Samuel Mareschall

Samuel Mareschall (* around May 22, 1554 in Tournai ; † between June 1 and November 1, 1640 in Basel ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , organist , singer and teacher of the late Renaissance .

Live and act

No information has been passed on about the parentage, youth or education of Samuel Mareschall. For the years 1576 and 1577 he enrolled at the University of Basel to study. In 1577 he succeeded Gregor Meyer as organist at Basel Munster , who had been the first Protestant organist there; in the same year Mareschall was appointed professor of music at the university . In addition, he got a job as a music teacher at the grammar school on Münsterplatz and at the Collegium Alumnorum . It was also one of his tasks to hold weekly practice lessons ("musices exercitia") for church singing at the cathedral with the students of the grammar school and the alumni . From 1589 he also worked as a cantor at the cathedral . Mareschall called himself an imperial notary ; he was also responsible for preparing doctoral degrees for the university. In 1581 he had married the daughter of a Basel preacher, Anna Hertzog; The marriage resulted in eleven children.

meaning

Samuel Mareschall was still completely committed to the 16th century in his musical style. The best-known part of his compositional work consists in his cantionalia . In 1606 he published two books with psalm settings, which were later reprinted several times, “The whole Psalter” and “Psalms of David”. These are written in the style of the cantional movement , with the melody part not being in the tenor as it used to be ("tenor song"), but in the top voice ( soprano ). The two publications "Melodie suaves" and "Porta musices" were intended for music lessons in schools; In the latter treatise he presents principles "on the noble kind of music", and he also gives brief instructions on playing the violin and on a way of singing "that astonishes the listener easily". In his final years Mareschall wrote four organ tablature books ; two of them contain noteworthy psalm adaptations. The other two bring spiritual and secular movements by other composers, such as Jacobus Clemens non Papa , Thomas Crécquillon , R. Godard, Hans Leo Haßler , Clément Janequin , Orlando di Lasso , Claudio Merulo and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina ; In addition, there are two ballets , three short fugues and prelude-like movements for the twelve church modes without the composer's name.

Works

• Vocal music
  • “The whole Psalter by Ambrosius Lobwasser [...] brought to Teutsche Reymen [...]. Now and again trimmed with four votes ”, Basel 1606; 2nd edition 1639
  • “Psalms of David, church chants and spiritual songs, set by D. Martin Luther […] with four voices […] contrapunctually”, Basel 1606 and 1639
  • 2 canons of four to five voices, 1578
• Instrumental music in organ tablatures
  • 158 intabulations , including 124 French psalms, 33 German psalms and hymns and 1 chanson spirituelle , 1593
  • 38 “Psalms of David Lobwassers” with 35 psalms, 1638
  • 89 intabulations based on “Der gantz Psalter” from 1606, 1640
  • 39 intabulations of vocal works by Orlando di Lasso, Hans Leo Haßler, Claudio Merulo and others, 1640
  • 3 fugues, 2 dances and 12 intonations (“The twelve toni or modi utraque scalae”), 1640
  • 2 psalms for four voices, dated 1648
• Textbooks
  • "Porta musices: This is a guide to the noble art of Musica: With a brief report and instructions on the violas: Also how every song is easy to start", Basel 1589
  • "Melodiae suaves et concinnae psalmorum [...] In usum Classis Octavae et Nonae Gymnasij Basileensis [...] Adjectae sunt in calce huius libelli brevißima Musices rudimenta", Basel 1622

Literature (selection)

• K. Nef: The music at the University of Basel. In: Festschrift to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the University of Basel, Basel 1910
• WR Kendall: Samuel Mareschall: His Life and Works , dissertation at the University of Ithaca / New York 1940
• WR Kendall: The Life and Works of Samuel Mareschall. In: Musical Quarterly No. 30, 1944, pp. 37-49
• H. Drux and KW Niemöller: Musical dedications from 1578 in the family book of Gerhard Pilgrum from Cologne. In: Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Rheinische Musikgeschichte No. 12, 1958, pp. 13–36
• HP Schanzlin: Samuel Mareschall. In: Committed to the Reformation: Shaping and shaping the city and landscape of Basel from five centuries, Basel 1979, pp. 59–62
• M. Kucerová: La Tabulature d'épinette de Samuel Mareschall. In: Revue musicale de Suisse Romande No. 39, 1986, issue 2, pp. 71–81
• Manfred Schuler: Mareschal, Samuel. In: Neue Deutsche Biografie (NDB), Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 150 ff.

Web links

• Works by and about Samuel Mareschall in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Samuel Mareschall in the International Music Score Library Project
• "Porta musices: This is a guide to the noble art of Musica: With a brief report and instructions on the violas: Also how every song is easy to start", Basel 1589

swell

1. ↑ Manfred Schuler:  Mareschall, Samuel. In: MGG Online (subscription required).
2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 5: Köth - Mystical Chord. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3 .
3. ^ Dictionnaire des Compositeurs de Belgique, du moyen âge à nos jours