".

While Schütz was living with his parents, his musical talents were discovered by Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel in 1598 during an overnight stay in Christoph Schütz's inn. Upon hearing young Heinrich sing, the landgrave requested that his parents allow the boy to be sent to his noble court for further education and instruction. His parents initially resisted the offer, but after much correspondence they eventually took Heinrich to the landgrave's seat at Kassel in August 1599.

After a prolonged yet polite negotiation between the Landgrave and the Elector, Schütz moved to Dresden in 1615 to work as court composer to the Elector of Saxony. In 1619 Schütz married Magdalena Wildeck (born 1601). She bore two daughters before her death in 1625: Anna Justina, born in 1621, and Euphrosyne, born in 1623.

In Dresden Schütz sowed the seeds of what is now the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, but left there on several occasions; in 1628 he went to Venice again, where he met and studied with Claudio Monteverdi. In 1633 he was invited to Copenhagen to compose the music for wedding festivities there, eventually returning to Dresden in 1635. He again conducted an extended visit to Denmark in 1641, due to the devastation of the Electoral court. The Thirty Years' War ended in 1648, and he again became more active in Dresden. In 1655, the year that his daughter Euphrosyne died, he accepted an ex officio post as Kapellmeister at Wolfenbüttel.

Schütz moved back to Weißenfels, in a retirement he had to beg for, to live with his sister (the house is now a fine museum of his life), but the Electoral Court often called him back to Dresden. He died in Dresden from a stroke in 1672 at the age of 87. He was buried in the old Dresden Frauenkirche, but his tomb was destroyed in 1727 when the church was torn down to build the new Dresden Frauenkirche. (His long-time house on the same square has been reconstructed in the same style and is an apartment building with hotel rooms and a restaurant.)