Particularly known throughout his life as a violin virtuoso, Schmelzer joined the court musicians as a young teen, though the first record of an official appointment is in 1649, when he would have been in his mid to late twenties. He was director of instrumental music no later than 1658, and three volumes of his own music were published between then and 1664. It is possible that Antonio Bartoli was influential in Schmelzer's training as a violinist. The senior musician came to the court in 1624 (at the age of 19) and became widely known as an excellent violinist. He was appointed Kapellmeister in 1649, after which time he focused on the introduction of Italian opera to court performances.
The music readily available to me is instrumental: sonatas for one or more violins, and orchestral music for ballets incorporated into operas or meant for other staged performances. Dances from suites discussed in this series of posts come from DTÖ volume 56, Wiener Tanzmusik in der Zweiten Hälfte des Siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, edited by Paul Nettl (1960).
This courante is typical in its treatment of tonal spaces in the principal melodic part. A clear definition of the fifth A4-E5 is reinforced at the beginning of the second strain. A fairly complex treatment of the upper register ensues. The primitive Urlinie, ^5-^7-^8, that I have traced is probably the best abstraction for bars 19-28, but the reader will note that I have not attempted to "finish" the analysis by incorporating the several unfoldings.
Biographical information from "Johann Heinrich Schmelzer" and "Antonio Bartoli," by Rudolf Schnitzler and Charles E. Brewer, articles in Oxford Music Online. Brewer has also published a book on the topic: The Instrumental Music of Schmeltzer, Biber, Muffat and their Contemporaries (New York: Routledge, 2016).
