Balthasar Kleinschroth

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Balthasar Kleinschroth (* 1651 ; † after 1683) was a Catholic clergyman , composer and prefect of the choir boys of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey . His diary Escape and Refuge is an important source text for the documentation of the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna .

His relatives were closely connected to the Heiligenkreuz Abbey and its surroundings; he was married to a conventual; he later became abbot in Säusenstein . He was also related to the landlord of the Heiligenkreuz monastery inn; further blood relationship connected him with residents of the village of Kaisersteinbruch , a former manor of the monastery.

As a child Kleinschroth came to the boys' school in Heiligenkreuz, where his presence is documented for at least 1663 to 1665. He completed higher theological studies with the Jesuits in Vienna; he lived in the neighboring Heiligenkreuzerhof in Vienna . His stay there was paid for by the abbot of the monastery, although he was not intended to enter the monastery, but to serve as a diocesan priest.

Even before he was ordained a priest, he was the conductor of the Heiligenkreuz Boys' Choir from 1673–1674; he also worked in other monasteries, such as Seitenstetten . As a priest he returned to the Vienna Woods and was Prefect or Regens Chori from April 10, 1678 to July 8, 1683, when he fled the monastery with 10 boys from the threatening arrival of the Ottomans.

The escape of this heterogeneous group (there were also children under the age of 12) led via Lilienfeld to Kremsmünster , where they waited for the danger. The Heiligenkreuz Abbey was still devastated for years after the Turkish storm, so that Kleinschroth and his students had no prospect of continuing educational or musical activities immediately.

After the months of his escape he became Kapellmeister at the royal women's monastery in Hall in Tyrol; little is known of his further work.

Kleinschroth's work can be seen as a kind of war diary ; it is kept in a personal narrative style and depicts dialogues as well as terrifying impressions such as the corpses lying on the wayside and the devastated sacred buildings. Escape and Refuge was published in two editions and is considered a particularly valuable source due to the familiarity of the author with everyday monastic life in the early modern period. It contains descriptions of (in addition to the abovementioned monasteries) Melk and Wilhering .

literature

  • Continuation of the Hülff- und Gnaden-Zaichen, which God through the intercession of His wonderful mother and blessed virgins Mariae, Bey der H. Capell and Gotts-Hauß Alten-Oetting In Nideren Bayren, (Munich 1695), p. 212.
  • Hermann Watzl : On the biography of the author (Balthasar Kleinschroth) , in: Flucht und Zuflucht. The diary of the priest Balthasar Kleinschroth from the Turkish year 1683, ed. by Hermann Watzl (Graz – Cologne 1956), pp. 11–14.
  • Balthasar Kleinschroth. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7001-3044-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ He is named among the actors at the local theater "Balthasar Kleinschrott, Principista" (cf. Stiftsarchiv Seitenstetten Lade 72, Mise. 440.) 167, quoted in: Theatergeschichte Österreichs - Volume 4, Issue 1, page 208.
  2. ^ Karl Gutkas, History of the State of Lower Austria (St. Pölten 1983) Vol. 1, p. 288.
personal data
SURNAME Kleinschroth, Balthasar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic clergyman, composer and prefect of the choirboys of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey
DATE OF BIRTH 1651
DATE OF DEATH after 1683