August Harder

August Harder , also Augustin Harder (born July 17, 1775 in Schönerstädt near Leisnig , † October 22, 1813 in Leipzig ) was a German musician , composer and writer .

Harder grew up as the son of the Schönerstädt village school teacher. His father gave him his first music lessons. After completing high school in Dresden , he enrolled in Leipzig as a theology student . To improve his livelihood, he took music students. He soon recognized his calling in music, gave up studying theology and worked in Leipzig as a freelance musician (voice, piano, guitar), composer and writer. There he died of a nervous fever on October 22nd, 1813 .

In total he composed over 60 works, including 50 for vocals with guitar accompaniment. The singable song melodies created by Harder based on contemporary texts were very well received at the time, but did not become part of the core inventory of German folk songs . Just its melody ^?^/ⁱ to Ludwig Hölty's poem The air is blue, the valley is green , achieved slightly changed, with the text of Paul Gerhardt's spiritual summer song Go out, my heart, and seek Freud lasting popularity. After they had long been rejected by church musicians because of their little chorale-like character and the numerous melisms and other melodies were added to Gerhardt's text in church hymn books , the Evangelical Hymnal of 1993 contains them as an "official" way of singing (EG 503).

literature

Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz : Harder, Augustin. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 532. ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive )
Matthias Werner: Harder, August. In: Wolfgang Herbst: Who is who in the hymnal? Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-50323-7 , p. 131 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ “On October 19, 1813, when Leipzig was taken by the Allies , he was sick with nerve fever, but not dangerous. But since he lived quite close to one of the main points of the onslaught, the tumult affected him so violently that his suffering worsened and he died a few days later. "Emil Kneschke: On the history of theater and music in Leipzig. Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1864, p. 322f. ( Full text in google book search)
↑ Fritz Buek: The guitar and its masters. Robert Lienau (Schlesinger'sche Buch- und Musikhandlung) , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1926, p. 27.
↑ text
↑ Hölty's poem has a different, non-symmetrical meter. Friedrich Eickhoff (1807–1886), who brought the melody together with Gerhardt's text, added the repetition of the fourth melody line ( source ( Memento from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).

personal data
SURNAME	Harder, August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Harder, Augustin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German musician, composer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH	July 17, 1775
PLACE OF BIRTH	Schönerstädt near Leisnig
DATE OF DEATH	October 22, 1813
Place of death	Leipzig

[1] “On October 19, 1813, when Leipzig was taken by the Allies , he was sick with nerve fever, but not dangerous. But since he lived quite close to one of the main points of the onslaught, the tumult affected him so violently that his suffering worsened and he died a few days later. "Emil Kneschke: On the history of theater and music in Leipzig. Friedrich Fleischer, Leipzig 1864, p. 322f. ( Full text in google book search)

[2] Fritz Buek: The guitar and its masters. Robert Lienau (Schlesinger'sche Buch- und Musikhandlung) , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1926, p. 27.

[3] text

[4] Hölty's poem has a different, non-symmetrical meter. Friedrich Eickhoff (1807–1886), who brought the melody together with Gerhardt's text, added the repetition of the fourth melody line ( source ( Memento from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).