According to Markus Rathey, Melchior Franck (c. 1579-1639) was ‘the most productive German composer in the first half of the 17th century’ after Michael Praetorius, with almost 1500 documented compositions. More than 110 works of this enormous oeuvre are occasional compositions which Franck dedicated to friends, colleagues and potentates on special occasions and which were published in small editions of specially produced individual prints. Although these works were only addressed to a small circle of people and were not expected to be widely distributed or performed again later, they are in no way inferior to the compositions in Franck's representative collector's prints in terms of the quality of the compositions and the artistic standard. The unaltered inclusion of individual occasional compositions in later print collections also testifies to the fact that the composer applied the same high standards to this part of his oeuvre, which can probably be categorised as ‘day-to-day business’. The occasions for such musical gifts were very different. In Melchior Franck's case, the 50 or so wedding congratulations are by far the most numerous, followed by around half as many funeral music pieces. In addition, congratulatory compositions for birthdays or name days (approx. 15), Christmas and/or New Year (approx. 10) and other occasions such as travelling, starting a new job, church festivals etc. have also survived. Although this edition in four volumes is intended to catalogue and present Melchior Franck's occasional compositions for festive occasions (i.e. without the funeral and penitential music) as completely as possible, it is only a small selection of those works that have survived the centuries more or less by chance - often enough in only a single copy.
The first volume documents the complete surviving festive music from Melchior Franck's first years as Coburg court Kapellmeister up to 1609. Volume two contains the Vincula natalitia, a collection of congratulatory compositions by Melchior Franck, his Kapell colleague Benedikt Faber (around 1573/1580-1634) and the Coburg town cantor Heinrich Hartmann (around 1582-1616) from the years 1608 to 1610. The third volume documents the complete surviving festive music by Melchior Franck from the Coburg court Kapellmeister's last carefree creative years, before his life situation took an increasingly dramatic turn for the worse after the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. The last volume presents the complete surviving occasional compositions for festive occasions from the last two decades of Melchior Franck's life.
