MAC No. 11: Gott, heilger Schöpfer aller Stern

Hermann Schroeder (1904 – 1984) was a German composer and a Catholic church musician.

Schroeder spent the greatest part of his life in the Rheinland. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Heinrich Lemacher and Walter Braunfels (composition), Hermann Abendroth (conducting), and Hans Bachem (organ).

Upon graduation from the conservatory, he obtained a post teaching music theory at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. Eight years later, he became organist at the cathedral in Trier. He remained in this post until the end of WWII. After the war, he taught music theory at the Cologne Musikhochschule beginning in 1946, becoming a professor there in 1948 and deputy director in 1958. His notable students include Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Schroeder's main accomplishments as a composer were in Catholic church music, where he attempted to break free of the lingering monopoly held by Romantic music. His works are characterized by the employment of medieval elements such as Gregorian chant, modal scales, and fauxbourdon, which he combined with quintal and quartal harmonies and 20th-century polyphonic linear, sometimes atonal writing similar to that of Paul Hindemith. His catalog includes much organ music as well as folk-song settings, German settings of the Ordinary and Proper of the Mass, and chamber music.

Published by Breitkopf in “Marienstatter Orgelbüchlein”, Vol. II