ABSTRACT

SACHS, HANS (1494-1576), the most prolific sixteenth-century German dramatist and Meistersinger. Sachs is known to the non-German world primarily through Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Niimberg. The celebrated shoemaker of Niirnberg composed approximately 4,400 Meisterlieder and close to 130 dramas in his lifetime, not to mention his Shrove tide plays. In his most productive period, Sachs produced up to 450 titles per year. In the years 1545-53, he composed one drama and seven Meisterlieder inspired by the matiere de Bretagne.