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Johannes Lindemann was a German composer, music editor and teacher. He was related to Martin Luther. He was educated at the famous grammar schools of Schulpforta and Gotha and in 1568 he enrolled at Jena University.
For many years Johannes Lindemann was Kantor at Gotha. On January 1, 1598, probably referring to his work in this post, he described himself as being in his 27th year as an employee of Duke Johann Casimir of Saxony, whose service he must thus have entered in 1572, the year in which the regency of Gotha had been transferred to the duke from the house of Saxe-Coburg. He evidently played an active part in the musical life of Gotha. He communicated with a number of other musicians, among them Philipp Avenarius, Melchior Franck and Bartholomäus Helder. As late as 1634 he was a member of the town council. His work as a musician and teacher enhanced the social standing of music in the area, to the undoubted benefit of several of his younger contemporaries, especially Michael Altenburg. He also did much to foster in Thuringia an interest in recent Italian music. He may have studied in Italy; certainly he had contacts there, in particular with Gastoldi.
Johannes Lindemann's most important work is Amorum filii Dei decades duae … Zwantzig Weyhenachten Gesenglein … zum Theil unter … Madrigalia und Balletti (Erfurt, 1594, 1596 and 1598), a three-volume anthology of contrafacta of five-part Italian secular pieces. Eight are by Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, and the Latin title of the collection may perhaps be seen as recalling Gastoldi's pieces Amor, tu che congiungi and Filli vezzosa e lieta. Lindemann's uncle, Cyriak Lindemann, probably knew Georg Fabricius, one of the leading hymnologists of the Reformation period, who studied in Italy for four years. Johannes Lindemann's particular significance as one of the first to marry the Italian madrigal with the chorale tradition of central Germany and Thuringia is thus brought into focus. An illustration is afforded by his chorale In dir ist Freude, a contrafactum of Gastoldi’s L'innamorate; it became one of the best-known Protestant chorales. Nearly all of Lindemann's music is lost, though there are isolated hymns in the Cantionale sacrum (Gotha, 1646-1648) and in the other Thuringian collections. |
