Caspar Othmayr

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Caspar Othmayr
A work by Caspar Othmayr (in Fresh teutsche Liedlein . P. 202)

Caspar Othmayr (born March 12, 1515 in Amberg ; † February 4, 1553 in Nuremberg ) was a German Protestant clergyman, theologian and composer of the Renaissance .

Live and act

Caspar Othmayr initially worked as a choirboy in the court chapel of the Palatinate Elector Friedrich II ; before 1531 he went to Heidelberg and was there singer in the electoral chapel under Lorenz Lemlin . Together with Georg Forster , Jobst von Brandt and Stephan Zirler , he formed the circle of Heidelberger Liedmeister here. The composer enrolled on May 19, 1533 to study at the University of Heidelberg , received the title of Bachelor of Arts on June 9, 1534 , the licentiate in August 1536 and the title of Magister Artium in October of the same year . It is uncertain where Othmayr stayed in the following decade, including when he joined Protestantism . There is only one woodcut with his portrait of the Regensburg artist Michael Ostendorfer from 1543.

His affiliation with the supporters of the Reformation is evident from his first publications: In 1546 his motet collection Epithaphium D. Martini Lutheri came out, with a funeral chant for Luther's death. In 1547 the Symbola collection appeared with the mottos and coats of arms of well-known contemporary men; the latter contains compositions on Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon , the preacher Thomas Venatorius (around 1488 - 1551) and other people who were involved in the Reformation. In 1545 the composer had accepted the position of director of the small Latin school of Heilsbronn monastery ; in the same year he married Anna Hartung, the daughter of the monastery administrator. In the same year he was appointed provost at the St. Gumbertus Church in Ansbach ; However, due to adverse circumstances, he did not take up this position until July 15, 1547. On a trip to Torgau in 1548, Othmayr could have met Johann Walther . A long-term dispute with the city council of Ansbach over the appointment of the head of St. Gumbertus sapped Othmayr's health. Disappointed about the course of his dispute with the city council, he withdrew to Nuremberg for medical treatment , where his long-time friend Georg Forster was the city doctor. Caspar Othmayr died in Nuremberg on February 4, 1553; his body was buried there two days later after it was transferred to Ansbach. Shortly afterwards, Georg Forster and other friends expressed their respect for the deceased in the publication In epitaphiis Gasparis Othmari . This collection contained eight works, two of which were by Othmayr himself.

meaning

The musical style change around the middle of the 16th century is reflected in Caspar Othmayr's work. His works on German sacred songs are still close to the older tenor song , while his Latin motets show a more modern style typical of the generation after Josquin with their short, imitative sections and their close reference to the accentuation and phrasing of the text. In addition, his style is more similar to that of Ludwig Senfl or Josquin than the style of his teacher Lorenz Lemlin. The majority of Othmayr's arrangements of evangelical chorals can be traced back to his deep religious conviction that there is a close interrelationship between music, theology and the education of young people, as Martin Luther pointed out. He was thus a pioneer of the later chorale motet. The surviving works of the composer attest to the interest in music from an educational point of view ( Bicinia and Tricinia ) as well as from the point of view of the humanist ( Symbola ). He strove in a special way to bring the texts to life through artistic compositions.

His later Tricinia are settings of the antidota of the church father Johannes Damascenus (around 650 - after 754), which were only recently translated from Greek into Latin by the Nuremberg humanist Willibald Pirkheimer (1470–1530). The music researcher Hans Albrecht (1902–1961) judged this group of works: "In their often sound-painting art of characterization, they [...] seem surprisingly modern". Even among his contemporaries, Othmayr was considered an outstanding composer of his generation; Abbot Greulich attested to him when he left Heilsbronn Monastery in 1547: “He is a highly and widely famous musician before others in our country” ( Robert Eitner 1970). His fame as a song composer is based in particular on the predominance of his songs in the Fresh Teutsche Liedlein collection , and Georg Forster himself called him a “currently well-known composer”. During his lifetime he published more volumes of his own works than anyone else in the Heidelberg Circle. In addition, the entry by Caspar Othmayr in the Methodus Astrologiae by Johannes Garcaeus ( Basel 1570) testifies to its outstanding importance in musical Germany in the late 16th century.

Works

(Place of publication of all printed works: Nuremberg)

  • Vocal music in individual prints
    • Cantilenae aliquot elegant ac piae (1546)
    • Epitaphium D. Martini Lutheri (1546)
    • Bicinia sacra. Beautiful spiritual songs and psalms to be sung with two voices (1547; vox vulgaris is missing from No. 33 )
    • Symbola illustrissimorum principum, nobilum, aliorunque doctinra, ac virtutem ornamentis praestantium virorum, musicis numeris explicate (1547)
    • Reutter and Jeger songs (1549)
  • Spiritual works in collective prints
    • "O Lord, my God" to four votes (1568)
  • Secular works in collective prints
    • “Non secus atque olim” with four voices
    • "Philippe qui videt me" for four voices (1546)
    • "There is a castle in Austria" to four votes (1549)
    • "Winter is cold in front of the house" to four votes (1549)
    • "The forest is defoliated" to four votes (1549)
    • "Oh God, how it hurts to part" to four votes (1549)
    • "The moon that is highest" to four votes (1549)
    • "Had me an aspen twig" to four votes (1549)
    • "I came for a woman landlady house" to four votes (1549)
    • "I poor little girl complain very much" to four votes (1549)
    • "It approaches against Maien" to four votes (1549)
    • "I like the wine" to four votes (1549)
    • "One sings a lot about beautiful virgins" for four voices (1549)
    • "I hear a young lady complain" to four voices (1549)
    • "I poor little owl little one" to four voices (1549)
    • "Wohlauf, gut 'G'sell, von hinnen" to four votes (1549)
    • "Now dress up, Maidlein" to four votes (1549)
    • "Me is a fein's braun's maidelein" to four votes (1549)
    • "My 'Lieb' und Treu" to four voices, in: 68 songs (Nuremberg 1553)
    • "Whoever wants to believe" to four voices, in: 68 songs (Nuremberg 1553)
    • "I ring my horn" to four voices (1556)
    • "Graecia quae quondam / Drink Wine" to five voices (1556)
    • "Vidi alios intrantes / Da they drunk" to five votes (1556)
  • Handwritten sacred vocal music
    • Motet "Sanctae Trinitatis festum" with four voices (around 1550; tenor part missing)
    • Motet "Tribulatio patientiam"
    • Motet "Gloria laus"
    • Motet "Israel do it"
    • Motet "Cetus in excelsis"
    • "The day is so joyful" to four voices (fragment)
    • Motet “Sed tu deus rector” with four parts
    • Motet “Oculos non vidit” with four parts
    • Motet “Sposa Christi” with six voices
    • Motet “Deus domini mei Abraham” with four voices
  • Handwritten secular works
    • "Non somnos requiem / My day with restlessness" to five voices (symbol of Duke Heinrichs von Braunschweig)
    • “Quisquis requiem quaeris” with six voices
    • “Audi tellus / Ubi Julius ubi Pompeius” to four votes
    • "Saxoniae ducis / Palladia flamifero" with five voices (only vagans and tenor survived)
    • “Non Argus largus” to five votes
    • “Scaevola, tu coenas” with six votes
    • "Vineae florentes - We have a good host" to five votes
    • “Omnia vertuntur” to four voices
    • "Eia the Vog'l ate an Eyo" to four votes
    • "Delicta iuventutis"
    • "Quoniam non in multitudine"
    • "Deus vitam meam"
    • "Utinam dirigantur viae"
    • "Et si transieris"
    • "Omnes namque tibi debetur"
    • "Nam qui divitiis praebet"
    • "Quare psalmis iubilemus"
  • Instrumental music
    • A peasant dance, to four voices
    • Lute tablature "luck with the times"

Two other instrumental works by Hans Albrecht (1950) as well as thirteen pieces from vocal music attributed to Caspar Othmayr have been lost.

Literature (selection)

  • Robert Eitner: Othmayr, Caspar , in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB), Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, page 536 and following
  • CP Reinhardt: The Heidelberg Song Masters of the 16th Century , Kassel 1939
  • Hans Albrecht: Caspar Othmayr: Leben und Werk , Kassel 1950 (with detailed catalog raisonné)
  • H.-J. Rothe: Old German folk songs and their arrangements by Isaac, Senfl and Othmayr , dissertation at the University of Leipzig 1957
  • G. Pietzsch: Sources and research on the history of music at the Palatinate court in Heidelberg until 1622 , Mainz / Wiesbaden 1963
  • Erika Bosl: Othmayr (Othmaier, Othmarus), Caspar (Gasparus) , in: Karl Bosl (Hrsg.), Bosls bayerische Biographie, Pustet, Regensburg 1983, ISBN 3-7917-0792-2 , page 566
  • K. Gudewill: Three Latin-German song arrangements by Caspar Othmayr , in: Festschrift M. Ruhnke, Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1986, pages 126–143
  • J. Lambrecht: The Heidelberg Kapellinventar from 1544 (Codex Pal.Germ.318) , Heidelberg 1987
  • Alfred Baumgartner: Propylaen World of Music - The Composers - A lexicon in five volumes , Volume 4, Propylaen Verlag Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-549-07830-7 , page 213
  • JA Owens: Composers at Work: the Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600 , New York 1997
  • Lothar Hoffmann-inheritance law: Othmayr, Caspar , in: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), Volume 194, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , page 644 and following.

Web links

Commons : Caspar Othmayr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource:  Source texts - sources and full texts

swell

  1. ↑ Rebecca Wagner-Oettinger and Hanns Haase: Othmayr, Caspar , in: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.), The Music in Past and Present , Second Edition, Person Part, Volume 12 (Mer-Pai), Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1122-5 , column 1471-1474
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil : The Great Lexicon of Music , Volume 6, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981, ISBN 3-451-18056-1
personal data
SURNAME Othmayr, Caspar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Othmarus, Gasparus; Otmaier, Caspar; Wagener, Johann Caspar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant clergyman and composer of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1515
PLACE OF BIRTH On the mountain
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1553
Place of death Nuremberg