Thomas Selle

Thomas Selle (23 March 1599 – 2 July 1663) was a German baroque composer. Life There is practically no reliable information about the early years of Thomas Selle. Between his birth in 1599 and his matriculation in the University of Leipzig in 1622, there is no documentary evidence of his activities. However, considering his claim from around 1643 in the Kurtze doch gründliche anleitung zur Singekunst (A brief but thorough introduction to the art of singing) of “having been motivated by the late Mr. Seth Calvisius” (“aus antrieb des sel igen H errn Sethi Calvisij”) in applying himself to the art of chanting, he is assumed to be an alumnus of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where he would have been student of Sethus Calvisius († 1615) and perhaps also Johann Hermann Schein († 1630). By 1624 he is a teacher at the Latin school of Heide, and only a year after he becomes a headmaster in Wesselburen (both Schleswig-Holstein). In his time in Wesselburen he married Anna Weihe, the daughter of a bourgeois family from Husum, and prepared most of his secular songs to appear in print. In 1634 Selle and his wife resettled in Itzehoe, where Selle took on the duties as Kantor with the title of direc