Caspar Josef Lizius

Caspar Josef Lizius (* 1760 in Niederwalluf ; † December 5, 1824 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a Mainz church musician, court secretary, cathedral music director, music director and cathedral composer in Mainz at the time of the French Revolution.

Life

Caspar Josef Lizius, son of Johann Baptist Lizius (born July 27, 1720 in Rauenthal , Rheingau ; † August 18, 1806 in Niederwalluf) and his second wife Anna Maria Budi († 1781) was baptized on May 15, 1760 in Niederwalluf. As the son of a schoolmaster, he enjoyed a good education. He learned to play the piano and the organ. When he was 21 years old, his mother died. 5 years later he married Katharina Aloysia Jung, daughter of the trader Johann Peter Jung from Mainz.

Life in Mainz

Lizius entered the service of Hugo Freiherr von Geismar called Mosbach von Lindenfels as secretary. He found in Vicar Tobias Jagemann von St. Alban, uncle of his wife, a supporter of his art, and made music mostly in the service of the Albanskirche. Caspar Josef played numerous church services in St. Christof, St. Quintin, St. Ignaz, etc., but mainly in the Sebastianuskapelle, in which he was probably married. Since the abolition of the monasteries and monasteries in 1802, these services have ceased. In return, Lizius opened up a better job in the service of the new Bishop Joseph Ludwig Colmar , who made him Kapellmeister. When the Mainz Cathedral was put back into use for the first time on August 15, 1804 , Caspar Josef Lizius was the conductor. He now always played in the cathedral on Christmas, Easter, White Sunday, Ascension Day and All Saints' Day with 14-19 singers and musicians.

Relocation to Frankfurt am Main

On April 10, 1809, Lizius renounced his citizenship in Mainz and moved to Frankfurt am Main . From 1810, by decree of the Minister von Eberstein, he became organist at St. Bartholomew's Cathedral and from 1816 singing teacher at the Catholic girls' school. Mainz, which had become French, became more and more foreign to him and so he and his wife Anna Maria Budi and the three children who remained with them (his son Christoph had already married in 1812 and had moved out) applied for Frankfurt citizenship , which was granted to him on December 15th Was granted in 1820. In total, the couple had eight children, one of whom died immediately after birth and three between the years 1792 and 1795 during the siege of Mainz in Rauenthal. They were buried in the cathedral cemetery in Mainz.

One of Caspar Josef Lizius' grandchildren is Bernhard Lizius (1812–1870), a revolutionary who was arrested on April 3, 1833 at the Frankfurt Wachensturm, and the portrait of his granddaughter Caroline Lizius (1825–1908) hangs in the beauty gallery of King Ludwig I at Nymphenburg Palace.

Caspar Joesef Lizius died in Frankfurt on December 5, 1824 at 2 a.m. and was buried two days later.

Church musician

When the Corpus Christi procession passed through the streets of Mainz on June 16, 1805 after a long break, Lizius played a musical high mass in the cathedral and accompanied the procession with "harmony", that is, he conducted a wind band, which, according to the custom of the time, consisted of oboes, Clarinets, bassoons, french horns and trombones was composed. Mainly Lizius performed instrumental masses. In 1797 he bought a mass from Wanhall and one from Father Alexius Molitor . His style tendency is contemporary, classical-classical. In the same style he will have played the Requiem, Vespers, the rarely occurring Compline, the Salve and the Te Deum. The first cathedral music director Adam Werner tried to build on this tradition of the new episcopal church in 1858, until he was replaced in 1866 by GB Weber's Cecilian direction under Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler . The Lizius band usually consisted of about 11 singers and instrumentalists: two women for soprano and alto, two men for tenor and bass; in addition there were four violins, two basses and an organ player. We do not know whether Lizius conducted himself or played the first violin; nor whether the viola was always occupied. A professional musician could play at least two instruments. Therefore it was also common for the same musicians who canceled “Symphony” at the confirmation in St. Ignaz to also play “Harmony” afterwards. That Lizius had a relationship with the engraver Bernhard Schott is shown by a note from his wife in the “house manual”.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Resident register in the Aschaffenburg city archive: Family, Lizius Franz

literature

• Adam Gotton: Caspar Josef Lizius . Reprint from the Martinus-Blatt for the Diocese of Mainz, Mainz 1937.