Early life Michael came to Vienna as a child with his father Simon Michael († after 1566); his father was "probably the best mechanic and musician" during the reign of Emperor
Ferdinand I (1556-1564) and was listed as a singer in the list of court chapels under Emperor
Maximilian II from 1564 to 1566. Rogier presumably spent time as a choirboy in Vienna and in 1564 he joined the court chapel of Archduke
Charles II in
Graz as a choirboy.
Johannes de Cleve then
Annibale Padovano were in charge of this chapel, with Padovano advising Rogier to go to
Venice to study further under
Andrea Gabrieli, which he did from 1569 to 1572. After his return to Germany, he took a position as a tenor singer in
Ansbach at the court chapel of
George Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1572, where he remained until 1574.
Dresden On the recommendation of
Emilie of Saxony, the sister of Elector
August of Saxony, Michael became a singer and musician at the Dresden court orchestra on 1 February 1575. The Elector listened to him himself, and the old Kapellmeister
Antonio Scandello also tested Michael's skills. The composer married in Dresden in 1578, and in the following years they had seven sons Rogier,
Tobias, Simon, Samuel, Christian, Georg and Daniel. Samuel Michael, Daniel and Christian all studied under their father and four of the sons later became composers, particularly Tobias, who was kantor at the Thomaskirche in
Leipzig from 1631 to 1657. In the 1580 list of "Cantorey" he is listed as a
contralto with an annual salary of 144
gulden. He was also able to sing
countertenor, and his voice was described by in his writing
Erotematum musicae (1591) as quite high and very noble. Michael became court bandmaster of the Elector of Saxony under the regency of
Christian I, Elector of Saxony on 12 December 1587 (a role previously held by Antonio Scandello,
Giovanni Battista Pinello di Ghirardi (1544-1587) and
Georg Forster). His sons Tobias, Simon and Samuel also became choir boys in Dresden. From 1599 to 1603 Michael's pupils were the later Leipzig
Thomaskantor Johann Hermann Schein. His other pupils included the
Freiberger
Superintendent . In 1611 Michael married his second wife Sarah Petermann, the daughter of the Dresden Kapellknabeninspektor .
Later life When
John Georg I of Saxony succeeded to the Electorate in 1611, most of the court orchestra was dismissed before it was then reconstructed without Michael's input. When Elector Johann Georg travelled to Frankfurt with his entourage in 1612 for the election and coronation of Emperor
Matthias, Rogier's name was not on the list of fellow travellers. This was because Michael had been largely relieved of his position as Kapellmeister from 1612 onwards, with a full annual salary of 300
gulden. His immediate successors were
Michael Praetorius (1613 and 1614/15), and in 1615
Heinrich Schütz, though Rogier continued to be active at the Saxon court. His salary was temporarily supplemented by funds to support the choir boys who lived with him. There is also evidence of the quarterly payment of 75 gulden on
Trinity Sunday 1621. When Sarah, the composer's second wife, died and was buried in January 1623, the sermon did not mention Michael's death, and the author Burckhard Grossmann mentioned him as being alive in the preface to his publication "Angst der Hellen" (Fear of the Light Ones), published in 1623. In March 1624, however, he was no longer listed as a member of the chapel. From this the music-historical researchers conclude that the composer died after mid-1623. == Works ==