Franz Eler

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Franz Eler (* between 1550 and 1560 in Uelzen ; † February 21, 1590 in Hamburg ) was a German teacher and music writer.

Life

Franz Eler was the son of the principal of the Uelzen Latin School , Erasmus Eler († 1588). In 1580 he can be verified as a student at the University of Rostock ; a year later, on the occasion of his wedding , Franz de scholemester received a gratuity from the Jakobikirche in Hamburg . From at least 1581 until his death, Eler worked as a teacher at the Hamburg School of Academics in the Johanneum and as a succentor who practiced liturgical chants with the boys' choir.

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As a succentor, Eler put together a collection of choral pieces for worship use under the title Cantica Sacra , which appeared in 1588, is the first printed sheet music in Hamburg and is of far-reaching importance in the history of Lutheran church music in northern Germany. The underlying liturgy is that of the Hamburg church ordinance of Johannes Aepinus , which Johannes Aepinus had already submitted in 1539, but which only came into force in 1556.

In his foreword, David Chyträus praises the fact that Eler classified the chants according to the twelve modes of the Glarean system, which were still quite new at the time, for educational purposes . Like the comparable Psalmodia by Lucas Lossius (1553), the Cantica was intended both as a teaching work for schools and as a choir book for the Hamburg churches. The exact connection with a manuscript by the Hamburg organist Hieronymus Praetorius , who had presented a similar collection in it a year earlier, remains unclear to this day .

Eler's collection is divided into two clearly differentiated parts with their own title page and different registers: The first part, the actual cantica , contains Latin choral pieces in the manner of a Liber Usualis , first pieces for the ordinarium and then after the church year from Advent on ordered proprium parts . At the end of the introduction there are divine service orders for Mette , Vespers and Lutheran mass. For every Sunday or festival day, Eler offers Latin proprium chants for the first Vespers (on Saturday evening or the evening before), Mette on Sunday or festival morning, Mass and the final (second) Vespers. As a special feature there is a sequence ( Laus tibi Christe qui es creator et redemtor ) for the Mary Magdalene tag, which in Hamburg (as in Lübeck) after the Reformation in memory of the victory in the Battle of Bornhöved (1227) celebrated has been.

In the second part, Psalmi D. Lutheri et aliorum Doctorum , Eler offers 103 chorales in a Low German version, four of them combined with a traditional Latin text: Puer natus / Ein Kind geborn , Surrexit Chrius hodie / Erstieg ist der heilig Christ , Ascendit Christ hodie / Holy Christ and Spiritus Sancti gratia / The grace of the Holy Spirit are in danger .

The use of the cantica in the Hamburg churches for generations up to around 1700 and its widespread use in northern Germany ensured that Lutheran church music adhered to the tradition of Latin chant.

Works

  • Cantica Sacra partim ex sacris Literis desvmpta, partim ab orthodoxis patribus et piis Ecclesiae Doctoribus composita, et in vsvm Ecclesiae et Iuventutis Scholasticae Hamburgensis Collecta, atque ad duodecim modos ex doctrina Glareani accomodata et edita et ... Acciorum ejusunt in fine seculi Doctorum, with the Modis applicati. Hamburg: Jakob Wolff 1588 ( DKL 1588, 14)
Digital copy , Bavarian State Library
Reprint: Franz Eler: Cantica sacra. With an introduction by Klaus Beckmann. Hildesheim: Olms 2002

literature

  • Arrey von Dommer:  Eler, Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 5.
  • Hugo Leichsenring: Hamburg church music in the age of the Reformation. With afterword and bibliography ed. by Jeffery T. Kite-Powell. Hamburg: Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Wagner 1982 (Hamburg contributions to musicology; Vol. 20), zugl .: Berlin, Univ., Diss., 1922 (sic!) ISBN 3-921029-70-8 , pp. 50–57
  • Daniel Zager: The Cantica sacra (Hamburg, 1588) of Franz Eler: Latin Chant and German Chorales for the Lutheran Liturgy. In: Carlos R. Messerli (Ed.): Thine the Amen. Essays on Lutheran Church Music in Honor of Carl Schalk. Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press 2005 ISBN 1-932688-11-0 , pp. 43-64

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal , SS 1580, No. 84
  2. ↑ Eler was not the cantor, as has sometimes been claimed since Jöcher , but was below him in the hierarchy. The office of cantor was held by Eberhard Decker in his time.
  3. ↑ Johann Mattheson claimed that Eler only published Praetorius' manuscript under his name, but this has been refuted by research.
  4. ↑ Laus tibi, Christe with Lossius
  5. ↑ For a complete list, see Zager (Lit.), pp. 57–59
personal data
SURNAME Eler, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Franciscus Elerus Vlysseus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German music writer and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH between 1550 and 1560
PLACE OF BIRTH Uelzen
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1590
Place of death Hamburg