Jakob Regnart

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Jakob Regnart (* between 1540 and 1545 in Douai ; † October 16, 1599 in Prague ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , singer and conductor of the late Renaissance .

Live and act

Teutsche Lieder with three voices , Munich 1583, title page

Jakob Regnart was born around 1540 or shortly after in Douai, then Flanders, into a family of musicians. It is believed that he received his first musical lessons in his hometown. In keeping with the practice at the time of recruiting choirboys from the Netherlands for European court orchestras, Regnart came to the Habsburg court in Prague at a very young age . According to his own testimony, he was definitely a member of the chapel at the Habsburg court of the Archduke and later Emperor Maximilian II in 1557 under the direction of Jacobus Vaet ; in this service of the Habsburgs he then stood for his entire life. His membership in the court orchestra is directly documented by the payrolls from 1560, where he was listed as a tenor with a salary of seven guilders , with an increase to twelve guilders in 1564. In that year, the first composition of his was published in a collective print. After Maximilian's coronation as emperor in the same year, the court was relocated to Vienna and with it all the staff, including Regnart. He was also among the musicians whom the emperor brought with him to the Reichstag in Augsburg in 1566 . After Jacobus Vaet died in 1567, Regnart wrote a funeral motet with the heading “In obitum Jacobi Vaet” and the beginning of the text “Defunctum charites Vaetem”, which convincingly shows his student body.

A study trip of about two years took him to Italy in the following year 1568, where he spent most of the time in Venice and also acquired a perfect knowledge of the Italian language. On his return, probably in October 1570, on November 1, 1570, because of the qualifications he had acquired, he was appointed as the preceptor (music teacher) of the chapel boys of the court orchestra. A year later he was given a coat of arms, and in 1573 he received another raise. With the printing of his publication Primo libro delle canzone italiane , the composer began an intensive publication activity. After the death of Emperor Maximilian in 1576, the court was moved back to Prague under his son and successor Rudolf II. Regnart was promoted as the successor to Alard du Gaucquier (1534–1582) in early 1582 to vice-Kapellmeister and got another raise. His compatriot Orlando di Lasso had already eloquently proposed him in 1580 as the successor to Antonio Scandello for the post of court conductor at the Electoral Saxon court in Dresden ; Regnart ignored this possibility. Nevertheless, he only stayed in Prague for a short time and in the spring of 1582 moved to Innsbruck as the successor of Alexander Utendal as Vice Kapellmeister to the court of Archduke Ferdinand II , who was considered a particularly ardent advocate of the Counter-Reformation . Regnart began his service on April 9, 1582 and reached the position of Kapellmeister on January 1, 1585. The following year he married Anna Visher, a niece of Orlando di Lasso.

The position in Innsbruck was particularly attractive to Regnart because of the extensive organizational freedom and the relative proximity to Italy, also with regard to the ongoing change in style from Franco-Flemish music to the Italian style. Thanks to the commitment of many Italian and Dutch singers, the court orchestra had grown to 32 singers and 15 instrumentalists by 1594. The intended elevation of the composer to the nobility did not come about initially due to the death of his employer in 1595, but was made up for by Archduke Matthias in 1596 . In the meantime Regnart had become a wealthy man who was able to buy a house in Innsbruck in 1589. Although the court orchestra was dissolved after Ferdinand's death, the composer stayed in the city until April 27, 1596, probably to get his affairs in order. He returned to Prague in November 1596 and got the position of Vice Kapellmeister under the direction of Philippe de Monte , which from January 1, 1598 was linked to an annual salary of 20 guilders. Jakob Regnart died in Prague in the middle of October of the following year.

meaning

Jakob Regnart: Melody of Villanelle "Venus, you and your child"

Jakob Regnart's works are characterized by a high quality standard, even if he did not reach the rank of Orlando di Lasso or Philippe de Monte. He is considered to be one of the most important representatives of the polyphonic German song in the last third of the 16th century; with this genre he worked well into the 17th century. At the end of the tenor song era , these 67 Villanelles in the Italian style achieved a particular popularity, which made him the composer with the most published secular works of the 16th century. This is based on their simple homophonic spelling and their tone of Italian poetry. Regnart was the first German composer to incorporate the literary tendencies of Francesco Petrarch into his work. All Villanelles follow the AABBCC scheme. The Villanelle "Venus, you and your child" served as a template for the Magnificat by Francesco Rovigo (1541–1597) and appears in Protestant songs as a counterfactor in the song "Auf meine liebe Gott", for the first time in the Cantional (1627) by Johann Hermann Schein (today No. 345 in the Evangelical Hymnal ).

Regnart's sacred works have a larger scope than the genre described. Among his 37 masses and 195 motets, his nine-part composition “Justorum animae in manu Dei sunt” deserves special attention. It serves as music for the play "Schöne Comoedi Speculum Vitae Humanae" (author: Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, 1584) and can serve as a vivid example of theatrical music of the 16th century, which is otherwise hardly known. Regnart also wrote one of the few passions by Catholic composers of the time; here are the Bible verses of the four evangelists using the seven words of Jesus on the cross . The Mariale from 1588, which was created in connection with the religious Tyrolean court culture, is an individual expression as well as an expression of its time ; Among the 23 mostly multi-part works preserved here, the largest group is that of the motets for the most important Marian feasts of the church year. Presumably the composer paid special attention to the work “De Maria Vergine incomparabilis” published by Petrus Canisius in Ingolstadt in 1577 , which was of great influence for the increasing piety of Mary at the end of the 16th century.

Works (summary)

  • measure up
    • "Missae sacrae" with six to eight voices, Frankfurt am Main 1602
    • "Continuatio missarum sacrarum" with four to ten voices, Frankfurt am Main 1603
    • "Sacrarum cantionum", Liber 1 to ten to twelve voices, Frankfurt am Main 1605
  • Motets
    • Motet for five voices in Thesauri musici tomus quartus , Nuremberg 1564
    • 4 motets for three parts in Tricinia sacra ex diversis […] autoribus collecta , Nuremberg 1567
    • 12 motets in Novi thesauri musici liber primus for four to eight voices, Venice 1568
    • 1 motet in Novi thesauri musici liber primus for four to eight voices, part 2, Venice 1568
    • 4 motets in Novi thesauri musici liber primus for four to eight voices, part 3, Venice 1568
    • 4 motets in Novi thesauri musici liber primus for four to eight voices, part 4, Venice 1568
    • 5 motets in Novi thesauri musici liber primus for four to eight voices, part 5, Venice 1568
    • 1 motet for three voices in Selectissimarum sacrarum cantionum , Liber 2, Löwen 1569
    • 3 motets for three voices in Selectissimarum sacrarum cantionum , Liber 3, Löwen 1569
    • "Sacrae aliquot cantiones" with five to six votes, Munich 1575
    • "Aliquot cantiones" with four voices, Nuremberg 1577
    • “Mariale […] Opusculum sacrarum cantionum” with six to eight voices, Innsbruck 1588
    • 9 motets in Novae cantiones sacrae for four to six voices, Douai 1590
    • 1 motet in “Thesaurus litaniarum”, Munich 1596
    • 1 motet for five voices in Rosetum Marianum , Dillingen 1604
    • 2 motets for three parts in Triodia sacra , Dillingen 1605
    • 1 motet in Hortus musicalis for five to six voices, Munich 1609
    • 1 motet in Promptuarii musici for two to four voices and basso continuo, Strasbourg 1627
    • 1 motet in Moduli symphoniaci , Innsbruck 1629
    • Further motets in Cantionale sacrum , Gotha 1646
  • Further sacred works in 17 manuscripts
  • Italian canzons and German songs
    • “Il primo libro delle canzone italiane” with five voices, Vienna 1574 and reprints, German as “Threni amorum. The first part of Lustiger Secular Songs [...] But now with other lovely German [...] texts "to five voices, Vienna 1595
    • "Kurtzweilige Teutsche Lieder" with three voices, Nuremberg 1574 and 1576, new edition as "Der first Theyl Schöner Kurtzweiliger Teutscher Lieder" with three voices, Nuremberg 1578 and 1580
    • “The other Theyl Kurtzweiliger teutscher Lieder” with three voices, Nuremberg 1577 and reprints
    • “The third Theyl Schöner Kurtzweiliger Teutscher Lieder” with three voices, Nuremberg 1579 and 1580
    • “Neue Kurtzweilige Teutsche Lieder” with five voices, Nuremberg 1580 and 1586
    • “Il secundo libro delle canzone italiane” with five voices, Nuremberg 1581, German as “Threni amorum. The other part […] ”with five votes, Nuremberg 1595
    • "Teutsche Lieder [...] with the approval of the Authorn, prints together in one opus" with three voices, Munich 1583, further editions as "Tricinia" with three voices, Nuremberg 1584
    • “Teutsche Lieder” with three voices, Munich 1611
    • 1 work for five voices in Sdegnosi ardori , Munich 1585
    • “Kurtzweilige neue Teutsche Lieder” with four voices, Munich 1591
    • 1 work in Flores musicae , Heidelberg 1600
    • 1 work in Florum musicae , Heidelberg 1600
    • 2 songs for four voices in Teutsche Liedlein [...] composed by Lambertum de Sayve , Vienna 1602
    • 1 work in Musicalischer Zeitvertreiber for four to eight voices, Nuremberg 1609
    • 2 works in Odae suavissimae with five to six voices, without location or year [1610]
    • Other secular works in 8 manuscripts
  • Instrumental music
    • 1 work in organ or instrument tablature book , Nuremberg 1583
    • 1 work in tablature book on organs and instruments , part 1, Leipzig 1583
    • Further works in Pratum musicum , Antwerp 1584
    • 20 works in Tabulatura nova , Frankfurt an der Oder 1584
    • Further works in: M. Waissel, Lautenbuch […] Sampt […] Tentzen, Passamezzen, Galliard , Frankfurt an der Oder 1592
    • Further works in: P. Luetkemann, New Latin and German Gesenge , Part 1, Alten-Stettin 1597

Literature (selection)

  • Wilhelm Osthoff : An unknown incidental music by Jakob Regnarts. In: Festschrift J. Wolf, published by W. Lott, Berlin 1929
  • F. Mossler: Jakob Regnarts Messen , dissertation at the University of Bonn 1964
  • Walter Pass : Jacob Regnart and his Latin motets , dissertation at the University of Vienna in 1967
  • W. Pass: Thematic catalog of all works by Jacob Regnart (c. 1540–1599) , Vienna 1969 (= Tabulae musicae Austriacae No. 5; on the inaccuracies and inconsistencies of this catalog see the review by J. Kindermann, in: Die Musikforschung No. 25, 1972, page 371 and following)
  • W. Pass: Jakob Regnart's “Mariale” collection and the Catholic reform in Tyrol. In: Festschrift W. Senn, edited by E. Egg and E. Fässler, Munich and Salzburg 1975, pages 158–173
  • RB Lynn: A 17th century German organ tablature owned by the University of Michigan. In: Die Musikforschung No. 34, 1981, pp. 183–191
  • M. Cordes: The Latin motets of Iacobus Regnart in the mirror of the key and affect theory of the 16th century , dissertation at the University of Bremen 1991
  • Bernhold Schmid : Regnart, Jacob. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , page 273 and following (digitized version)

Web links

Commons : Jacob Regnart  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ The music in past and present (MGG), person part volume 13, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Kassel and Basel 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1133-0
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 7: Randhartinger - Stewart. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1982, ISBN 3-451-18057-X .
personal data
SURNAME Regnart, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Regnart, Jacobus; Regnart, Jacques; Regnard, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer and bandmaster of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH between 1540 and 1545
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Douai
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1599
Place of death Prague