Joseph Hermann Mohr

Joseph Hermann Mohr as a young priest

Joseph Hermann Mohr (born January 10, 1834 in Siegburg , † February 7, 1892 in Munich ) was a German Catholic priest , hymnologist , hymn composer and lyricist.

Childhood and youth

Like Engelbert Humperdinck, Joseph Mohr was born in what is now the Siegburg City Museum , where his father was a teacher at what was then an elementary school . From 1852 he studied philosophy and theology in Bonn, and in 1853 he entered the Jesuit order in Münster . After completing his studies, he mainly taught singing at the College of the Order in Feldkirch until 1862 . From 1863 he studied rhetoric in Munich and theology in Maria Laach. He was ordained a priest in 1866.

Act

A house full of glory , Mohr's original text and melody

Joseph Mohr was Jesuit pater . During the Kulturkampf he stayed in France , Belgium and the Netherlands . During this time he also wrote the hymn A house full of glory looks .

The original sixth stanza

Many thousands have already shed
their blood with holy lust,
the ranks stand firmly closed
in high courage of faith

served at the time of the Nazi regime because of its textual parallels to the Horst Wessel song of the National Socialists as a confessional song of the free Christian faith. In 1975, only the first of the seven stanzas composed by Mohr was included in the Catholic German-language hymn book Gotteslob (GL ^old 639), as was the new Gotteslob from 2013 (GL 478). Four more were written by Hans W. Marx , a pseudonym for Friedrich Dörr .

Mohr praised the “beauty of the Gregorian chant ” as the only suitable music for the mystery of Holy Mass . In order to participate in its research and restoration, he joined the Association for Research on Old Choral Manuscripts for the purpose of restoring the cantus S. Gregorii of the Trier Cathedral Music Director Michael Hermesdorff . This association, which was joined by other important researchers such as Robert Eitner , François-Auguste Gevaert , Joseph Pothier , Anselm Schubiger and Raymund Schlecht , made what is probably the most important contribution to the restitution of Gregorian chant in the German-speaking world.

He recommended the ecclesiastical folk chant for extra-liturgical worship, e.g. B. Devotional and procession. The artistic level of the "ecclesiastical folk song" of that time was criticized by him as partly brutalized "devotional shouting", which is why he published a singing teaching he wrote himself (see below).

Mohr also wrote the melody for Maria, which is preferred in the Rhineland , with a broad cloak , a new melody for Christoph Bernhard Verspoells You cheer angelic choirs and Johann Georg Franz Brauns Heilig are you, great God ( God's praise ^old Cologne nos. 946, 918, 919)

Due to the Jesuit law passed during the Kulturkampf , he felt compelled to resign from the Jesuit order in order to be able to return to Germany , and finally found great recognition in high church circles in Munich as a secular priest and hymn researcher.

Honors

• Josef-Mohr-Strasse in Siegburg

Works (selection)

• Cantata , church hymn book. Kösel & Pustet, Regensburg 1873 (95th edition 1922)
• Cäcilia , Catholic hymn and prayer book. Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg / New York / Cincinnati 1874 ( urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb11187410-9 ; 36th edition 1927)
• Jubilate deodorant! , four-part edition by Cäcilia . 1877
• Instructions for ecclesiastical psalmody . 1878
• Let us pray , diocesan hymn (under different titles) in Würzburg, Salzburg, Bamberg, Speyer, 1881
• Cantiones Sacrae: a collection of hymns and devotional chants for the different seasons of the year, the feasts of our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, of the saints, low masses etc .: arranged for four mixed voices . F. Pustet, Ratisbon 1878 ( archive.org ).
• The maintenance of the folk song in the church . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg / New York / Cincinnati 1885
• Psalterlein , Diözesangesangbuch Basel / Freiburg (Br.), 1891 urn : nbn: de: hbz: 6: 1-183802

literature

• Hans-Peter Bähr: “… may the praise from everyone be pleasing to you!” On the life and work of Joseph Mohr from Siegburg. in: Mauritius Mittler, Wolfgang Herborn: Temporibus tempora. Festschrift for Abbot Placidus Mittler (= Siegburger Studien XXV). Siegburg 1995, pp. 331-365.
• Bernd Distelkamp: "A house full of glory looks ..." For the 175th birthday of the hymn composer Joseph Mohr . In: Heimatblätter des Rhein-Sieg-Kreis , 77th year, 2009. Ed. On behalf of the History and Antiquity Association for Siegburg and the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis e. V. von H. Fischer, W. Herborn and A. Korte-Böger. Rheinlandia Verlag, Siegburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-938535-57-8 , pp. 146-165.
• Bernd Distelkamp: "A house full of glory looks ..." The Siegburg hymn composer Joseph Mohr (= Siegburger Blätter , booklet 21). Siegburg 2009; Blattwelt.de (PDF; 429 kB).
• Joachim Faller:  Mohr, Joseph Hermann. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 953-955.
• Kurt Küppers:  Mohr, Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 710 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Joseph Otten:  Joseph Mohr . In: Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 10, Robert Appleton Company, New York 1911.

Web links

Commons : Joseph Hermann Mohr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Joseph Hermann Mohr in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Joseph Hermann Mohr  in the German Digital Library
• Joseph Hermann Mohr in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)