Johann Schop

SCHOP, Johann. b. Hamburg, ca. 1590; d. Hamburg, summer 1667. No documents survive pertaining to his youth and school years. In 1614, Schop gained probationary employment as a musician at the court chapel of Duke Friedrich Ulrich in Wolfenbüttel. His varied instrumental expertise on the lute, cornet and trombone, and his excellent violin playing, led to a permanent post there in 1615. Nevertheless, in the same year Schop moved to the court chapel of King Christian IV of Denmark in Copenhagen, which he left again in 1619, in order to escape the plague outbreak in the city. From 1621, Schop was employed as first violinist and later as director of the municipal music (Ratsmusik) in Hamburg...