Peter Piel

Peter Piel (born August 12, 1835 in Kessenich near Bonn , † August 21, 1904 in Boppard ) was a German composer , music theorist and teacher .

Live and act

Peter Piel was born the son of a small farmer and spent his childhood from 1837 in nearby Cologne.

Piel received his first lessons in piano , violin and organ playing at the preparatory school for the teachers' college in Kempen , where he studied from 1854 to 1856. His teacher Albert Michael Jepkens soon became aware of Piel's outstanding talent and delegated parts of the music lessons to him. After Jepkens' death, Piel continued the edition of his collection “Ecclesiastical Chants for the Male Choir”, which he subsequently expanded significantly.

In 1868 Piel was appointed to the newly founded Royal School Teachers' Seminar in Boppard , where he was appointed First Seminar Teacher in 1878 and Royal Music Director in 1887, in which position he worked here until his death.

Piel's most important work is his " Harmonielehre ", published in 1889 , which was published in twelve further editions until 1923; they, like many of his organ pieces, arose from his practical experience in teaching with his seminar students.

Piel was a committed member of the Cecilia Society , as well as the Michael Hermesdorff Choral Society . Together with Hermesdorff, Heinrich Oberhoffer , Stephan Lück , Heinrich Böckeler and Peter Wagner, he is one of the most important reformers of church music in the Rhineland.

Piel remained unmarried throughout his life. He continued his education through regular trips to neighboring countries. The musical performances he conducted in the Boppard seminar, especially in the field of Gregorian chant, were considered exemplary among the Cecilian church musicians of his time.

His compositional style, which is documented in 114 works with opus numbers, including 41 masses , and other everyday music for simple church music conditions, is committed to the ideals of Cäcilianism and received widespread attention in the 19th century; however, his numerous works have been almost completely forgotten today.

Works

Compositions

I. Vocal works:

• 41 fairs
• approx. 200 liturgical chants in Latin & German
• Litanies
• Cantatas
• Magnificat
• Te Deum
• Marian antiphons
• requiem
• Offers
• Lamentations
• Vespers
• Ave Maria
• Hymns

II. Organ Works:

• Organ trios
• approx. 250 individual pieces u. Accompanying sentences
• Organ books for the hymn books of the dioceses of Cologne & Trier

III: Piano works & chamber music:

• Sonatinas
• Marches
• Suites & Sonatas for Piano and Violin

(Catalog raisonné in Paul Mies, PP, in: Rheinische Musik, edited by KG Fellerer, Cologne 1960 pp. 200–204)

Fonts

• About the singing. Some of the teaching and method of singing, Düsseldorf 1873
• Course for singing lessons in elementary school based on the method followed in the seminar practice school in Boppard, Düsseldorf 1901
• Harmony teaching. With special consideration of the requirements for church organ playing, initially for teacher seminars, Düsseldorf 1889
• Preface to Paul Schmetz, The Harmonization of Gregorian Choral Singing. A manual for learning how to accompany a choir, Düsseldorf 1885
• Reviews: In the "Cäcilien-Vereins-Catalog", Regensburg 1870 ff.
• Lumen cordium. Catholic prayer and Hymn book especially for use in higher educational institutions, ed. v. HJ Liessem u. P. Piel, Cologne 1898
• Organ book for the liturgical chants of Laudes divinae, Paderborn 1882
• Handbook of Choral Singing. Contains liturgy. Chants to St. Mass and for Holy Week along with some chants of various contents, Paderborn 1882
• Liber marianus seu cantiones in honorem BMV, ad quatuor voces adaptatae from auctoribus diversis, Leipzig 1888.

literature

• Monthly books for music history, 37, 1905, p. 99
• Paul Mies, Peter Piel, a master of the Musica sacra, in: Messages for cath. Church musician, 1935, no. 2, pp. 13-19
• ders., Peter Piel, in: Musica Sacra , 78, 1958, pp. 255-257
• ders., Peter Piel, in: Rhenish Musicians, ed. v. KG Fellerer, Cologne 1960, pp. 200-204
• ders., An unprinted mass by Peter Piel, in: Musicae sacrae ministerium. Festschrift for KG Fellerer, ed. by J. Overath, Cologne 1962, pp. 243-246
• KG Fellerer (ed.), History of the cath. Church music, Vol. 2, Kassel 1976, 228 f., 230, 274, 298
• Gabriela Krombach, The Church Music Works of Peter Piel and the Palestrina Style, in: Palestrina and the classical vocal polyphony as a model for church music compositions in the 19th century, ed. by M. Janitzek, Kassel 1995, pp. 113-125
• Joachim Faller:  PIEL, Peter. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 29, Bautz, Nordhausen 2008, ISBN 978-3-88309-452-6 , Sp. 1082-1084.

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Piel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Public domain scores by Peter Piel in the Choral Public Domain Library