Joseph Gersbach

Joseph Gersbach (born December 22, 1787 in Säckingen ; † December 3, 1830 in Karlsruhe ) was a German composer and music teacher .

Life

Joseph Gersbach was born on December 22nd, 1787 in Säckingen (today: Bad Säckingen) on the Upper Rhine as the son of a miller (later also mayor). From 1800 on Joseph Gersbach attended the Gymnasium of the Säckingen Abbey . Due to his talent, he was given responsibility for organ playing and church singing at the abbey at an early age. His brother Anton (1803–1848) was later an organist there . In 1807 he began studying philology, philosophy and mathematics in Freiburg .

From 1809 he was a music teacher in different places.

First he taught at a private educational institution in Göttstadt near Biel (Switzerland). From 1810/11 he accompanied the local student Conrad Melchior Hirzel via Zurich, Stuttgart , Ifferten (today Yverdon-les-Bains), Lausanne and back to Zurich.

In Ifferten he came into contact with the ideas of the Swiss reform pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), who had been working there since 1804 , and was strongly influenced by his holistic pedagogy based on Rousseau . His aim was to transfer Pestalozzi's principles to music and to use them in music education in schools.

After his return, he worked as a music teacher in Zurich for several years, with the apartment of his student Hirzel becoming his “second home” (later also that of his brother Anton). Among other things, he taught music theory to Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee on behalf of the busy Hans Georg Nägeli (1773–1836) .

In 1816 he went to Würzburg , where he helped found the new educational institution of Dr. Heinrich Dittmar (1792–1866) had been invited. However, after this institution was relocated to Nuremberg and its future became uncertain, he returned to Ifferten in 1817 and gave singing lessons first privately, then at a girls 'school, and finally at the Pestalozzi boys' institution.

It was there that he met Wilhelm Stern (who later became the head of the Karlsruhe Teachers 'Training College), who in 1818 gave him a job as a music teacher at the Rastatt School Teachers' College . As early as 1819, however, he moved again to Dittmar's educational institution in Nuremberg, where he was one of the central teachers and played a key role in setting up this institution.

In 1822 he converted from Catholic to Protestant faith in Rastatt .

Before Karl Georg von Raumer took over the management of the Nuremberg Institute in 1823 (and lost all students again by 1826 due to its revival-motive educational ideas ), he was appointed to the school teachers' seminar in Karlsruhe in 1823 as a teacher in music, German, mathematics and natural sciences. In Karlsruhe he was also involved in the church. B. a church choir, composed for it four-part Baden chorales and arranged for organs to be procured in schools.

Joseph Gersbach died there on December 3, 1830 at the age of 42.

References to contemporary history and aftermath

In his copy of a songbook published by the Turnverein movement in 1818, Anton Gersbach added 62 songs in handwriting in the 1820s, among other things, of which most of the polyphonic songs were composed by his brother Joseph Gersbach. These include political (national German and anti-Napoleonic ), e.g. B. Settings of Rückert poems.

The Englishman John Curwen (1816-1880), who propagated the tonic-sol-fa system , acquired some manuscripts from Joseph Gersbach's widow Anton Gersbach, which the latter could no longer publish due to the 1848 revolution, and intended to do so apply to the tonic-sol-fa method and publish in English. There are working manuscripts from Curwen available under the working titles "Gersbach's Course of Harmonic Sentences / a book for the teacher" and "Gersbach's Course of [originally, Plans for] Musical Sentences / a course of Illustrations and Exercises in Melody and in Two- part three-part and four-part Harmony. / An elementary work on Musical Composition. / Modified and adapted to the Tonic Solfa Method by John Curwen. "

Joseph Gersbach is one of the 102 names of "Jünger [n], pupils [n] and friends [n]" from Pestalozzi, who were shown on a Berlin lithograph "Pestalozzi in Stanz " (the place where Pestalozzi worked before he went to Yverdon; publisher: Adolph Diesterweg ) and were therefore apparently also known in northern Germany. A list of Pestalozzi followers published in 1881 also contains the name Gersbach (together with Wilhelm Stern (1792–1873), in connection with the Potsdam teacher training college ).

Works by Joseph Gersbach are even featured in recent songbooks.

Works (selection)

Educational writings

• Wilhelm Stern (ed.), Joseph Gersbach (edit.): Beginnings of teaching in elementary schools , Karlsruhe: Braun, 1827.
• Wilhelm Stern (Ed.), Joseph Gersbach (Ed.): Course of the German language.

Musical writings

Music theory

• Joseph Gersbach, Anton Gersbach (Hrsg.): Series theory or justification of the musical rhythm from the general theory of numbers , 1832.
• Joseph Gersbach: Instructions for using the singing school: with lithographed notes in two booklets , Karlsruhe, 1833.

Song books

• Joseph Gersbach: Wandervöglein 60 four-part songs. Four-part chorale chants from the Protestant church in Baden, 1826.
• Joseph Gersbach: Singvögelein 1: two-part tones , Karlsruhe: Braun, 1828 [notes; School song book]
• Joseph Gersbach: Singvögelein: 30 two-part songs for the youth plus an appendix of 29 small two. Song compositions by Anton Gersbach , 3rd edition, Karlsruhe: Braun, 1839 [sheet music; School song book]
• Joseph Gersbach: Singing Birds . 30 four-part songs, 4th ed. 1859.
• Joseph Gersbach, Anton Gersbach (Ed.): Liedernachlaß. Polyphonic chants for mixed choir and male voices, 1839.

New editions of the songbooks

• Joseph Gersbach: Four-part evening songs [sheet music], (Laudinella series; sheet 197), Pratteln (Switzerland): Engadiner Kantorei, 1979.
• Joseph Gersbach, Arthur Eglin (Ed.): Four-part choir songs [for mixed choir], (Laudinella series; 245), St. Moritz: Engadiner Kantorei Laudinella, 1983. [From: Wandervögelein or collection of travel songs ... (Frankfurt a . M.: JD Sauerländer, 1833), text authors unknown. Contains: cuckoo song; Waldvögelein [little wandering bird?].]
• Joseph Gersbach, Arthur Eglin (ed.): Songs for mixed choir [sheet music] (Laudinella series; sheet 415), Pratteln (Switzerland): Engadiner Kantorei, 1997 [from: Wandervöglein or collection of travel songs ... (Frankfurt a. M.: Sauerländer, 1833). Content: The pleasure walk; Sound of night; Homecoming. Text: Martin Opitz , Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen ]

literature

• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  Joseph Gersbach. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 2, Bautz, Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-032-8 , Sp. 227-228.
• Moritz Fürstenau :  Gersbach, Anton . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, pp. 44-46. (there Joseph Gersbach also biographed)
• François Joseph Fétis: Biographie Universelle Des Musiciens , Paris, 1874.
• H. Giehne: Josef and Anton Gersbach , in: Friedrich von Weech (Hrsg.): Badische Biographien . First part . Heidelberg 1875, pp. 283–289. ( Digitized version )
• Hugo Riemann: Musik-Lexikon , Person Teil, 12th edition, Volume I, p. 612, Mainz: Schott, 1959.
• Wilhelm Stern (Ed.): Memory of Joseph Gersbach, died December 3rd, 1830 , Karlsruhe, 1830.
• Leonhard Stierlin: Joseph and Anton Gersbach , 52nd New Year's Sheets of the General Music Society Zurich, Zurich, 1864 [with picture]

Web links

• Literature by and about Joseph Gersbach in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Joseph Gersbach  in the German Digital Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Joseph Gersbach in the International Music Score Library Project
• “Wonderfully mild with a host” . Text: Ludwig Uhland , around 1817/18; Melody: Joseph Gersbach, 1822, with audio file, midi format

Sources and Notes

1. ↑ * 1793; † 1843; in Renenerationszeit early 1830s a leader of the radical faction of the ustertag -revolution and 1832-1839 Mayor of Zurich, convened in 1838 David Friedrich Strauss at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Zurich
2. ↑ Schnyder von Wartensee, Franz Xaver ( Memento of the original from November 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on “Musinfo - the database on Swiss music”, accessed on December 13, 2016.  
3. ↑ The position in Nuremberg was taken over by his brother Anton, who had also worked there since 1821. In 1824 Anton followed his brother to Karlsruhe, but returned to Zurich in April, only to take over his position in Karlsruhe after Joseph's death in 1830. In that year he also converted to the evangelical faith.
4. ^ German songs for young and old , Berlin, 1818; Critical edition: Lisa Feursehen (Ed.): 2002, ISBN 0-89579-517-5 , PDF ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Bonnie Jo Dopp, Curator: Special Collections in Performing Arts , University of Maryland Libraries. This is where the Curwen manuscripts are kept today.
6. ↑ Emanuel Dejung: " Pestalozzi in Stanz"; a picture and its statements ( memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , 1980. 
7. ^ Eduard Jaenicke: Life and Striving 50 Years ago; Pictures from Hentschel's and Lübens school trip in 1830 , in: Pedagogical sheets for teacher training, ed. by C. Kehr, Volume 1881, pp. 1ff. Quoted by Emanuel Dejung: " Pestalozzi in Stanz"; a picture and its statements , 1980.
8. ↑ So z. B. “At a landlord's miraculous” in Walter Hansen: “The Pathfinder Song Book” , Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1984, p. 182; Ramona Leiß, Walter Hansen: The most beautiful folk songs , Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1994.