Carl Luython

Carl Luython (* 1557 or 1558 in Antwerp , † August 2, 1620 in Prague ) was a Franco-Flemish composer and organist of the late Renaissance .

Live and act

Carl Luython's father was the principal of the Antwerp Latin School since 1532, which leads to the assumption that he may have received a thorough humanistic education. In 1566 he was recruited as a choirboy for the court orchestra of Emperor Maximilian II . There, in addition to his service, he received further instruction from the current Kapellmeister Jacobus Vaet and Philippe de Monte . The instruction in organ playing could have come from the local court organist Walter Formellis († 1582) and his two assistants. After his vote broke , he was paid the usual scholarship on August 8, 1571; The young musician apparently began a study visit to Italy from autumn 1571, which lasted until the end of 1575. Details about this time are not known.

After his return to Vienna he worked again in the court orchestra and from May 18, 1576 was listed as "Cammer musicus" with a monthly salary of ten guilders in the files there. After the death of Maximilian II in the same year, he was officially dismissed along with other members of the band, but was immediately taken over into the service of his successor Rudolf II . In January 1582 he was retrospectively appointed third court organist and a little later in the same year as second court organist. In the same year Luython accompanied his employer to the Reichstag in Augsburg ; there he was able to hand Johann Fugger a copy of the first madrigal book dedicated to this. The composer was also involved in organ building: together with the organ builder Albrecht Rudner, he worked on the renovation of the organ in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague from 1581 to 1590 . The files in question contain numerous objections to this project by Luython, with which he reproduces his ideas of organ building in great detail. Emperor Rudolf II moved his entire court from Vienna to Prague in 1583. When his brother, Archduke Ernst, received his episcopal ordination in 1587, Luython's first collection of motets appeared with a dedication to him. On the list of band members from 1594 the name of the composer appears together with Paul de Winde, both as band organists. After de Windes death in 1596, Luython was appointed first orchestra organist. When Philippe de Monte died on July 4, 1603, Luython also took over the position of court composer. The most important collections of his compositions then appeared in print in quick succession. The “Liber I missarum” collection in this series was dedicated to Emperor Rudolf II, for which the composer received 500 guilders as a cash gift.

As a tribute to Luython's 35 years of service at the court, Emperor Rudolf promised him an annual pension of 200 guilders on May 16, 1611; however, it turned out that this support could only be asserted with great difficulty. After the death of Rudolf II in January 1612, his successor Matthias dismissed almost the entire court orchestra including Carl Luython without a pension. The composer was forced to gradually sell his property. This also included a special harpsichord ("Clavicymbalum universale seu perfectum") with 77 keys and a four-octave range, which the Bishop of Wroclaw , Archduke Karl, acquired. Carl Luython, who never married and was not ordained a priest , died in poverty in Prague in August 1620. His will shows that he left his brother Claude and his sister Clara with pension entitlements of 2,200 guilders, which could never be claimed.

meaning

With regard to church music, Luython's compositions are in the tradition of Franco-Flemish music. Especially the fairs he created show the unmistakable influence of Philippe de Monte. Basically, the composers of the Prague court orchestra cultivated a strikingly conservative style; the parody fair is the most common at the trade fairs . Four of the parody masses by Carl Luython are based on models by his teacher de Monte, the fifth, "Tityre tu patule", is based on the motet of the same name by Orlando di Lasso . The four Quodlibet masses of Luython represent a special case and are evidently in the tradition of the same type of mass by Jacobus Vaet and Jakob Regnart . They dispense with a complex polyphony and refer to the quodlibets in contemporary song. It is also striking that Luython's church music did not follow the reforms of the Council of Trent .

Apart from the madrigals contained in his madrigal book of 1582, Luython apparently had not written any further; this work probably served as proof of his musical skills. In these pieces the contemporary Italian innovations of this genre come into their own in their expression and their pictorial quality; they are roughly halfway between homophonic declamation and polyphonic formation. The only instrumental composition handed down by him, the “Fuga suavissima” (“most lovable fugue”), has a certain prominent importance in the history of organ music, as it shows the merging of the compositional techniques of ricercar and kanzone on the one hand and reinforces it on the other Use of chromatics within a tonality for the development of a composition is demonstrated.

Works

• Sacred vocal works
  • “Popularis anni jubilus” with six votes, Prague 1587
  • “Selectissimarum sacrarum cantionum” with six voices, Prague 1603
  • "Opus musicum [...] in Lamentationes Hieremiae prophetae", Prague 1604
  • "Liber I missarum", Prague 1609
  • Missa "Ad aequales" for four voices (Quodlibetica), 1609
  • Missa “Amorosi pensieri” for six voices, 1609, after a madrigal by Philippe de Monte
  • Missa Basim "Caesar vive", 1609
  • Missa “Elselein, dearest Elselein” with six voices, lost
  • Missa “Filiae Hierusalem”, 1609, based on a motet by Philippe de Monte
  • Missa “Ne timeas Maria” for five voices, 1609, after a motet by Philippe de Monte
  • Missa Quodlibetica for three voices, 1609
  • Missa Quodlibetica for four voices, 1609
  • Missa Quodlibetica for six voices, 1609
  • Missa “Tirsi morir volea” with five voices, based on a madrigal by Philippe de Monte
  • Missa “Tityre tu patule” with five voices, based on a motet by Orlando di Lasso
  • Kyrie to six voices (exhibition fragment)
  • 2 further works, published in the "Moduli Symphoniaci", Innsbruck 1629
  • 1 further work, published in "Florilegium Portense", Part 2, Leipzig 1621
• Secular vocal works
  • “Il primo libro de madrigali” for five voices, Venice 1582
• Instrumental works
  • “Fuga suavissima”, published in “Nova musices organicae tabulatura”, Basel 1617

Literature (selection)

• A. Koczirz: On the history of Luython's Klavizimbels. In: Anthologies of the International Music Society No. 9, 1907/08, pages 565–570
• A. Smijers: The imperial court music band in Vienna from 1543–1619. In: Studien zur Musikwissenschaft (supplements to the monuments of music art in Austria) No. 6, 1919, pages 139–186; No. 7, 1920, pp. 102-142; No. 8, 1921, pp. 176-206; No. 9, 1922, pp. 43-81
• A. Smijers: Karl Luython as a motet composer , Amsterdam 1923
• C. Sass: Charles Luython: ses madrigaux et œuvres instrumentales , dissertation at the University of Leuven 1958
• CP Comberiati: Carl Luython at the Court of Emperor Rudolf II: Biography and His Polyphonic Settings of the Mass Ordinary. In: Festschrift GS McPeek, published by CP Comberiati / MC Steel, New York and others 1988, pp. 130-146
• KW Niemöller: Studies on Carl Luython's Lamentationes (Prague 1604). In: Festschrift H. Schmidt, edited by H. Klein / KW Niemöller, Cologne 1998, pages 185–196

Web links

• Works by and about Carl Luython in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Carl Luython in the International Music Score Library Project
• Sheet music in the public domain by Carl Luython in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)

swell

1. ^ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 11, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Kassel and Basel 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1121-7
2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 5: Köth - Mystical Chord. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3 .