Moritz Brosig

Moritz Brosig around 1870

Moritz Brosig (born October 15, 1815 in Fuchswinkel near Patschkau ( Upper Silesia ), † January 24, 1887 in Breslau ) was a German composer and organist, a leading representative of the Breslau school .

Life

Childhood and youth

Moritz Brosig was born on October 15, 1815, the youngest son of a manor owner in Fuchswinkel near Neisse. When he was three years old, his father died and the family moved to Wroclaw. Brosig grew up here. He attended the Catholic Matthias Gymnasium up to Prima. He then spent three months at the Catholic teachers' college, which he then had to leave because of his poor health. Then he decided to become a church musician. He became a student of the cathedral organist and Royal Music Director at the Institute for Church Music at the Franz Wolf University in Breslau .

Musician career

From 1838 he worked as an organist at St. Adalbert. There, Brosig often represented his teacher on the cathedral organ and after his death in 1843 was appointed his successor as cathedral organist. Brosig became famous for his organ playing and improvisational skills, although he never gave concerts outside the Wroclaw Cathedral . In 1853 he applied for the position of cathedral music director, which had become vacant due to the death of Bernhard Hahn , which he won against competition from Peter Cornelius and B. Hahn the Elder. J. received.

College career

In 1871 he also became a lecturer at the Institute for Church Music at the University of Breslau. This gave him the title of Dr. phil. H. c. after he had written a “Modulation Theory” (1865) and a “Harmony Theory” (1874). He received his doctorate with a dissertation on church compositions of the 16th and 17th centuries, and later he became a professor. The third edition of the "Harmony Theory" appeared eight years later, and in 1899 Carl Thiel published its fourth edition as a handbook of harmony and modulation .

In 1884, at the age of 69, Brosig resigned from his position and died in Breslau in 1887.

Church music reform

During Brosig's tenure as cathedral music director, a movement formed in Germany that rose up against the use of profane music in the church.

Cecilianism

Following the Katholikentag in Bamberg in 1868 the " General Cäcilien-Verein " was founded. In the same year Brosig became a co-founder of the “Silesian Cecilia Association” in Opole . In the following year, however, he distanced himself from him again because he did not want to go along with his too radical backwardness. The music accompanying the orchestra was still cultivated in the Wroclaw Cathedral ; it did not disappear entirely, as was the case e.g. B. in Regensburg . However, Brosig also carried out reforms. Masses by Haydn , Mozart and Cherubini , which seemed too unliturgic to him, disappeared from the repertoire, as did the wind trades usual on festive occasions (entrance music). From 1860 on, music was only played a cappella in the cathedral in the Kartagen. Brosig thus represented a moderate reform of church music, which the vocal music of the 16./17. Century appreciated their artistic value and their liturgical function, but also included the contemporary compositional means and did not want to do without instrumental means of expression. Brosig published his view of the Cecilian reform in 1880 in his work “On the old church compositions and their reintroduction”.

Wroclaw School

Brosig's compositions were valued and widespread above all in Silesia and also in Austria and southern Germany. With the exception of a few chamber music works and songs, he only wrote church music. Six publishers published a significant part of his organ music and vocal compositions. Brosig wrote good music for worship. His organ music reveals a stylistic relationship to that of F. Mendelssohn . His contemporaries praised Brosig's melodic ingenuity and his varied harmony. For the vocal compositions, Rudolf Walter states that the church music of F. Schubert and CM von Webers influenced Brosig. An article in the “Zeitschrift für kath. Church music ”from 1869 emphasizes:“ The vocal choir, in proper appreciation, has the main share. However, none of the voices is taken to the extreme limits of their range, so that in this respect the execution can only be called convenient. The orchestra, nowhere overgrowing the main thing, is applied to the extent that it helps to truly characterize the text. "At a critical distance from both the traditional, classical, operatic orchestral mass and the radical Cecilian eradication of every orchestral music in the church, Brosig tried to to do justice to the liturgical place in his compositions and to create high quality music in contemporary musical forms of expression.

In this way he became an important representative of the so-called " Breslau School " of the cathedral musicians of the 19th and 20th centuries, which made the Breslau cathedral a center of good church music that radiated widely.

Create

Brosig wrote nine masses, numerous organ compositions (around 120 of which were printed), a Catholic chorale book, piano and cello compositions, a modulation theory and a theory of harmony that was published in numerous editions. His students included Adolf Cebrian , Salomon Jadassohn , Anna Benfey and Hermann Scholtz .

Works

• About the old church compositions of the 16th and 17th centuries and their reintroduction in Catholic worship . Leipzig: FEC Leuckart, 1880.
• Handbook of Harmony and Modulation . 6th edition, revised and with contribution vers. by Carl Thiel . Leipzig: Leuckart, 1912.

Compositions

• opus 1: Three preludes and fugues (E minor, C major, F sharp minor)
• Opus 3: Five organ pieces for use in church services (4 preludes in F minor, G major, B minor, G major; prelude and fugue in G minor)
• opus 4: Five chorale preludes (Now the day has ended, To my dear God, Dearest Jesus, we are here, Out of deep need I cry to you, O head full of blood and wounds)
• opus 6: Fantasy on the song "Christ is risen"
• opus 7: Mass (E minor)
• opus 8b: Twenty-one preludes to sermon songs
• opus 11: three preludes (F major, C major, E flat major) and two postludes (F minor, C major)
• opus 12: Four organ pieces (prelude in G major, prelude to the song "O Sadness", prelude and fugue in A minor, prelude in A flat major)
• opus 16: German choral mass based on old choral melodies
• opus 19: Six tone pieces for organ
• opus 22: Deux Sérénades p. Pfte et Violon (ou Violoncelle)
• opus 23: Short and easily executable Vespers (De Confessore)
• opus 29: 3rd (short) mass
• opus 30: Melodies for the Catholic hymn book
• opus 32: organ book
• opus 46: Eight organ pieces of different character (preludes in D major, F minor, G major, C major, C minor, D major; festival prelude in E flat major, prelude in G minor)
• opus 47: Five Organ Pieces (3 Andante in B flat major, A major A flat major; Prelude in A major; Postludium in D major)
• opus 49: Five Organ Pieces (Fantasy in C minor; 3 Andante in A minor, E major, F major; Adagio in A flat major)
• opus 52: Ten organ pieces of different characters and two chorale preludes
• opus 53: Fantasy No.1 in F minor
• opus 54: Fantasy No.2 in E flat major
• opus 55: Fantasy number 3 in D minor
• opus 58: Eight organ pieces (preludes in E minor, C major; postludes in F minor, D minor, preludes to “Do not punish me in your anger”, “Come God, Creator”; trios in E major, G major)
• opus 60: Six preludes and fugues (E flat major, C minor, E major, A minor, D major, C sharp minor)
• opus 61: Five pieces of sound of different character plus three postludes with details of the pedal application

Audio samples

Moritz Brosig: Larghetto for Organ from the Fantasy op. 53 2.50 MB ^{? / i}

• Festival prelude in Eb op. 46,7 , Siegfried Gmeiner on the Walcker organ (1904) by St. Georg, Ulm.

literature

• Lothar Hoffmann inheritance law: Music history of Silesia . Laumann, Dülmen 1986, ISBN 978-3-8288-9775-5 .
• Lothar Hoffmann inheritance law (Ed.): Schlesischens Musiklexikon . Weißner, Augsburg 2001, ISBN 3-89639-242-5 , pp. 95 f .
• Alois Schirdewahn: Cathedral Kapellmeister Professor Dr. Moritz Brosig. (Traits from his and his parents' life) (= On the Silesian Church History , Volume 18, ZDB -ID 1171613-7 ). Publishing house of the Neisser Zeitung, Neisse 1936.
• Rudolf Walter (di: Rudolf Walter Kischke): Moritz Brosig. (1815-1887). Domkapellmeister in Breslau (= publications of the Haus Oberschlesien Foundation , Volume 3). Laumann, Dülmen 1988, ISBN 3-87466-112-1 (with catalog raisonné).

Web links

• Scores and audio files by Moritz Brosig in the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by and about Moritz Brosig in the catalog of the German National Library
• Liudgera Speer: about M. Brosig. In: Kulturportal-Wet-Ost

Individual evidence

1. ^ History of Music in Silesia, pp. 118f
2. ↑ Festival prelude in E-flat op.46.7 (MP3; 3.6 MB)
3. ^ Walcker organ (1904) from St. Georg, Ulm