Counterfactor

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A counterfacture (from Latin contra "against" and facere "to make", counter-design ) is an artistic production process and its result, in which a work of art is made into a new work of art while retaining certain form components. Kontrafaktur is therefore an example of intertextuality or intermediality .

music

In music theory, both the process and the result of a certain process for creating a new musical song are called counterfactures . All that is done is to change the lyrics of an existing work, so that a new song with the same melody or the same motifs is created. This procedure was used particularly frequently in hymns , because when the songs used in the service were translated into German, the already known melody or parts of it were to be retained, but the Latin text was to be replaced. Many pieces of the Gregorian repertoire also served as starting material for the corresponding German-language counterfactures.

See also table in the list of German-language Christmas carols .

The counterfactur method is not only used for simple song melodies, but also for polyphonic and more complex choral works. Well-known examples of this can be found in Johann Sebastian Bach. The opening choir Jauchzet, for example , rejoices in its Christmas oratorio, a counterfactor to the opening choir of the cantata Tönet, you timpani! Sound out trumpets! .

Since the definition of the parallel English-language term ( contrafact ) is somewhat broader, one often speaks of counterfacture in modern music theory when a new melody is composed while maintaining the harmony scheme. This practice is found mainly in modern jazz .

literature

Based on the music-theoretical term, counterfacture is understood in literary studies as a newly produced literary work that takes over essential elements of the form from an earlier work. An example of this is Leonard Bernstein's musical West Side Story , which is a counterfactor to William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet .

Thomas Bernhard's A Festival for Boris and his other plays can be read as a negative counterfactor to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play Jedermann (premiered in 1911).

Counterfactor - parody

During the Baroque and Viennese Classic periods (17th / 18th centuries), the remodeling of musical works for other purposes was called 'global' parody (see there).

In today's literary studies, parody describes the distorting, exaggerating and / or derisive imitation of a work; One speaks of counterfactor (even) if no such rating is associated with the copy.

Musicology differentiates between the two terms in a different way: the textual revision of a secular song with a spiritual text is called a counterfacture (for example Heinrich Isaac : “ Innsbruck, I must let you ”; the first of two counterfactures in the Evangelical Hymnal can be found under EG 521 “O world, I have to let you”). Parody, on the other hand, describes the opposite way, namely the underlay of sacred songs with a secular text.

Individual evidence

  1. Markus Bautsch: About Contrafactures of Gregorian Repertoire , accessed on December 3, 2014
  2. ^ Manfred Mittermayer: Thomas Bernhard. Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 1995, p. 141.