Friedrich Aulenbach

Georg Jakob Friedrich Karl "Fritz" Aulenbach (* July 20, 1810 in Annweiler am Trifels ; † January 30, 1882 in Zweibrücken ) was a German author and poet and at his time the most important and best-known poet in the Bavarian Palatinate of the 19th century . His nickname was always "Fritz". His parents were the Lutheran pastor and poet Christian Aulenbach and Karoline, geb. Schweppenhäuser. His brother Karl Aulenbach , who was three years his junior , was also famous for his poetry during his lifetime.

Life

When he was three years old, his parents moved with him to the larger district of Homburg on the western edge of the Palatinate , where he attended elementary school. Then came to the humanistic grammar school of Zweibrücken and passed his Abitur there. He then studied law in Heidelberg and Munich . He later went on to study theology in Erlangen .

After completing his first degree, Aulenbach worked for twelve years as a legal secretary at various courts, for a longer period at the Peace Court in Waldfischbach, most recently from 1864 in Blieskastel . From 1871 until his retirement he was the head of the firm in Dürkheim . In Waldfischbach he married Friederika Carolina Rosalia Gassert on October 20, 1853, daughter of the court messenger Friedrich Gassert from Hornbach .

Aulenbach was also involved in the Palatinate Hymnal Controversy (1857–1861) and achieved an extensive withdrawal of the planned innovations. He thereby professed himself against rationalism and liberalism , which represented the unloved Bavarian state and the hated reform movements of the Evangelical Church. He remembered one of the adversaries, his college friend Karl Eugen Prinz (1815-1891), in a letter to the famous poet Ludwig Gotthard Theobul Kosegarten (1758-1818), who, after being transferred to Greifswald, was also supposed to work with a hymn book that a large part of the age and popular hymns should no longer contain. He wrote to Prince:

"At that time the same fight over the new Pomeranian hymn book as now over the old Palatinate, for which 'the latter we suddenly see all our false, ... prophets' and people-happy light-stormers in their place and put in their lances, although most of them perhaps hardly know the content of the old hymnbook. "

- Friedrich Aulenbach to Karl Eugen Prinz : February 28, 1861

The poet was also an avid hiker throughout his life. While doing this he could unabashedly observe the country and people. These considerations flowed into his works such as "Rhapsodieen".

Works

At the age of 28, Aulenbach published his first volume of poetry, “Jugend-Klänge”, at the Huebschmann Verlag in Munich, which summarized the works he had created up to then. As marginal notes in this volume, there are a number of memories and mood images that open up a deeper insight into the living conditions of Homburg at that time. The life picture and the pedagogy of his father Christian Aulenbach are also examined in this volume. In the following year, 1838, the second edition appeared.

The poet also devoted himself to music and choral singing. He was a member of the men's choir "Homburger Liederkranz". Through this Aulenbach got in contact with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy : At the Rheinbayrischen Musikfest 1844 Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy conducted the Homburg Liederkranz as an oratorio choir. Another member of the group of singers, who was also Aulenbach's college friend, died the following year. Aulenbach dedicated a corpse carmen to him and sent it briskly to Mendelssohn Bartholdy with a request to set it to music. He immediately set to work and composed a four-part choir with the note: "For Mr. Aulenbach in Homburg in the Palatinate in memory of his friend Zimmermann". The work was published by Rieter-Biedermann in 1869, and later also in the work edition. Rudolf Werner's standard work "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy als Kirchenmusiker", published in 1930, dealt with the composition, but it was considered lost until 1995, when it was rediscovered by an American musicologist and has since been called "Trauergesang Op. 116 ”has also been published. In 2009 it was performed again in Homburg.

In 1849 “A Hymn of Nature” was published in Kaiserslautern , in which he published his travel experiences in Italy from his student days. Later works are often devoted to memories of his youth and the places in which he stayed, including the volume “From sunny days. A wreath of memories, twisted on foreign and domestic soil, Ludwigshafen 1874 ”.

literature

• Bernhard H. Bonkhoff: The Homburg pastor and poet family Aulenbach. In: Saarpfalz, Blätter für Geschichte und Volkskunde, 2009, ISSN  0930-1011

Web links

Wikisource: Friedrich Aulenbach  - Sources and full texts