Alexander Utendal

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Alexander Utendal (* after 1530 possibly in Ghent ; † May 7, 1581 in Innsbruck ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , conductor and singer of the Renaissance .

Live and act

Nothing has been passed on about Alexander Utendal's family of origin or his apprenticeship. In a letter of July 15, 1580 to Elector August von Sachsen (1526–1586), he himself stated that he had been serving the House of Austria from a young age. Brussels and Spanish documents from the Habsburg court contain references to an unspecified activity by Utendal in the service of Maria of Hungary . In 1564 he joined Archduke Ferdinand's newly founded Prague chapel as an alto singer ; for the following year there is proof of his marriage to Dorothea Berbinger. Duke Ferdinand moved the chapel to Innsbruck in 1566/67 and Utendal followed there. Around the autumn of 1572 the composer asked his employer for a raise; in this context his appointment to the Kapellknaben-Praezeptor and thus to the Vice-Kapellmeister can be seen towards the end of 1572. He officially did not use this title until 1580. Utendal had to teach the choir boys in singing and composing; For this task he had to ask for grants from the ducal court several times in the following years, most of which were granted to him. At the expense of the court treasury, he bought the "Waldner Häusl" in Innsbruck in 1579. Although Utendal repeatedly suffered from financial bottlenecks, in 1580 he refused an appointment as Dresden court conductor to succeed Antonio Scandello . The composer died in Innsbruck the following spring. His widow, who remained childless, married a certain Georg Marperg a little later and followed him to Bohemia .

meaning

Alexander Utendal's oeuvre includes all genres that were current at the time, except the madrigal . Chromatics and homophonic polychoralism appear only sporadically in his compositions ; In his sacred works in particular, he adheres to the linear- polyphonic style of traditional Franco-Flemish music. Utendal has made a significant contribution to the group of penitential psalm music; these “Septem psalmi poenitentiales”, published in Nuremberg in 1570, were probably created at the suggestion of his employer in the early Innsbruck years and dedicated to him. In contrast to the psalm cycle by Orlando di Lasso , composed ten years earlier, Utendal aligned his cycle with the twelve modes of Heinrich Glarean's “Dodekachordon” . Glarean's teaching was probably discussed in music-theoretical treatises at the time, but was quite controversial for practical composing. The penitential psalms mentioned led to multiple discussions in music-theoretical publications of the time, for example in the work “Musica poetica” (1606) by Joachim Burmeister . The secular works of Utendal show a movement that is shaped by the upper voices and is based on the type of madrigal in the treatment of the text. In the notation of the composer has to be one of the first musicians repealing a flatted the now common resolution characters instead of the cross used.

Works

(Vocal music, in order of appearance)

  • Spiritual works
    • 2 motets , in “Novi thesauri musici liber primus” for four to eight voices, Venice 1568
    • 5 motets in “Novi atque catholici thesauri musici, Liber 2” for four to eight voices, Venice 1568
    • "Septem psalmi poenitentiales", Nuremberg 1570
    • “Sacrarum cantionum, Liber 1” to five votes, Nuremberg 1571
    • "Tres missae [...] item magnificat, per octo tonos" with four to six voices, Nuremberg 1577
    • “Liber tertius sacrarum cantionum” with five to six votes, Nuremberg 1577
    • 1 motet in “Thesaurus motetarum”, Strasbourg 1589
    • further works in various manuscripts
  • Secular works
    • "Happy new German and French songs", Nuremberg 1574
    • 1 work in “A beautiful and fragile organ tablature book ” with four to 12 voices, Laugingen 1583
    • 3 songs in "Beautiful, extravagant, sacred and secular German songs" with four voices, Munich 1585

Literature (selection)

  • P. Cohen: The Nuremberg music printers in the 16th century , Erlangen 1927
  • W. Senn: Music and Theater at the Court of Innsbruck , Innsbruck 1954
  • W. Senn: Innsbruck court music. In: Österreichische Musikzeitschrift No. 25, 1970, pages 659-671
  • KF Armstrong: Musical Settings of the Penitential Psalm Cycle 1560–1620 , Dissertation Urbana / Illinois 1974
  • I. Bossuyt: The Psalmi poenitentiales (1570) of Alexander Utendal. In: Archives for Musicology No. 38, 1981, pages 279–295
  • I. Bossuyt: De componist Alexander Utendal (approx. 1543 / 1545–1581): Een bijdrage tot de studie van de Nederlandse polyfonie in de tweede helft van de zestiente eeuw , Brussels 1983
  • S. Schulze: The keys in Lasso's penitential psalms. With a comparison of Alexander Utendal's and Jacob Reiner's penitential psalms , Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1984

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 16, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Kassel and Basel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1136-5
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 8: Štich - Zylis-Gara. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1982, ISBN 3-451-18058-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Utendal, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Utenthal, Alexander; Ausm Thal, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer, singer and bandmaster of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH after 1530
PLACE OF BIRTH Ghent (unsure)
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1581
Place of death innsbruck