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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.

Gregor Aichinger

Organist and composer of sacred music, b. probably at Ratisbon in 1565; d. at Augsburg, 21 January, 1628

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Aichinger, GREGOR, organist and composer of sacred music, b. probably at Ratisbon in 1565; d. at Augsburg, January 21, 1628. He was a priest at least towards the end of his life. As early as 1590 he was the organist to the patrician Jacob Fugger at Augsburg. He paid a visit to Rome in 1599. His musical development was largely influenced by the Venetian school, and especially by Gabrieli. In 1601, or thereabouts, he returned to Augsburg and reentered the service of the Fuggers. Of his numerous compositions we mention “Liturgica, sive Sacra Officia ad omnes dies festos Magnae Dei Matris” (Augsburg, 1603); “Sacrae Cantiones”, for four, five, six, eight, and ten voices (Venice, 1590); “Trieinia Mariana” (Innsbruck, 1598); “Fasciculus Sacr. Harmoniarum” (Dillingen, 1606). The full list is found in Eitner’s “Quellen-Lexikon.” Proske thus characterizes Aichinger and his fellow-worker Hassler in the Fugger choir: “Though Hassler excelled in intellect and originality, both masters had this in common that they combined the solid features of German art with the refined forms of Italian genius, which flourished at that time especially in Rome and Venice, and had stamped their works with freer melody and more fluent harmony. Aichinger in particular distinguishes himself by a warmth and tenderness of feeling bordering on mellowness, which is everywhere imbued with deep devotion. Meanwhile he does not lack sublimity nor solemnity, indeed some of his longest compositions satisfy throughout the strictest demands of art.”

J. A. VOLKER


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