Georg Meyndt

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Georg Meyndt

Peter Georg Meyndt (born January 5, 1852 in Biertan ; † December 17, 1903 in Reichesdorf ) was a Transylvanian notary and song writer. He is known for his dialect songs in Transylvanian-Saxon , which were initially only passed down orally as folk songs .

Life

Georg Meyndt was born in Biertan as the second of seven children to the Protestant pastor Peter Traugott Meyndt from Mediasch and Regina, née Binder from Schäßburg . The family moved several times because the father was appointed pastor in different places - Birthälm, Irmesch , Nimesch and Großkopisch . The family suffered severe strokes of fate - four of his siblings died at a young age - so he broke off a course he had started and then worked as a notary in Eibesdorf and Reichesdorf. In addition, he worked his fields as a farmer and ran a grain mill, which, however, turned out to be unprofitable. He was married to Sara Untch, with whom he had seven children, four daughters and three sons.

While Meyndt was not economically successful as a farmer and mill operator and was even reprimanded for it by the other Saxon villagers, his true talent and passion was music. He began to compose folk songs and to perform them with his lute or guitar at festivities. His aim was to strengthen the village community and to positively influence the youth, for which he saw socializing as the best means. He organized meetings with theater and singing as well as excursions to other Saxon towns and the mountains. He composed the melodies of his songs himself, although he had no training and could not read sheet music .

Fortified church in Reichesdorf
Georg Meyndt's gravestone in the Reichesdorf churchyard

His popular songs quickly spread among the Transylvanian Saxons and became part of popular culture. They were passed on from one singing group to another, while the name of the author was mostly unknown. His dialect songs mark the beginning of the song and singing movement in Transylvania, which became popular among the Saxons in the late 19th century. In addition to his own songs, he was also open to works by other authors; it was he who first performed the song "Holderstrauch" by Hermann Kirchner , who came from Thuringia and had moved to Mediasch . A singing trip to Burzenland , which he undertook with his Reichesdorfer Choir in 1897, made the song, which is now performed in Transylvanian-Saxon, known. The high school teacher and later pastor of Reichesdorf Carl Römer, from whom the melody came, then recorded 19 songs by Georg Meyndt for the first time in 1899.

Meyndt himself felt strengthened by this recognition and subsequently published two Singspiele. In 1901 “ Sanktich äm Aren ” (Harvest Sunday) was published, which contains six of his songs and in 1902 the singspiel “ Äus âser Gemîn ” (from our community), which contains six dialect songs. A year later, however, Georg Meyndt died on December 17, 1903 in Reichesdorf, where he was also buried.

Aftermath

Together with the immigrant Hermann Kirchner, Georg Meyndt is today considered to be the founder of the singing movement among the Transylvanian Saxons. They were the first to write popular songs in dialect and inspired later writers such as Rudolf Lassel, Otto Piringer , Heinrich Bretz, Anna Schuller-Schullerus, Carl Reich, Andreas Nikolaus, Hans Mild, Fritz Schuller and Grete Lienert-Zultner. His friend and singing colleague Carl Reich collected his songs and posthumously published some of them for the first time in 1914 under the title " Kut, mer sangen int " (Come on, we sing one) in Sibiu . This includes the 19 songs by Georg Meyndt, which were initially only handwritten, and eleven other anonymous authors.

Some of his songs were published in periodicals and anthological songbooks after the Second World War, for example in " Siebenbürgen, Land des Segens " by Erich Phleps in the Word-and-World-Verlag Innsbruck and in " Lieder der Heimat " by Norbert Petri. In 2008, the Mannheim professor of music theory, Heinz Acker, from Sibiu, published a complete collection of all of Georg Meyndt's surviving folk songs and singspiele.

His gravestone, which was willfully knocked over several times, is now on the portal of the fortified church in Reichesdorf. His former home (house no. 7), 100 meters away, was to be converted into a supermarket in 2010. However, after a protest by the Hermannstädter Zeitung , the Hermannstadt District Monuments Office ordered construction to be stopped.

Songs

(Selection)

  • Det Brännchen (The Little Well )
  • Gaden Morjen (Good morning)
  • Et song e schatzich Vijelchen (A sweet little bird was singing)
  • Ech hat e Medchen is begent (I once met a girl)
  • What do you have to do with the gang mät deger Kah? (Boy what are you doing with your cow?)
  • Motterhärz, ta Ädelstin (mother's heart, you precious stone)
  • Sanktichklok (Sunday bell )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung: On the 100th anniversary of the death of the songwriter Georg Meyndt , by Johanna Leonhardt (great-granddaughter), December 22, 2003
  2. ^ Siebenbürgische Zeitung: Georg Meyndt: "Kut, mer sangen int" , by Karl Teutsch, June 29, 2008
  3. ^ Hermannstädter Zeitung: Will the construction freeze be enforced?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , by Beatrix Unger, issue no.2186 / June 11, 2010@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hermannstaedter.ro  
personal data
SURNAME Meyndt, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Transylvanian notary and song writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Biertan
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1903
Place of death Reichesdorf