Maîtrise (church music)

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In the French-speaking world, a maîtrise is the name of a historical institution for church choir training.

term

In the field of French church music, maîtrise (also psallet ) refers to the totality of the choirboys (Kapellknaben) on the one hand, and the training facility (singing school) of the choirboys, which was attached to a cathedral or collegiate church , in today's northern French and Belgian regions , on the other Room from the 14th to 18th centuries. These were organized and financed independently by the respective chapter and led by at least one maître (Magister or magister puerorum ). The building, also often referred to as Maîtrise, in which the choir boys were housed, was mostly in the immediate vicinity of the church. These houses were mostly built with the help of foundations; one example is the important gift of money from King Ludwig XI. (Reign 1461–1483) to the choirboys of the cathedral of Rouen from 1462 to build a new maîtrise. Especially for the buildings in question, the name psallette was sometimes used , as documented for Chartres in 1479.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the term maîtrise still had the meaning of a training facility in general, and it was only in the course of the 18th century that it finally assumed the meaning of a church music training facility. After the maîtrises were dissolved in the course of the French Revolution , the training centers of this type that were rebuilt in the 19th century were called maîtrises from the start.

History and meaning

Following the example of the Roman Schola cantorum , the Carolingian reforms (8th and 9th centuries) in France saw the founding of the first schools for teaching music to boys at important cathedrals in the country, e. B. in Cambrai , Lille or Paris . The aim was to standardize the choral singing with the help of trained boys' voices, to which a special ideal and qualitative importance was assigned. These schools can be seen as pre-forms of the maîtrises. The uniformly structured Maîtrisen were then founded as strictly organized bodies in the 14th century (e.g. Amiens 1324 or Cambrai 1386 at the latest) on the basis of Pope John XXII. (Term of office 1316–1334) introduced administrative reforms. The aim of these measures was the elimination of local traditions of the distribution of power and thus extensive control of the collegiate and cathedral chapters by the curia ; This centralization step also fundamentally changed the form of training for the chapel boys.

The organizational and economic basis of the maîtrises consisted of the reassignment of one or more benefices for housing, supply, clothing and teaching of the boys and one or more masters. In this way the chapter could oversee the selection of students or teachers. This form of organization of the Maîtrisen remained in place until its dissolution at the end of the 18th century. The number of boys ranged from four to twelve, depending on the possibilities and commitment of the chapter. The aforementioned reassignment of benefices always required papal permission, consequently the foundations of maîtrises can be found not only in local archives, but also in the files of the Vatican.

In a maîtrise, a small number of carefully selected boys from the age of six or seven had the opportunity to receive a sound education that usually lasted until their voices broke . The focus was on choral singing lessons and general music lessons; In addition, there were classes in Latin and the three lower of the seven medieval subjects grammar , rhetoric and dialectic ( trivium ). Well-equipped maîtrises had, in addition to the master’s degree for the musical field, one for general instruction. The daily routine was strictly regulated according to the hourly prayer . In addition to the lessons, there was usually a full-day obligation to choral service at church services. The only early evidence of teaching and daily routine is the Doctrina pro pueris ecclesie parisiensis by Jean Charlier de Gerson (1363–1429) from 1411; a more extensive description of the order in Reims is handed down from August 25, 1681.

A large number of maîtrises were founded in the 15th century, with the Burgundian dukes, especially Philip the Good (reigned 1419–1465), having played a significant role. The foundations in Troyes 1406, Saint-Omer 1417, Beaune 1418/19, Bourges 1420, Dijon 1424, Bruges and Lille 1425, Chinon 1429, Nantes 1433, Loches 1448, Mâcon 1467 and Autun 1473 deserve special mention The most important musical training centers in the French-speaking area were a clear model for similar foundations in the German, English and Italian-speaking areas up to the papal chapel and retained their importance until the French Revolution in 1789. Other important maîtrises arose in Aix-en-Provence , Clermont-Ferrand , Langres , Rouen and Saint-Quentin . What is striking is the parallel movement of the music-pedagogical rank of the maîtrises in the late 14th and 15th centuries with the rapid increase in musical talents during this period in the field of Franco-Flemish music , although it is difficult to decide which of the two movements favors or promotes the other Has.

It is certain that the career of almost all well-known Franco-Flemish composers of the 15th and 16th centuries began with maîtrises, where they were not only trained, but where they later returned, at least temporarily, as masters. Nicholas Grenon, for example, headed the Maîtrise of Laon as a Magister from 1403 to 1408 and then took over the management of this institution in Cambrai. Guillaume Dufay , himself a student of the Maîtrise of Cambrai, was Grenon's successor here in 1442. Jacob Obrecht was a magister puerorum in Utrecht and had the famous humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam as a student in 1477/78 . Also finally had Orlando di Lasso and Philippe de Monte received their training in Maîtrisen. From the 16th century onwards, Maîtrisen were also re-established. In addition, there has been a certain expansion of the activities of the trained band boys. In addition to the everyday and special liturgical occasions, they also sang on official secular occasions, such as the arrival of crowned heads in a city.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the maîtrises were of considerable importance for general music education in France, which can also be seen from the surviving sheet music. Training in instrumental play also got an increasing rank; As early as the 15th century, a number of organists emerged from Maîtrisen. The training center in Aix-en-Provence, which existed until 1962 and produced such well-known instrumentalists and composers as André Campra (1660–1744), Claude-Mathieu Pellegrin (1682–1763), Étienne-Joseph Floquet ( 1748–1785) and Félicien-César David (1810–1876), who was trained here from 1818 to 1825. Well-known composers like François-Joseph Gossec (1734–1829), André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry (1741–1813) and François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834) were trained in Maîtrisen. According to estimates by the French music historian Joseph Louis d'Ortigue (1802–1866), there were around 400 maîtrisen in France before the revolution with around 4,000 students and about as many permanent teachers. The dissolution of the Maîtrisen (proclaimed 1789 and implemented in 1791) took place in order to bring music education under state control (establishment of the institution of a Conservatoire 1794/95). In other European countries, however, the institutions concerned mostly continued to exist.

At the beginning of the 19th century, movements of restoration and choral reform emerged, which were connected with the re-establishment of numerous maîtrises, for example in Rouen in 1805, Aix-en-Provence in 1807, Autun in 1808 and other cities. A hundred years later, Pope Pius X (term of office 1903–1914) tried to restore the maîtrises' former leadership role with his church music decree "Motu proprio" from 1903, but had little success. In today's French usage, “Maîtrise” is synonymous with the German word “Kirchenchor”. This term is also used in France today in the name of choral associations, for example “Maîtrise de Radio-France” or “Psallette de Lorraine”.

Literature (selection)

  • HB Schonnefeld: History of boys' voices in the service of church music with some conclusions. In: Caecilien Kalender Nr. 4, 1879, pages 57–67
  • A.-E. Prévost: Histoire de la maîtrise de la cathédrale de Troyes. In: Mémoires de la Société académique d'agriculture, des sciences, arts et belles-lettres du département de l'Aube No. 42, 1905, pages 213-276; self-employed Troyes 1906
  • H. Bachelin: Les Maîtrises et la musique de choer , Paris 1930
  • G. van Doorslaer: La Maîtrise de Saint-Rombaut à Malines jusqu'en 1580. In: Musica sacra No. 43, 1936, pages 162-185
  • N. Joachim: Aperçu historique sur la maîtrise de la cathédrale de Tournai , Tournai [1942]
  • G. Roussel: Les maîtrises d'enfants et les offices liturgiques. In: Atti del Congresso internazionale di Musica Sacra, Rome 1950
  • P. Pimsleur: The French Maîtrise. In: The Musical Times No. 95, 1954, p. 361 et seq
  • F. Raugel: Une maîtrise célèbre au grand siècle: la maîtrise de la cathédrale d'Aix-en-Provence. In: Revue des études du XVII e siècle, in: Musica (Paris) No. 1, 1954, pages 16-19
  • G. Roussel: Le Rôle exemplaire des maîtrises de cathédrale. In: La Revue musicale No. 239/240, 1958, pages 263-265
  • O. Fr. Becker: The Maîtrise in Northern France and Burgundy During the Fifteenth Century , Dissertation at George Peabody College for Teachers, Ann Arbor 1967
  • G. Bourligueux: La Vie quotidienne à la psallette de la cathédrale de Rennes au XVIII e siècle. In: Recherches No. 7, 1967, pp. 205-216
  • The same: La Maîtrise de la cathédrale de Vannes au XVIII e siècle. In: Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Bretagne No. 9, 1969/70
  • J. Rodriguez: La Musique et les musiciens à la cathèdrale d'Avignon au XVIII e siècle. In: Recherches No. 13, 1973, pages 64-101
  • Reinhard Strohm: Music in Late Medieval Bruges , Oxford 1985
  • C. Löhmer: The world of children in the 15th century , Weinheim 1989
  • I. Boghossian: Aix-en-Provence: catalog de fonds musical de l'ancienne maîtrise de la cathédrale Saint-Sauveur , Aix-en-Provence 1990
  • Eq. P. Johnson: Aspects of Late Medieval Music of the Cathedral of Amiens , PhD thesis at Yale University 1991
  • Article Maîtrise in the Dictionnaire de musique en France, edited by N. Dufourq and M. Brenet, Paris 1992

swell

  1. ↑ Laurenz Lütteken:  Maîtrise. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, subject part, volume 5 (Kassel - Meiningen). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 1996, ISBN 3-7618-1106-3  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 5: Köth - Mystical Chord. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3 .