Samuel Capricornus

Capricornus' father was a Protestant minister, who fled with his family for fear of the Counter-Reformation to Bratislava in the then Kingdom of Hungary.

After completing high school in Sopron, he studied languages and theology in Silesia before becoming a musician at the imperial court in Vienna.

In May 1657 he became Kapellmeister in Stuttgart and soon became engaged in a bitter dispute with the organist of the collegiate church, Philipp Friedrich Böddecker, who had himself coveted the position, and his brother David, a cornetto player.

In his defense against these allegations, Capricornus complained about the unruliness, and the "gluttony and drunkenness" of the musicians in the kapell, also saying the cornetto players played their instruments like a cow horn.

Verzeichnis der erhaltenen Werke von Samuel Capricornus CWV Cornetto-Verlag 2016