Conrad Paumann

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Epitaph in the Frauenkirche in Munich

Conrad Paumann (* around 1410 in Nuremberg ; † January 24, 1473 in Munich ) was a German composer , organist and lutenist of the early Renaissance .

Live and act

Conrad Paumann, who was blind from birth, was the son of a respected craftsman, probably Kunz Paumann († 1444), and received support from the Nuremberg patrician Ulrich Grundherr at a young age and from 1423 by his son Paul. Although the music history of the Nuremberg organists and town pipers is well known, there is no information on the musical training of Conrad Paumann; However, it was very beneficial for his artistic development and for the dissemination of his works that the free imperial city was a center of cultural life and a crossroads of important trade routes in the 15th century. From 1446 at the latest, Paumann was organist at the Church of St. Sebald in his hometown under Pastor Laubing. In 1443 a new instrument was completed there by the organ builder Heinrich Traxdorff from Mainz . In the course of his engagement to Margarethe Weichser on December 13, 1446, he undertook not to leave the city without the knowledge and permission of the city council and the pastor of Sebald. Paul Paumann (around 1448–1517), who from 1474 succeeded Conrad Paumann as the organist at the ducal court in Munich, is probably a son from this marriage. During his installation for the Nuremberg city organist on August 11, 1447, Conrad Paumann also made the aforementioned promise to the mayor. He was thus responsible and responsible for all Nuremberg organs, and it was part of his duties to be available on official occasions such as festival music and dance music, both in public places as well as in the town hall and in the churches.

Contrary to all assurances, Paumann left the city in 1450 and went to the court of the Dukes of Upper Bavaria in Munich to work in their service. The music-loving Duke Albrecht III there. (Reign 1438–1460) had already negotiated with the Nuremberg city council the year before about a change of Paumann to Munich. In 1451 Paumann lost his civil rights in Nuremberg and was released from his duties there on the mediation of Duchess Anna. Financial reasons may also have been decisive for Paumann's departure from Nuremberg, because as a city organist he received 12 guilders a year, and St. Sebald's income also amounted to 12 guilders. We know nothing about fees for organ lessons; in Munich, on the other hand, he received 80 guilders, plus regular payments in kind, and he was exempt from taxes. In addition, Duke Albrecht gave him a house in front Schwabinger Gasse in Munich (today Residenzstrasse ). Although he was employed as a court organist, he was able to develop his skills as a versatile instrumentalist here because, in addition to keyboard instruments, he played lute in particular , but also recorder , harp and rebec (small violin).

In the following 20 years, as a virtuoso organ player and sought-after organ expert, he made numerous trips to the cities of the German Empire, where he met an enthusiastic, sometimes international, audience. So he came to Augsburg in 1451 and to Vienna in 1452 . In 1454, Duke Ludwig IX. the empire of Bavaria-Landshut (reign 1450–1479) Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (reign 1419–1467) invited to the Trausnitz Castle in Landshut ; here Paumann had the opportunity to demonstrate his skill on various instruments. In 1457 he came again to Augsburg, 1458 to the Lake Constance region to Salem and Überlingen , and 1459 to Regensburg . From 1460, Duke Sigismund , Albrecht's successor, was Paumann's employer until 1467. Before 1464 he was called to Salzburg as an organ specialist , and in 1466 the city council of Nördlingen managed to win him over to the organ acceptance test for Kaschendorff's new instrument in St. George's Church. Sebald Grave, a pupil of Paumann, then became organist at this church. His employer as Sigismund's successor was Duke Albrecht IV (reign 1467–1508) the following year . Paul Paumann accompanied his father on his trip to Italy in 1470, where the blind organist had sensational appearances in Mantua and Ferrara ; He was marveled at as “cieco miracoloso”, knighted and given rich gifts: he received magnificent robes, a sword with a golden pommel and a golden bracelet. This was followed by invitations to Milan and Naples ; However, Conrad Paumann refused to travel there.

In the last years of his life, Paumann was organist at the Frauenkirche in Munich . In 1471 he was invited to the Reichstag in Regensburg and left his art before Emperor Friedrich III. (Reign 1440–1493) and hear the assembled German princes. Paumann made one last trip to Nördlingen to check the organ. Conrad Paumann died on January 24, 1473 in Munich and was buried on the south side of the Frauenkirche near the bridal gate. This was an unusual honor for a musician of the time, especially because a grave slab made of red marble with a portrait was made for him , showing him as an organ player; there are also instruments shown that he apparently mastered: lute, recorder, harp and Rebec. The inscription on the grave slab reads: An [no] MCCCCLXXIII an S. Pauls bekerung died and is buried here, the art rich man of all instruments and the musica master Cunrad Pawmann, knight, born purely by nurnberg and plinter, who got genad . Today this epitaph is in the Frauenkirche under the western organ gallery, on the left side next to the cenotaph for Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria .

meaning

In his time Conrad Paumann was probably the most famous and most honored musician in Germany; he is even considered one of the most important musicians in the German-speaking area of ​​the 15th century. Based on his mainly educational works, he must have had numerous students, but only two of them are known, his son Paul, successor at the Bavarian court, and the aforementioned Sebald Grave, organist of St. George's Church in Nördlingen 1466–1497. He owes his contemporary reputation to his virtuosity on the organ and other instruments, but also to his art of improvisation . The Nuremberg master- singer Hans Rosenplüt praised Paumann's outstanding art in his “Spruch von Nürnberg” in 1447 with the statement that he carried chorale and contemporary music in his memory and mastered all compositional techniques of his time. In his publication “Musica getutscht” (published in Basel in 1511) the music theorist and composer Sebastian Virdung names Paumann the inventor of the German lute tablature . Despite the composer's blindness, this could be true because, according to Rudolf Henning, pieces of music can be written down well with dictation with this spelling.

The news of Paumann's death evidently aroused widespread sympathy: in a Salzburg chronicle that goes back to 1475, apart from a comet appearance, only the day of the blind master's death is entered for the year in question (here 1472!) ; this chronicle was published by Heinrich Canisius ("Lectiones antiquae" Part VI, Ingolstadt 1604) and was thus preserved for an educated audience. In contrast, Paumann's name is missing in Michael Praetorius' “Organographia” (“ Syntagma musicum ”, Volume 2, Wolfenbüttel 1619); Nor is it mentioned in the local patriotic publication "Historical Message from the Nuremberg Mathematicis and Artists" by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (Nuremberg 1730). Perhaps only because of the conspicuous tombstone, the chronicler Staindl recalled in detail in his “Chronicon generale” (published Augsburg 1763) the “Conradus caecus, in omnibus musicalibus suo tempore nulli secundus” with much more information.

Amazingly little of his work has survived in writing; nevertheless, the four versions of his “Fundamentum organisandi” give a good insight into part of his musical technique. They provide organ playing and improvisation instructions for memorizing and systematically show in short models how a player can use a given cantus firmus , played with the left hand, to perform a lively and ornate upper part to be played with the right hand. Only this is given in sheet music, while the lower part appears in letters (older German organ tablature). These two-part playing instructions can be found in the two older versions of his Fundamentum (one of them is dated 1452), while the two more recent versions contain three-part models in which he adds the innovations of the Burgundian School (e.g. the introduction of the contratenor ) to the Organ playing applies. Indirectly, these models also provide instructions for the decoration and intabulation of polyphonic vocal works. Sources for Paumann's works are mainly the Buxheim tablature manuscript (around 1460) and the Lochamer songbook . There are also many anonymous pieces here, which can be assigned to Conrad Paumann by comparing styles, as well as pieces from his musical circle and his students.

Works

  • "Fundamentum bonum trium notarum magistri Conradi in Nurenbergk" (University Library Erlangen, manuscript 554)
  • “Fundamentum magistri Conradi Paumann Ceci” (Bavarian State Library Munich, music manuscript 3725; Buxheimer tablature manuscript); 2nd version: "Fundamentum magistri Conradi paumann Contrapuncti", in the same
  • "Fundamentum organisandi Magistri Conradi Paumanns Ceci de Nürenberga Anno 1452" (Berlin State Library, manuscript 40613, pages 46–68; Lochamer songbook)
  • Song editing "confess myn klag die mir an lyt" (Buxheimer tablature manuscript)
  • Song arrangement "Con lacrimae, Jeloymors" (Je loue amors)
  • Song editing "Ich begerr nit merr" magistri Conradi paumann (Buxheimer tablature manuscript)
  • Tenor song "Wiplich figur" with three voices (Schedelsches songbook)

Literature (selection)

  • FW Arnold, H. Bellermann: The Locheimer song book together with the Ars organisandi by Conrad Paumann . In: Yearbook for Musical Sciences No. 2, 1863, pp. 1–234, Reprint Hildesheim 1966, separately Leipzig 1926, of which Reprint Wiesbaden 1967
  • Robert Eitner:  Paumann, Conrad . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 298-300.
  • L. Schrade: The handwritten tradition of the oldest instrumental music , Lahr 1931
  • BA Wallner: Konrad Paumann . In: AH Bolongaro Crevenna (ed.): Munich character heads of the Gothic. Munich 1938, pp. 21-36
  • Max Seiffert: History of Piano Music. The older story up to around 1750 , Hildesheim 1966 (3), p. 2 ff.
  • Ernst Ritter: Conrad Paumann (1410-1473), a musical genius . In: Archive for Family Research , Volume 34, November 1968, Issue 32, pp. 628–629
  • Chr. Wolff: Conrad Paumann's Fundamentum organisandi and its various versions . In: Archive for Musicology No. 25, 1968, pp. 196–222
  • Sebastian Virdung : Musica tutscht und pulled out , 1511, facsimile reprint 1970, ISBN 3-7618-0004-5
  • Martin Staehelin : Konrad Paumann and the organ history of the Salem monastery in the 15th and 16th centuries , In: Die Musikforschung Vol. 25 (1972), pp. 449–451
  • Ms. Krautwurst: Konrad Paumann. In: Fränkische Lebensbilder No. 7, Neustadt / Aisch 1977, pp. 33–48
  • H. Minamino: Conrad Paumann and the Evolution of Solo Lute Practice in the Fifteenth Century. In: Journal of Musicological Research No. 6, 1986, pp. 291-310
  • Paumann, Konrad. In: Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie Volume 7, Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-23167-9 , p. 582
  • Franz Körndle:  Paumann, Conrad. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 138 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Organ playing and organ music at the time of Adam Ileborgh , edited by Franz Körndle, in: Acta organologica No. 27, 2001, pp. 205–278
  • Th. Göllner: The tactus theory in the German organ sources of the 15th century. Edited organ treatises, fundamenta organisandi and teaching examples . In: Th. Ertelt, Fr. Zaminer (Hrsg.): German music theory of the 15th to 17th centuries. 1st part: From Paumann to Calvisius (= history of music theory 8/1). Darmstadt 2003, pp. 1-68.

Web links

Commons : Conrad Paumann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

swell

  1. ↑ Franz Körndle:  Paumann, Conrad. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 13 (Paladilhe - Ribera). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1133-0 , Sp. 206-208 ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 6: Nabakov - Rampal. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18056-1 .
  3. ^ Hermann Josef Busch , Matthias Geuting: Lexicon of the organ. Laaber Verlag, Laaber 2008, ISBN 978-3-89007-508-2 .
  4. ↑ Nuremberg, State Archives, Rep. 59, Salbuch St. Sebald No. 1 . S. fol. 92r .
  5. ↑ Georg Wolfgang Karl Lochner (Ed.): The Spruch von Nürnberg, descriptive poem by Hans Rosenplüt called Schnepperer . Mrs. Campe & Sohn, Nuremberg 1854, p. 29-31 .
  6. ↑ Franz Körndle: Organs in medieval town churches . In: Fabian Kolb (ed.): Music of the medieval metropolis. Spaces, identities and contexts of music in Cologne and Mainz, approx. 900-1400. Conference report Mainz / Cologne October 2014 (contributions to Rhenish music history) . tape 179 . Merseburger, Berlin / Kassel 2016, ISBN 978-3-87537-351-6 , pp. 325-352; especially 340 .
  7. ^ Peter Päffgen: Lute music before 1500. In: Guitar & Laute 9, 1987, issue 6, pp. 58–61; here: p. 60.
personal data
SURNAME Paumann, Conrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Paumann, Konrad; Paumann, Conradus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, organist and lutenist of the early Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1410
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1473
Place of death Munich