Richard Gillar

Choir rector and organist, Bytom

Richard Gillar (born March 28, 1855 in Hultschin ; † January 20, 1939 there ) was a Silesian organist and author. In 1895, as choirmaster and organist at the Marienkirche in Beuthen (Upper Silesia), he published a hymnbook for the Polish population and a corresponding chorale book .

Life

Richard Gillar was born in Hultschin in 1855 as the son of Franz Paul Gillar (April 9, 1810 - August 8, 1893) and Anna Marianne Kalischek (February 24, 1817 - October 27, 1905). At that time the city belonged to the district of Ratibor / Upper Silesia in Prussia .

After his school days in Hultschin, Gillar attended the preparandy, the teacher training center founded in Pilchowitz near Gleiwitz / Upper Silesia in 1867 . After graduating, he initially worked as a teacher at the Catholic boys' school in Beuthen / Upper Silesia. There he married Klara Susanne Maria Leischner on January 31, 1881. The Gillar couple had six children.

After 15 years of school service, on December 1, 1892, he took over the offices of choir director and organist at St. Mary's Church in Beuthen. He was the successor to his father-in-law Anton Leischner. He held the offices for 32 years, until his emeritus degree in 1924.

After the death of his wife Klara Leischner in 1931, the 76-year-old Richard Gillar moved back to Königsberg an der Eger in Czechoslovakia. He later moved from Königsberg to Hultschin, his birthplace, which had belonged to Czechoslovakia since 1919. The almost 84-year-old died there on January 20, 1939 and was buried in the Mater Dolorosa cemetery in Beuthen next to his wife and not far from his predecessor and father-in-law Anton Leischner.

Church music work

Title page of the hymn book Śpiewnik dla ludu katolickiego (1900 edition)

Nothing is known about Richard Gillar's musical career. In Beuthen, where he lived from around 1880, he must have had early contact with church music. Since the marriage at the latest, he was in direct contact with Anton Leischner, the organist of St. Marien. When he was appointed organist on December 1, 1892, he was already an experienced connoisseur of church music, especially of Polish songs.

Richard Gillar only worked for a short time in his new office as organist when colleagues and church officials asked him to publish a new songbook for the Polish population. A large part of the population of Upper Silesia was Polish-speaking. Polish services were held for them in St. Mary's Church in Bytom, but there were no current and appropriate song books. The same applied to the organ accompaniment . Gillar complied. He took his organist colleague Hoffmann from the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Beuthen as adviser. After just two years, the first hymn book in Polish appeared in 1895 Śpiewnik dla ludu katolickiego oraz książka do nabożeństwa (“ Hymn book for the Catholic people and book for worship”). It contained a total of 451 Polish song texts with corresponding notation. The book, which he sold personally, was so successful that a second, expanded edition with 568 songs followed in 1897. After that, further, enlarged versions came out. The last edition of 1908 contained 887 texts. At the same time, a large number of excerpts for special occasions, arrangements for wind instruments , others for the organ and the like were published. A first chorale book, d. H. the organ arrangement of the Polish songs, he had in 1903 in Leipzig at Leuckert. The German edition of the chorale book followed in 1905.

Gillar was a native speaker of German. During and after his professional training, he lived as a teacher in Polish and German-speaking Upper Silesia. During this time, with constant contact with the Polish-speaking population, he was also likely to have learned Polish or the Silesian dialect Water Polish . That was the basis for his understanding of the Polish language melody. He left the detailed editing of the Polish lyrics to the appropriate specialists. One of them was his organist colleague Hoffmann. Gillar also devoted himself to the older songs with great zeal. In doing so, he smoothed out the texts, e.g. Sometimes with new melodies and gave individual songs several melodies.

The published in November 1903 Motu Proprio of Pope Pius X on Sacred Music Tra le sollecitudini acted on hymnals and Choralbuch of Gillar as it - as required - is different as between songs for domestic use and those for worship. In 1908 Gillar emerged again with an extensive chorale book published together with Thomas Cieplik, an active member of the Beuthen music scene of the time.

literature

• Józef Chudalla: Richard Gillar and Thomas Cieplik as authors of organ accompaniments for Polish hymns in Silesia . Master's thesis at the Institute of Musicology at the Catholic University of Lublin, 1996.
• Józef Waliczek: Repertoire of hymns in Upper Silesia in the light of the chorale books of the XX. Century . Warsaw-Katowitz, 1984.

Web links

• Choral book by R. Gillar
• Address directory Beuthen 1880
• Beuthen cemeteries from the Middle Ages to the present day