Leonhard Lechner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leonhard Lechner (* around 1553 in the Etschtal ( South Tyrol ); † September 9, 1606 in Stuttgart ) was a German composer and conductor of the late Renaissance .

Live and act

Leonhard Lechner's year of birth can only be roughly determined; its origin results from the nickname Athesinus ("Etschländer"), which he regularly uses . However, it is uncertain whether this refers to the Adige Valley in the narrower sense or the larger geographic area south of the Brenner , such as today's South Tyrol. No information has survived about his parents, his youth or his early education. From 1566 to 1570 he was a chapel boy student of Orlando di Lasso and Ivo de Vento at the ducal Bavarian court in Munich , which in 1568 was moved by the successor of the duke with a small part of the musicians to Landshut , where Lechner retired after two years was released. For his apprenticeship with Orlando di Lasso, typesetting skills of Italian origin speak for example in his German sayings of life and death . He also worshiped Orlando di Lasso as his teacher throughout his life. According to his own statement (letter of March 1, 1596), however, he could not master any instrument.

After a few years of wandering from 1570, which perhaps also led him to Italy, and after he converted to the Protestant religion in 1571 , he was first recorded in the imperial city of Nuremberg in 1575 . Here he held the subordinate office of "school assistant" at the St. Lorenz School until 1584. On October 8, 1576, he married the widow of the town piper Friedrich Kast, Dorothea Kast, née Lederer; with her he had the son Gabriel (1578 / 79–1611). In Nuremberg the composer brought out the first edition of his own compositions with the Motectae sacrae collection ; In addition, from 1576–1579 he edited the song collection of his contemporary Jakob Regnart that was printed here . His Nuremberg work was accompanied by recognition and success; The private circles of music-loving Nuremberg patricians ( Sodalicium musicum ) founded in 1568, 1571 and 1577 also offered him a financially and artistically rewarding field of activity. In addition, he had found friendly advisors and lyricists in the humanist Paul Schede and the goldsmith Paul Dulner († 1596). Nevertheless, Lechner was not satisfied with his position in the long run. His professional ambitions were not compatible with staying in Nuremberg for a long time. The city council tried to keep the composer by increasing his salary (according to the council minutes of July 26, 1577: "Because he was such a powerful composer and musician") and in 1582 by awarding him the title of "archimusicus", but without success.

In autumn 1583 Lechner achieved his professional goal in Hechingen as Kapellmeister at the Catholic court of Count Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Hechingen ; He had the free exercise of his Lutheran denomination confirmed in writing. Since the spring of 1584 he was in charge of the small but powerful band of musicians there. But after only a year he got into a heated argument with his employer, appointed a son of Orlando di Lasso as his successor, gave up his office in Hechingen and applied for the free since 1584 with letters of recommendation from Duke Wilhelm V and Orlando di Lasso Position of the court music director in Dresden . Subsequently, in July 1585, Lechner left Hechingen arbitrarily and prematurely, without formal dismissal. The underlying reason for the dispute is not known. After he had been declared outlawed by his previous employer , the composer found refuge briefly in the Tübingen circle around Nicodemus Frischlin (1547–1590), then under the protection of the Duke of Württemberg in Backnang . Lechner opposed the Hechingen Count's request to return in a letter in an unusually disrespectful tone. In the further course, Count Eitel Friedrich turned to the Nuremberg Council and several princes and thus prevented the planned presentation of Lechner in Dresden. In addition, there was a negative statement by the Dresden vice-music director Georg Forster , which ultimately led to Lechner's application being rejected.

On August 1, 1585, the composer was accepted by Duke Ludwig von Württemberg as "Musicus" in the Stuttgart court music . There he served under the conductor Ludwig Daser and Balduin Hoyoul as a tenor singer and delivered compositions, became court composer in 1586 and, after Hoyoul's death in 1594, head of the court orchestra in the spring of 1595. During this term of office, which lasted until Lechner's death, the Stuttgart court orchestra reached a significant artistic level. The Duke used the change in personnel to redefine the conductor's responsibilities. In addition to the training of the band boys and the expansion and maintenance of the sheet music, the main task of the band master was to make mixed vocal and instrumental music. In a letter dated March 1, 1596, however, the composer complained about disciplinary difficulties with individual instrumentalists. On Lechner's advice on June 18, 1604, two copies of di Lasso's Magnum opus musicum were purchased.

During Lechner's term in office in Stuttgart, the princely weddings in Darmstadt 1589, Neuburg 1591, Durlach 1592 and Dresden 1604 were particularly representative highlights; The trip to the permanent Reichstag in Regensburg in 1594 and the court festivals in 1603 and 1605, which were praised by contemporary observers, should also be mentioned here. In the last years of his life, between 1587 and 1604, he tried to cure illnesses with spa treatments and had to be represented more often at performances. For the same reason, his mature late works were probably no longer printed. After his death, Lechner was buried on September 11, 1606 in the Stuttgart Upper Church of St. Katharina (today's Hospital Church ) near the altar. Duke Friedrich von Württemberg acquired Lechner's musical estate on July 14, 1607; however, it is believed that the greater part has been lost.

meaning

In addition to Johann Eccard , Leonhard Lechner was the most important mediator of Orlando di Lasso's musical style for Protestant church music and German song, whereby in the course of his life he has grown to be significantly independent and great compared to his teacher. His overall opus has been passed down mainly through the multiple Nuremberg prints; apart from the Stuttgart print of the Passion from 1554 (not preserved), he does not seem to have published anything after that. Apart from two works, however, most of his handwritten estate has been lost. With his Harmoniae miscellae he has published an important sample collection of works by the most respected composers of his time (e.g. Orlando di Lasso, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina , Philippe de Monte , Costanzo Porta ); he also reissued the Gerlach edition with di Lassos Selectissimae cantiones (1568) eleven years later and endeavored to revise it. In addition, a larger collection of masses by his teacher, the Liber missarum , appeared in print in 1581 .

Lechner's outstanding abilities were already evident in his Motectae . The actual breakthrough to an independent artistic achievement, however, happened in connection with the German language, especially with spiritual texts, similar to that later with Heinrich Schütz . His Latin compositions, on the other hand, are more traditional, and his Italian-influenced movements in the Villanelle and Canzonen style mostly represent a simpler social art .

Overall, Lechner's work is divided into two main groups: on the one hand, into the traditional genres of motet , mass and magnificat with Latin text, and on the other hand, into the various forms of the German song; the Italian madrigal plays a very subordinate role here with only four compositions. His sacred song motets of the Newen Teutschen Lieder with their poems, some of which were unique for this time, from Paul Dulner (e.g. "O Death, you are a bitter Gall") to the German sayings of life and death represent an outstanding peak of the song motet around 1600. With the use of the new major-minor harmony in the service of an extraordinarily excited and glowing affect language, in the contrast between polyphony and homophony , also in the treatment of speech by means of choral declamation as well as in the use of tone symbolism and tone painting, Lechner surpasses his contemporaries in artistic power and Passion by far.

Lechner's motets consist of the two major publications of 1575 and 1581, the three "Kronberg Motets" of 1582, his three own contributions to the Harmoniae miscellae and his collection of penitential psalms from 1587. The two 1593 commissioned by Tübingen also belong here Professor Martin Crusius (1526–1607) made “musical epitaphs” for Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and his wife Beatrix and other occasional works. Among the wedding music (Epithalamia) belonging to this, there are two particularly magnificent three-part works: one is the epithalamium “Quid Chaos” with 24 voices based on a text by Paul Schede, of which the Augsburg composer Adam Gumpelzhaimer made a copy of the score without text, and the other Motet on Psalm 147 for fifteen parts. In the penitential psalms print, Lechner increased the number of voices in the last three works from initially seven to twelve (two choirs with six parts each), then to eighteen (three choirs with seven, six and five parts each). How well he was able to use elements of the Italian madrigal in his works is shown in particular by his setting of the Song of Songs . In the German Proverbs of Life and Death with its fifteen brief stanzas by an unknown poet, "Lechner composed a dance of death for which there is no parallel in the entire history of German music" ( Friedrich Blume ).

The composer's mass settings all belong to the parody mass type . For this purpose, he used moths and madrigals by Orlando di Lasso, Luca Marenzio and Cipriano de Rore . Especially his Missa secunda (1584) based on Marenzio's madrigal “Non fu mai cervo” proves to be an extreme case in the history of the parody mass in a constructive and expressive way ( Franz Körndle 1986). It also contains ten introit music settings for the main festivals of the church year. The composer's Magnificat settings in the eight church modes (1578) run according to the scheme of alternating text presentation through a unanimous chorale and a compact and finely worked out polyphonic movement. In particular, Leonhard Lechner's St. John Passion is not only a high point in the history of the Figural Passion, but is also one of the most impressive creations in the entire history of Passion music.

In his polyphonic German songs, Lechner adapted the popular Italian Villanella to German texts in his prints of 1576 and 1577. In his publication of 1579, the composer, with his persistent tendency towards compositional refinement of the genre, led Jakob Regnart's originally three-part Villanelles to a five-part setting and a fundamental redesign. In the works created in the last phase of his life between 1599 and 1604, one can perhaps recognize a specific, partly biographically determined late style; In this, the suggestive linguistic quality of the stanzas inspired the composer to extreme musical visual power and to a new understanding of sound. In this respect, his late work can also be described as a music-historical border.

In order to honor Leonhard Lechner's work and to keep his memory alive, the Leonhard Lechner Cantorei was founded in Gries (district of Bozen ) in 1950 on the initiative of the Muri-Gries Abbey . Its best-known director was P. Oswald Jaeggi OSB from 1952 to 1963 , who composed and performed works himself. The choir has its seat in this abbey. The Athesinus Consort Berlin , also named after Lechner, has existed in Berlin since 1992 and has dedicated a CD to the composer. Lechner's day of remembrance is September 10th in the Evangelical name calendar .

Works

Complete edition: Leonhard Lechner, works. edited by Konrad Ameln and others on behalf of the Neue Schütz-Gesellschaft , 14 volumes, Kassel 1954–1998; Volume 14 contains an alphabetical register for this.

  • Sacred vocal music
    • Motectae sacrae, […] addita est in fine motecta octo vocum, ad duos choros, eodem autore for four to six and 8 voices, double-choir, 1575, second edition 1576
    • Missa super "Omnia quae fecisti" with five voices, before 1578
    • "Sanctissimae Virginis Mariae canticum, quod vulgo magnificat inscribitur, secundum octo vulgares tonos" with four voices, Nuremberg 1578
    • “Sacrarum cantionum, […] liber secundus” with five to six and eight voices, double-choir, 1581
    • “Annus finit iter” / “Si bona suscepimus” / “Ne intres iudicium” with five to six voices in Lechner's “Harmoniae miscellae cantionum sacrarum”, 1583
    • "Liber missarum [...] adjunctis aliquot Introitibus in praecipua festa, from Adventu domini usque ad festum Sanctissimae Trinitatis" with five to six voices, 1584
    • “Septem psalmi poenitentiales, […] additis aliis quibusdam piis cantionibus” with six to seven and twelve voices, double-choir; eighteen voices, three-part, 1587
    • "New Spiritual and Secular Teutsche Lieder" with four to five voices, 1589
    • “Historia of the Passion and Suffering of our One Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ” (St. John Passion) to four votes, 1593
    • "Newe Gaistliche and Welltliche Teutsche Gesanng, sampt zwayen Latin" with four to five voices, 1606
  • Secular vocal music
    • “Neue teutsche Lieder […] in the manner of the Welschen Villanellen” with three voices, 1576, second edition 1577
    • "The other Theyl Neuer Teutscher Lieder [...] In the manner of the Welschen Villanellen" with three voices, Nuremberg 1577
    • "Newe Teutsche Lieder" with four to five voices, Nuremberg 1577
    • “New German songs. Seriously by […] Jacobum Regnart […] composed with three parts, in the style of the Welschen Villanelles […] con alchuni madrigali in lingua italiana “with five parts, 1579, second edition 1586
    • "Neue Teutsche Lieder" with four to five voices, 1582
    • “Ardo sì, ma non t'amo” with five voices, in G. Gigli's collection “Sdegni ardori”, Munich 1585
    • "Mir is a fine brown Medelein" / "Frölich und frey, nit cheeky darbey" with four voices, in J. Pühler's collection "Beautiful exquisite clergy and secular Teutscher Lieder", Munich 1585
    • “The first and other part of the Teutschen Villanellen” with three votes, 1586, second edition 1590
    • "New funny German songs in the style of the Welschen Canzonen" with four to five voices, 1586, second edition 1588
    • "New Spiritual and Secular Teutsche Lieder" with four to five voices, 1589
  • Occasional works
    • “And other Müntz darzue” / “Christ alone died for me”, dedication canons in the family book of Theodor Lindner from June 24, 1575
    • “Cum nova fatiloquus vidisset”, motet with five voices for the inauguration of the Altdorf University, in Neue Teutsche Lieder , Nuremberg 1577
    • “Quid Chaos” with 24 voices, three-horned, epithalamium for Sebald Welser and Magdalena Imhoff
    • "Johanni Neudorffero sponso [...] et iustinae Henzin sponsae [...] psalmum hunc Davidicum (Beati quorum remissae sunt), epithalamii loco, composuit [...] anno 1581", Nuremberg 1581, also in the edition "Septem psalmi poenitentiales, [...] additis aliis quibusdam piis cantionibus ”, 1587
    • “Ascaniae stirpis virtus est”, motet with six parts for Joachim Ernst, Prince of Anhalt, 1582
    • “Fontem perpetuis quem duxit ad aethera” / “Quam bene conveniunt” / “My hope for God alone”, the so-called Kronberg motets with five to six voices, 1582
    • “Quis tua, suavius ​​amor” with six voices, epithalamium for Christioph Andreas Gugel and Maria Muffel, April 1583
    • “Saxoniae princeps, o Augustissime salve”, motet with six parts for Elector Auzgust of Saxony, July 1585
    • "Justitiae cultor prudens" / "Formosa facie praestans" with six voices, grave inscriptions by Martin Crusius 1593 on Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa and his wife Beatrix
    • “Laudate Dominum”, three-part motet with fifteen voices for the wedding of Duke Johann Georg of Saxony with Princess Elisabeth of Württemberg on September 16, 1604
    • "German sayings of life and death" from the posthumous manuscript from 1606.

Literature (selection)

  • E. Grüninger: Christian funeral sermon at the Begraebnus weylund of […] Leonhardi Lechneri, princely Wuerttemberg Capellmeister, given in Stuttgarten in the Spitalkirchen, September 11th, 1606 , Tübingen 1607
  • O. Kade: Leonhard Lechner and his dispute with Count Eitel Friedrich von Hohenzollern in 1585 , in: MONTHS FOR MUSIC HISTORY No. 1, 1869, pp. 169–197
  • Robert Eitner: Lechner, Leonhard , in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB), Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883, p. 106 and the following
  • R. Velten: The older German society song under the influence of Italian music , Heidelberg 1914
  • G. Müller: History of the German song from the age of the baroque to the present , Munich 1924
  • HJ Moser: The German choir song between Senfl and Hassler as an example of style change , in: Yearbook of the Music Library 1928, pp. 43–58
  • M. Schreiber: The church music of the Kapellmeister Leonhard Lechner Athesinus. A musical and liturgical appreciation , Regensburg 1935
  • U. Martin: Paul Dulner from Nuremberg as a poet of sacred and secular songs by Leonhard Lechner , in: Archive for Musicology No. 11, 1954, pp. 315–322
  • Konrad Ameln: Leonhard Lechner , in: Music and Church No. 26, 1956, pp. 223–231
  • Konrad Ameln: Leonhard Lechner (around 1553 - 1606): Life and work of a German composer from the Adige Valley , Lüdenscheid 1957 (= Lüdenscheider Contribution No. 4)
  • Konrad Ameln: Commemorative speech for Leonhard Lechner on the occasion of the unveiling of a memorial plaque at the Hospital Church in Stuttgart on November 4, 1961 , Stuttgart 1961
  • Walter Blankenburg: On the St. John Passions by Ludwig Daser (1578) and Leonhard Lechner (1593) , in: Gedenkschrift W. Vetter, Leipzig 1969, pp. 63–66
  • O. Kade: The Older Passion Composition , Gütersloh 1893, Reprint Hildesheim 1971
  • Hermann Harrassowitz: History of church music to St. Lorenz in Nuremberg , in: Communications of the Association for the History of the City of Nuremberg No. 60, 1973, pp. 1–152, especially 135–152
  • A. von Imhoff: Leonhard Lechner's Mehrchörigkeit , in: 48th Bach Festival of the New Bach Society, May 30th - June 3rd in Nuremberg, Kassel 1973, pp. 97-99
  • Horst Leuchtmann: Three previously unknown parody masses by Morales, Lechner and Lasso: New discoveries in a Neresheim manuscript from 1578 , in: Musik in Bayern No. 20, 1980, pp. 15–37
  • F. Messmer: Old German song composition. The cantional movement and the tradition of the unity of singing and poetry , Tutzing 1984 (= Munich publications on music history No. 40)
  • Konrad Ameln: Lechner, Leonhard , in: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB), Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 31 and following
  • Franz Körndle: Research on Leonhard Lechner's Missa secunda "Non fu mai cervo" , in: Augsburger Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft No. 3, 1986, pp. 93–159
  • M. Kirnbauer: »The Kronberg Motets«. A contribution to the musical history of Nuremberg? , in: Mitteilungen des Verein für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg No. 78, 1991, pp. 103–122
  • A. McCredie: Orlando di Lasso's Munich Circle and the Württembergische Hofkapelle at Stuttgart , in: Congress report Munich 1994, Munich 1996, pp. 175–190
  • U. Martin: Paul Dulner as lyricist for the composer Leonhard Lechner (approx. 1553-1606) , in: Daphnis No. 26, 1997, pp. 187-198
  • D. Golly-Becker: The Stuttgart court chapel under Duke Ludwig III. (1554–1593) , Stuttgart 1999 (= sources and studies on music in Baden-Württemberg No. 4)
  • Klaus Aringer: Three-part composition techniques with Leonhard Lechner , in: Congress report Jena 2003, dissertation 2005
  • Alexander Rausch: Lechner, Leonhard , in: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon, Volume 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3045-7
  • Marlis Zeus: Leonhard Lechner, such a powerful composer and musician, his life, his work , Helmes Verlag, Karlsruhe 2006, ISBN 3-9808762-4-1
  • Athesinus Consort Berlin : Leonhard Lechner. Sacred Choral Music , Carus Verlag in coproduction with Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2013, EAN 400-9-35083-384-5
  • Klaus-Martin Bresgott : Choir book Leonhard Lechner , Carus Stuttgart 2014, ISMN M-007-16398-3

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Klaus Aringer: Lechner, m Leonhard , in: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.), The Music in Past and Present , second edition, personal section, Volume 10 (Kem - Ler), Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618 -1120-9 , column 1409 - 1414
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil : The Great Lexicon of Music , Volume 5, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3
  3. ↑ Leonhard Lechner ( http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienL/Leonhard_Lechner.html ) in the Ecumenical Saint Lexicon


personal data
SURNAME Lechner, Leonhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lechner, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer and conductor of the late Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1553
PLACE OF BIRTH South-Tirol
DATE OF DEATH September 9, 1606
Place of death Stuttgart