Roman Hofstetter

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Roman Hofstetter (also: Romanus Hoffstetter ; born April 24, 1742 in Laudenbach, now part of Weikersheim ; † May 21, 1815 in Miltenberg am Main) was a German composer , viola virtuoso and Catholic clergyman.

Live and act

Roman Hofstetter was the son of Sebastian Hofstetter, a ludimagister and scriba iudici (court clerk). On June 5, 1763, Roman took the vow of the order in the Benedictine monastery Amorbach in the Odenwald , which at that time belonged to the Archdiocese of Mainz . He was ordained a priest there on September 10, 1766 and was a prior of the monastery from 1773 to 1778. From 1776 to 1785 he also had the function of prior culinaris . From where he got his musical training as a composer and viola player has not yet been established by music historical research. In the course of the general abolition of the monasteries in Germany in 1803, the Amorbach monastery was also dissolved and Hofstetter withdrew with the abbot of the monastery to the nearby town of Miltenberg. As a clergyman he was a member of the diocese of Würzburg . His correspondence with Joseph Martin Kraus , who later became the Swedish court conductor, and with Frederic Samuel Silverstolpe gives some insights into his work as a choir director and composer.

Roman's brother Johann Urban Aloys Hofstetter (* late 1735 or at the latest January 1736 in Laudenbach, † January 26, 1810 in Ellingen) created compositions in addition to his administrative service for the Teutonic Knight Order in the Ellinger Balllei, including six symphonies (Nuremberg 1772) and twelve Germans Songs for voice and piano (Augsburg 1798).

meaning

Roman Hofstetter achieved particular fame when the music researchers Alan Tyson and HC Robbins Landon assigned the six string quartets op. 3 from Joseph Haydn's works to Hofstetter and published them in the Musical Times magazine in 1964 . Of these works, neither Haydn nor Hofstetter's manuscripts exist. The first print by the Parisian publisher Antoine Bailleux (active 1761 to 1801) from 1777 shows Haydn as the composer on the title page, but from the individual parts of the first two quartets it can be seen that the name Hofstetter has been deleted. Landon and Tyson concluded that Hofstetter was the author of all six quartets and that Bailleux had sold them under the better-known Haydn's name for commercial reasons. Later research by Ludwig Finscher , Hubert Unverricht and Alan Tyson has confirmed Hofstetter's authorship for the first two quartets with some certainty. An essay by Günther Zuntz , published in 1986 , which held serious philological errors up to Tyson and Landon and advocated maintaining Haydn's authorship, received little attention.

Roman Hofstetter was an admirer of Joseph Haydn's music and as a composer leaned on his style. His musical thoughts are catchy, easy to grasp, and folk in style. He has received solo concerts for viola and string quartets in two collections as well as various church music works. His Mass in F major for soloists, choir, orchestra and concert organ is included on the CD Festive Music from Southwest German Benedictine Monasteries , which was published by the Ars musici label .

Works

  • Vocal music
    • Mass in C major (partly in A minor) for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Mass in E flat major for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Mass in F major for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Mass in G major for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Mass in D major for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Mass in B flat major for solos, choir and orchestra
    • 4 more masses, lost
    • 2 further masses, probably wrongly assigned to Hofstetter
    • Te Deum for solos, choir and orchestra
    • Jubilate Deo universa terra , Offertorium de omni tempore
    • Stella Coeli in F major
  • Assigned vocal music for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and orchestra (handwritten under Hofstetter's name, probably by Roman Hofstetter)
    • Vespera da dominica in D major (I) (around 1770?)
    • Vespera da dominica in D major (II) (1780)
    • Vespera pastorella in D major (after 1780?)
    • Lauretan litany (1782)
    • Beatus vir , Offertory (1787)
    • 3 settings of Fracto demum sacramento (D major, G major, C major)
    • Fracto ecce panis
    • 2 settings by Stella Coeli (both in E flat major)
    • Bonum est , Graduale de tempore (from the beginning of the 19th century, author's note Dal Sigl. Hoffstetter et Gaelle )
  • Instrumental music
    • 2 Divertimenti in F major (around 1765?)
    • 6 string quartets op.1 (Amsterdam 1772)
    • 6 string quartets op. 2 (Mannheim 1780)
    • 3 viola concertos (E flat major, C major, G major, around 1785)

Literature (selection)

  • László Somfai : On the authenticity of Haydn's op.3 . In: Das Haydn-Jahrbuch Nr. 3, 1965, pp. 153-165, ZDB -ID 214184-x .
  • Hubert Unverricht , Adam Gottron, Alan Tyson: The two Hoffstetter. Two composer portraits with catalog raisonnés (= Contributions to the Middle Rhine Music History, Volume 10, ISSN  0522-6937 ). Schott, Mainz 1968.
  • Hubert Unverricht: Romanus Hoffstetter's string quartets . In: Hermann Dechant, Wolfgang Sieber (Hrsg.): Gedenkschrift Hermann Beck . Laaber 1982, pp. 107-110.
  • Marshall J. Fine: The viola concertos of Fr. Roman Hofstetter, OSB. A new edition based on the manuscripts found at the university of Lund . UMI Publications, Ann Arbor MI 1990 (also: Dissertation at Memphis State University 1990).
  • G. Krombach: An organ solo mass by P. Roman Hoffstetter? In: Mitteilungen der Internationale Joseph-Martin-Kraus-Gesellschaft , 1991, Issue 11/12, pp. 27–34.
  • Hubert Unverricht: Father Roman Hoffstetter OSB as composer of the fair . In: Axel Beer, Kristina Pfarr, Wolfgang Ruf: Festschrift Christoph-Hellmut Mahling (= Mainz Studies in Musicology , No. 37). Tutzing 1997, pp. 1427-1437.

Web links

Commons : Roman Hoffstetter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubert Unverricht:  Hoffstetter, Roman. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 9 (Himmel - Kelz). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1119-5 , Sp. 138-139 ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ^ Stanley Sadie (ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Volume 11. 2nd Edition. McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
  3. ^ Alan Tyson , HC Robbins Landon : Who composed Haydn's Op. 3? In: The Musical Times , Volume 5, No. 1457, July 1964, pp. 506-507, doi: 10.2307 / 949842
  4. ^ Günther Zuntz : The String Quartets op. 3 by Joseph Haydn . In: Die Musikforschung , Volume 39, No. 3, July / September 1986, pp. 217-239, JSTOR 41119911
personal data
SURNAME Hofstetter, Roman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffstetter, Romanus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical composer and clergyman of the Amorbach monastery
DATE OF BIRTH April 24, 1742
PLACE OF BIRTH Laudenbach
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1815
Place of death Miltenberg am Main