Tower bubbles

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Tower blower St. Mary's Church (Krakow) 1968

Tower blowing (also tower music ) is a form of musical performance that originally belonged to the traditional duties of a tower keeper or town piper , and later also of the council trumpeter. In addition to certain horn signals , he had to organize regular musical performances as a soloist or in an ensemble from the church or town hall tower. With the abolition of the profession of tower keeper, tower blowing established itself in many countries as a church folk custom, often by lay musicians, especially on Christian holidays. Tower music composed a. a. Johannes Wannenmacher ( Choralbicinien ), Johann Hermann Schein , Gottfried Reiche , Johann Christoph Pezel ( Hora decima musicorum Lipsiensium, 1670 ), Ludwig van Beethoven ( 3 Equale, 1812 ), Paul Hindemith ( Morgenmusik, 1932 ), Bertold Hummel ( Turmmusik IV, 1988 ). Walther Hensel , Ludwig Plaß and Wilhelm Ehmann did a lot to revive this custom.

history

The tower blowing developed from the medieval blowing ("hour blowing ") of the tower keeper first in the form of hourly signals, later then chorales . In the German-speaking countries, tower music reached its heyday in the 15th century, especially in the trading cities of Leipzig and Lübeck, and was considered the urban counterpart of the court trumpet guild. Tower music was one of the most popular types of music in the 17th century. From the 19th century this tradition was revived by Protestant amateurs in the trombone choirs , after Herborn's last guild blower resigned in 1853 . Nevertheless, members of the city bands were still hired in isolated cases.

Sometimes regularly on certain days of the week, often on certain festive days, namely the eve of the Sundays in Advent, on Christmas Eve before Christmas mass or at the turn of the year , wind choirs still gather on the tower or bay window of a church and usually bring chorals to the fore. For practical or acoustic reasons, a different location has been chosen in recent times, but the name has been retained.

Individual evidence

  1. Tower music. on: duden.de , accessed on November 20, 2012.
  2. ^ Friedrich Herzfeld: Ullstein Lexicon of Music . Blow off. 6th edition. Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt a. M. 1973, p. 9 .
  3. ^ Adelheid von Saldern : Staged pride - Contributions to urban history and urbanization research. Steiner, 2005, p. 131. ( online on Google books )
  4. ^ Achim Hofer : Brass music research. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992, p. 101. ( online on Google books)
  5. Wolfgang Schnabel: The evangelical trombone choir work. Origin and mission. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993, p. 174 f. ( online on google books)

literature