Bar (master vocals)
Bar was the name of the Mastersingers for the master song. A master song consists of several stanzas built according to certain rules . There are at least three regularly, and the total number of stanzas is odd.
History and etymology
Since the master singers with their songs in many ways continue the traditions of the song poets of the 12th to 14th centuries and the master song writers of the 14th and 15th centuries, the song poets generally have single-verse texts ("Spruch", "Spruchstrophe", " Sangspruchstrophe ”), a separate name for the multi-verse song in the sang-verse tradition is required at the earliest with the emergence of the multi-stanza masterful song in the 14th century; presumably, however, there is no connection with the minstrelsong, which was much earlier in multiple stanzas .
Many other indications can also be found for a strengthening of “terminological” efforts in the chanting tradition, especially of the 14th century. In the case of the coining of the bar term for the polyphonic song, the older, Middle High German designation ready for a "particularly artistic production" was used. This core meaning led to the adoption of the word in the late medieval fencing language, where it denotes a particularly tricky blow. At least one can therefore assume that the term par in poetological and literary use in the 14th century initially also kept the agonal character of one's own appearance with multi-strophic texts. The German dictionary of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are the alternative forms Parthen and Barthen and refers to Frisian bere "reputation, shouting, noise, noise" and baria "call", various musical instruments called parda or barto and continue on the Barditus called battle song of the Germans ( Tac. Germ. 3), but expressly denies the latter connection with the Celtic bard chant.
The evidence for par in the meaning of "master song" is initially only sparse in the 14th century. It was not until the 15th century that the word par for the master song was used more frequently. Among the Mastersingers, who have been organized in their own societies since the end of the 15th century, it is then quite regularly the name for the multi-stanza Meisterlied. The single stanza, on the other hand, is called liet . With this particular usage of language, the exclusive circles of the municipal Meistersinger do not prevail. In the course of efforts to adapt one's own poetological terminology to the common usage outside of the Meistersinger societies, since the end of the 16th century the song or master song has replaced the old par (and set - or since Martin Opitz stanza - replaced the older liet ).
Aftermath
The use of the word bar in its masculine form ( the bar ) to denote a special stanza form is based on an erroneous interpretation of Johann Christoph Wagenseil's book Von der Meister-Singer gracious art (1697), which was followed by Richard Wagner in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg (1868) let the mastersinger Hans Sachs name the canzone strophe that way. This is how the journeyman shoemaker David explains the knight Stolzing in Act I:
A "bar" has many rules and regulations:
whoever found the right rule,
the right seam,
and the right wire,
with well-assembled "studs",
to spank the bar right.
And only then does the "swan song" come;
that it is
neither short nor too long, nor does it contain any rhyme that is
already set in the tunnel. -
The corresponding passage from the Meistersinger tablature - which Wagner probably took from Wagenseil's work - can be found in the drafts for the opera:
“Every master-singing bar has its neat Gemas in rhymes and syllables, ordained and reinforced through the master's mouth, which all singers, funnels and markers should measure and count on their fingers. - A bar has more or less different rules or stucco than many of which the funnel can make. A movement consists mostly of two tunnels which have the same melody. A Stoll consists of several verses, and the end of the song, when a master song is written, is usually noticed with a little cross. This is followed by the swan song, which also understands several verses, but which has a special and different melody than the tunnels. Finally there is another stollen or part of a movement, like the previous stollen Melodey has. "
Tying in with Wagner's opera text (and perhaps the misunderstanding triggered by Wagenseil), modern German studies still speak here and there of a bar form . Since this simply means the canzone strophe, you should call it that and avoid the terms bar (m.) Or bar form .
See also
literature
- Frieder Schanze: Bar . In: Klaus Weimar [ua] (Ed.): Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Revision of the real dictionary of German literary history [...]. Volume 2. Berlin / New York 1997-2003, ISBN 3-11-015663-6 , pp. 198 f.
- Michael Baldzuhn: A field is forming . Observations on the poetological terminology in the tablatures of the Mastersingers . In: Gerd Dicke, Manfred Eikelmann, Burkhard Hasebrink (ed.): In the word field of the text. Word-historical contributions to the designations of speech and writing in the Middle Ages ( Trends in Medieval Philology , 10). Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018328-5 , pp. 165–185 (here especially pp. 168–176).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bar, n.. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 1 : A - Beer whey - (I). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1854, Sp. 1121 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ). Compare the barditus . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classical antiquity . Volume III.1, Metzler, Stuttgart 1897, column 10 f.
- ^ Richard Wagner: Complete writings and poems. Popular edition. 7th volume. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig undated [1911], p. 161.
- ^ Richard Wagner: Complete writings and poems. Volume 11, p. 371 f.