Franz Rost

Franz Rost (* probably shortly before 1640 in Mahlberg near Lahr / Black Forest ; † April 28, 1688 in Strasbourg ) was a German music copyist and possibly also a composer . The collection of musical transcripts he compiled is known today as the “Codex Rost” .

Life

Rost received his training as a priest at the Jesuit school in Baden-Baden . There he received basic musical knowledge as a choirboy in the collegiate church . From 1653 he probably learned to play the organ and violin from the cantor of the collegiate church. Rost was also ordained a priest. Since around 1660, Rost, possibly on behalf of the Margrave of Baden , primarily had to copy trio sonatas by well-known contemporary composers for use at court. He was able to continue his work on the collection known today as the “Codex Rost” or “Rost Manuscript” when he held an ecclesiastical office at St. Pierre-le-Vieuxreceived in Strasbourg. It is thanks to the fact that Rost was able to take copies with him to Strasbourg that the collection escaped certain destruction when the Margravial Palace was destroyed in the War of the Palatinate Succession in 1689. Sébastien de Brossard eventually bought the collection from Rost's heirs. Through this she came to Paris in 1726 in the "Bibliothèque Royale", today's Bibliothèque nationale de France .

The Codex Rost

The Codex Rost consists of 156 works and is one of the most important sources of European instrumental music of the 17th century alongside the extensive Dübensammlung , the Ludwig score book and the Kromeriz collection. The vast majority are sonatas or sonata-like works by 27 different composers, 28 of which are works by Italian masters. The collection also contains 81 anonymous items, some of which are attributed to Rost himself. The composition dates from around 1640 to 1687 and is recorded in three part books (1st violin, 2nd violin and organ). Rost reduced sonatas that were originally designed for four or five voices to include the middle voices, as can be seen in the examples of some sonatas by Johann Rosenmüller or Dietrich Becker . In the passages in which the middle voices played a major role, he left them out completely.

Since the margraves were buried in the Baden-Baden collegiate church, it is understandable that the collection contains many "tombeaux" and other funeral music, as well as numerous church sonatas. But there are also several chamber sonatas for two violins and continuo as well as entertainment music, such as "The Polish Bagpipe" and pieces by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer , numerous "Capriccios" by Rosenmüller and Giuseppe Zamponi and a large number of "Battaglias" , including one by Schmelzer and each four by Johann Michael Nicolai and Johann Stoss , who worked at the Düsseldorf court orchestra.

Schmelzer is best represented with 19 compositions, followed by Maurizio Cazzati with 18 works. Other composers such as Giovanni Battista Vitali and Antonio Bertali are each represented with four works. There are also numerous individual pieces by more than a dozen composers, including well-known names such as Johann Joseph Fux , Johann Caspar von Kerll , Johann Philipp Krieger , Johann Jakob Froberger , Tarquinio Merula and Giacomo Carissimi ; the latter is only represented with one work, the Christmas motet “Salve, puellulae regalis animi” (the only vocal work in the collection). Other composers include the Bonn court composer Carl Rosier , Balthazar Richard , who like Zamponi worked at the Brussels court, the Polish court composer Marcin Mielczewski , the Czech physician and violinist Jan Ignác František Vojta or today largely unknown Venetian composer, Signore Toleta referred .

literature

• Eddy Marmee Alexandra: The Rost Manuscript of Seventeenth-Century Chamber Music: A Thematic Catalog. Dissertation. Stanford University, 1984, ISBN 0-89990-047-0 .
• Jean-Philippe Vasseur: Le Manuscrit Rost; Reflection on the place de l'alto dans les sonates en trio à la fin du XVII siècle. Cahiers du musée de la musique, Paris 2002.
• Manuscript Rost: Facsimile print, first volume, Verlag Anne Fuzeau, Paris 2008, ISBN 979-0-04906261-9 .

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Franz Rost in the International Music Score Library Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Music in the past and present , 2nd edition. Vol. 14, Col. 507-508.