Fridolin Sure

Fridolin Safe (born March 6, 1490 in Bischofszell TG , Switzerland; † June 13, 1546 there ) was a Swiss organist and calligrapher .

Live and act

In 1503, 13-year-old Fridolin Safe received organ lessons from the Konstanz organist Martin Vogelmaier for a year . Also studying theological writings after that he must be beside his organ have dedicated to him were still in 1510 by the canons of his hometown Bischofszell the St. Agnes livings awarded. In the same year he started organizing there and held his first mass a year later. In 1512 he interrupted his activities and moved to Constance again, this time studying with the famous organist Hans Buchner for a year . This in turn had been a student of the respected organist Paul Hofhaimer .

Presumably in 1516, Fridolin Safe took up the position of organist in the St. Gallen monastery . In addition, the St. Gallen abbot Franz von Gaisberg appointed him chaplain of the St. Jakob chapel. Another activity in the monastery was that of writing books. Some volumes of his work are still in the St. Gallen Abbey Library today .

Even if Sicher's main activities were in St. Gallen, he always took care of matters in Bischofszell. With the arrival of the Reformation in Eastern Switzerland and the refusal of Sichers to join the new faith, he was finally forced to give up his activities in St. Gallen and Bischofszell. For the time being, he was last mentioned in Bischofszell in 1530.

From 1531 to 1536 he lived in Ensisheim in Alsace , where he was also musically active. In 1537 he returned and probably took up his benefices in Bischofszell again. It is not known whether he continued all of his previous activities in St. Gallen. In any case, in the last years of his life he again served as a book writer in the monastery.

After an operation on August 20, 1545, Fridolin Safe could no longer perform his organist duties. He died on June 13, 1546 in Bischofszell.

Safe organ tablature

From 1512 onwards, he has collected 176 pieces by 94 composers. About two thirds of it is sacred vocal music, the other third is secular chants. The importance of the Sichersian organ tablature lies above all in the fact that otherwise only a few organ tablatures have survived from the time before 1550. In addition, some of the compositions in Sicher's organ book are only preserved in this book. The tablature of Fridolin Safe is still in the Abbey Library in St. Gallen and is available online in the virtual library “Codices Electronici Sangallenses” (CESG).

Works (incomplete)

• Ernst Götzinger (editor): Fridolin Sichers Chronik. St. Gallen 1885. in the Internet Archive

literature

• Walter Rober Nef: The St. Gallen organist Fridolin Safe and his organ tablature. In: Swiss Yearbook for Musicology. 7, 1938, ZDB -ID 217958-1 , sheet music pp. 159-209.

Web links

• Safe organ tablature in the "Codices Electronici Sangallenses" (CESG)
• Markus Kaiser: Fridolin Sure. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .