Life
Esaias Reusner was a German lutenist and composer, born on 29 April 1636 in Löwenberg, Silesia. Taught by his lutenist father of the same name, he was a child prodigy who toured and performed at various courts from an early age. From 1655 to 1672 he served the dukes of Silesia at Brieg, and briefly taught flute and lute at the University of Leipzig. In 1674 he was appointed chamber lutenist to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, in Berlin, a post he held until his death on 1 May 1679. He published two influential collections, Deliciae Testudinis (1667) and Neue Lauten-Früchte (1676), each built from dance suites for solo lute.
Impact
Esaias Reusner was one of the first great German masters of the eleven-course baroque lute and the first German composer to fully adopt the French style of lute-suite writing. His two published collections helped establish the instrumental suite as a genre in German-speaking lands and prepared the ground for the flowering of German baroque lute music that Weiss and his contemporaries later brought to its height.
Repertoire
Suite No. 1 (from Delitiae Testudinis, oder Erfreuliche Lauten-Lust), 1667
The opening suite of Reusner’s 1667 collection, one of the earliest German applications of the French lute-suite model.
Esaias Reusner, Delitiae Testudinis, oder Erfreuliche Lauten-Lust, Suite 1 — Performed by Baroque Goes Nuts
Suite in D minor (from Neue Lauten-Früchte), 1676
One of thirteen dance suites in Reusner’s second published collection, built on the core allemande–courante–sarabande–gigue pattern in the French style.
Esaias Reusner (1636-1679) – Lute Suites [Konrad Junghänel] — Performed by Konrad Junghänel