Johann Stadlmayr was an Austrian composer from around 1600. He was born round 1575 in Bavaria, but we do not know where. Very little is known about his youth and education, as in so many other composers of the 16th century. In 1603 he was employed in the Hofkapelle (court chapel) in Innsbruck, where he became the maestro in 1607 under Archduke Maximilian III, until 1618 when the archduke died and the Hofkapelle was dissolved.
Stadlmayer wrote mostly sacred music; 21 works were published in print in Augsburg, Munich, Passau, Vienna, Ravenburg, Antwerp and Innsbruck. His contemporary Michael Praetorius called him ‘einen trefflichen Contrapunktisten und Musikus’. His Magnificats are easy to sing and very pleasant and evoking. There is rather simple polyphony in all the verses. Nevertheless the texture is more intricate than it looks at first sight. It is nearly baroque but still clinging to the Renaissance polyphony.
Cees Wagemakers, 2018