Michael Bauer (singer)

Michael Bauer (born September 30, 1662 in Bockau , † January 1745 ibid) was a German mountain singer and mountain poet in the Ore Mountains .

Mountain singer

According to the notes of Gerhard Heilfurth , the mountain singers still included the leading figure Matthäus Wieser , born in Graslitz in 1617 , later living in Freiberg († 1678) and the Freiberg songwriter Christian Gottlieb Lohse (1712–1754). Mountain singers were miners who, deeply rooted in Christian piety, wrote lyrics to popular hymns. These God-praising texts moved in the mining world of work and thought. Even ordinary people could sing along with these miner songs because they were familiar with the underlying melodies.

Erzgebirge music tradition

In the mining town of Schneeberg , which is adjacent to Bockau , it was customary from 1500 that the shift supervisors of the mines were hired as singers if they were suitable. In the church you led the choir from which today's carolers come from. Often these shift supervisors are referred to as "adjutants of the cantor". After the Reformation , interrupted by the Thirty Years' War, there were contour shareholders in many places. The mining towns entertained mountain choirs and mountain musicians who played on weekends and on important occasions. The mountain choir opened in 1678 when the Elector visited Schneeberg. The mountain music “ Glück Auf, der Steiger is coming! ". Bockau also had such a choir attached to the church. These musicians brought the miners' class to a new dignity, greater prestige and gave it shine.

Singing and instrumental music were cultivated everywhere in the Ore Mountains. A musical culture of its own emerged, which despite many external influences remained typically mining. It reflected the miners' love of home, their closeness to nature, their professional pride and their zest for life. One can hear from the texts not only grief but also complaints against social injustice. The texts were summarized in the so-called "Bergreyhen". These were initially used as a special term for songs of all kinds. Gradually, they only included mining song collections . The need for standardization, which is so typical for the German people, first brought about a "Bergsänger-Ordinance" under the chief miner von Schönberg in 1693, which regulated their tasks and organization. The Freiberg singers were committed to it in 1710. No. 3 of these regulations stipulated for the instrumental accompaniment: "Besides singing, Züttern (mountain zithering ), leather ( rolled ass leather ) and triangle , not to use any other Seyten instruments and whose skin bois, Schallmeyen and French horns were allowed to be used." So the tools such as mallets and irons , as well as the violin and fiddle and the mountain fumble ( dulcimer ).

Life

Michael Bauer was entered in the baptismal register as "Michael, Lorentz Bawer's son". In Bockau there was a lively mining life in Bauer's time. Numerous self-tenants operated pits. From his youth he worked underground . It says in his biography: "From his youth he seriously worked in stamping works, afterwards he worked diligently on crevices and passages and raised an ancient mine" . This was the so-called "Resurrection Mine" under the Bockau cemetery. Bauer first learned how to handle the ores over the course of days in a hydropower-powered stamping mill that crushed quiver ore . Later also in the mountain, where he came in as a tusker. In 1730 he was called Spranger , a "building trade".

In the list of all the houses in the village, farmer is described as a shift supervisor, self-employed, judge, mountain singer. Bauer was a shift supervisor in the "Resurrection" or "Gottesacker" pit. The office of the judge refers to his services within the place. According to the files of the pastor's archive in 1690, Bauer married Anna Maria Weigel from Bermsgrün, who was born on June 22, 1672. The two had four children, namely Eva Barbara, Susanna Catharina, Susanna Maria and Johann Christian.

In 1687 it was recorded that he had rented the St. Georg treasure trove on Heinberg. It is also passed down that he owned shares in mines and held Kuxe . Thus, as an entrepreneur, Bauer already stood out from the broad strata of his class. He was also referred to as "Lord". As mentioned, this experienced mine owner was a judge in Bockau for a while, which is also evidence of his great reputation.

In writings on his life it was recorded that Bauer's model was the poet Nikolaus Hermann . He lived in the heyday of silver mining in Johanngeorgenstadt . Bauer was active in the local community. He was friends with the pastors Hertz (father and son), who appreciated his deep piety.

Bauer died in 1745 in the house of his farm, which he had bought in 1697 for 500 gold thalers, today Sosaer Straße 5. The parish register contains the following entry:

Quote: “TOB 1745/2 funeral sermon and abdication. best. before H. Michael Bauer, wealthy also former judges hl and shift Mstr. is buried dom. 1.p. Epiph. was January 10th, 1745 with 1 funeral sermon. U. abdication. He has the resurrection bill allh. Record God'sAker exhausted. Edirte a BergReyhen book, as printed on Schnebg. It is thought of in Joh. Caspar Wezel's analectis hymnicis Tom. II. St. 2. pag. 103. identical in the H. Oberparsrers MEG Grundig spiritual miners libraryca. "

His wife Anna Maria probably died in 1737.

plant

Bauer's songs reflect the miners' Christian confrontation with nature. You stand in the field of tension between work and faith. The correlation between the two is emphasized in the songs, it is not difficult to see through.

The melodies are somewhere between secular and spiritual singing. That makes sense, because Bauer wasn't a cantor, hadn't studied music, was self-taught . The few references to the entrepreneur Bauer are covered by the broad explanations of his lyrics. According to Gerhard Heilfurth, Bauer's rhymes were simple, simply structured, clear in their message and deeply felt, and in them he excellently reproduced the popular tone of his time . Heilfurth writes that the songs could be classified between secular and spiritual folk song. This is probably why they were loved to be sung and can be found in many collections after Bauer's death.

The original from 1707 was preceded by the imprint of one of the farmer songs in a so-called " flying sheet ". In 1717 he published old and new songs at his own expense, for his own pleasure and honor , under the title: The mining luck collection. Another edition appeared in 1726.

Texts

The texts that he has written are listed below one after the other.

1707

1. I want to raise a mountain member (7 stanzas)
2. On your miners 'all' (6 stanzas)
3. We want to sing a mountain rhyme (8 stanzas)
4. To your miners in general (7 stanzas)
5. Put your trust in God alone (11 stanzas)
6. Now let's praise the mine (6 stanzas)
7. We want to lift a mountain member (13 stanzas)
8. Lord God, you rich creator mine (14 stanzas)

The title page, followed by 29 pages, reads:

"Different beautiful spiritual mountain rows / Every building trade / Steigern and mountain people for a consolation / In addition to a mountain prayer / As well as other beautiful spiritual songs / on the current state of the difficult times of war / Well-meaning every Christian heart communicated / and set up by Michael Bauer / from Buckau. Printed in 1707 ” .

The additional titles that were probably published in 1717 were then found in various places,

1. Rejoice, you mountains and valleys (8 stanzas)
2. Up, to you miners in general and let me tell you this (7 stanzas)
3. We want to sing a mountain row (16 stanzas)
4. Rejoice you miners 'all' (7 stanzas)
5. Rejoice you miners young and old (7 stanzas)

literature

• Hanns Berger: Directory of house and landowners in Bockau. Bockau, 1957.
• Manfred Blechschmidt : The Bockau miner poet Michael Bauer. In: Lokalanzeiger Erzgebirge , April 5, 1995.
• Gerhard Heilfurth : The Erzgebirge miner's song. An outline of his literary history. Glückauf-Verlag, Schwarzenberg / Erzgebirge 1936, p. 42 (Leipzig, University, dissertation, 1936).
• Gerhard Heilfurth, Erich Seemann et al. (Hrsg.): Bergreihen. A collection of songs from the 16th century with 3 episodes (= Central German Research. Vol. 16, ISSN  0544-5957 ). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1959.
• Siegfried Sieber : A Bockau miner poet. In: Glück auf. 6, 1956.

swell

1. ↑ Gerhard Heilfurth: The newly found song print of the Erzgebirge miner Michael Bauer from 1707. A "special voice of popular piety". In: Hans Rothe, Roderich Schmidt, Dieter Stellmacher (Hrsg.): Commemorative publication for Reinhold Olesch (= Central German Research. Vol. 100). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 1990, ISBN 3-412-02190-3 , pp. 311–336.