Born: 1508 - Vacha, Hesse-Cassel
Died: 1582 - Lüneburg, Germany

Lucas Lossius was rector or conrector of the school at Lüneburg from 1533 to his death.

Lucas Lossius is author of a. theoretical work, Erotemata musicae practicae… (Nuremberg, 1563), which passed through many editions; also the compiler of a. comprehensive collection of liturgical music for the use of the Lutheran Church, entitled Psalmodia hoc est Cantica sacra veleris ecclesiae selecta... (Nuremberg, 1553). This latter work is introduced with a. preface by Philip Melanchthon, and is divided into four parts; the first part containing the Latin texts and plain-song melodies of the antiphons, responsoria, hymns and sequences for all Sundays and chief holidays, also the Passion according to St. Matthew and the Lamentations; the second part makes a similar provision for all the minor holidays of the year; the third part contains the plain-song melodies for the mass and for funerals; the fourth contains the psalms and canticles with their antiphons and intonations according to the eight tones. Only a few German hymns appear in the collection. A second revised and enlarged edition of this work was published by Georg Rhau at Wittenberg in 1561, and two others in 1569 and 1579. The musical editor of Schöberlein's Schatz des liturgischen Gesangs, F. Riegel, claims that the psalm-tones, with all their differences, have been preserved in greater purity in Lossius than in the form in which they have been current in the Roman Church, based on Guidetti's Directorium chori; Lossius in 1553 being in closer contact with the older Catholic tradition than Guidetti in 1589.

Source: Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1952 Edition, by J.R. Milne)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (February 2006)

Last update: Wednesday, June 14, 2017 15:22