Wilhelm Bäumker

Wilhelm Bäumker (born October 25, 1842 in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ), † March 3, 1905 in Rurich ) was a Roman Catholic theologian and an important German hymnologist .

Life

Wilhelm Bäumker was born the son of a master painter and after graduating from high school in Elberfeld (1863) studied Catholic theology and philology in Münster and Bonn. He entered the seminary in Cologne in 1866 and was ordained a priest there on September 1, 1867.

In the same year he became school vicar in Bergerhof near Waldbröl and in 1868 parish vicar in Alfter near Bonn and in 1880 also school inspector.

From 1869 Bäumker worked in Niederkrüchten at Erkelenz and was an avid music researcher in his spare time. In 1881 he began his scientific life's work, researching the Catholic German hymn , by continuing and expanding the groundbreaking work of Karl Severin Meister , the music teacher who died in 1881 at the teachers' college in Montabaur.

On November 26, 1889, the University of Breslau awarded him an honorary doctorate in theology for his work in music history.

In 1892 the church authorities gave him the parish of Rurich , which had only 350 souls , so that he could devote himself more intensively to his research.

Fonts

• Palestrina . A contribution to the history of the church music reform of the 16th century (= collection of historical portraits. Series 4, Bd. 1, ZDB -ID 1098032-5 ). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1877.
• Orlandus de Lassus . The last great master of the Dutch clay school (= collection of historical portraits. Series 4, Vol. 4). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1878.
• On the history of music in Germany from the first beginnings to the Reformation. A number of different treatises. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1881.
• Dutch sacred songs and their ways of singing from manuscripts of the XV. Century. In: Quarterly magazine for musicology. Vol. 4, quarter 2, 1888, pp. 153–254, digitized ; Vol. 4, Vierteljahr 3, 1888, pp. 287-350, digitized , (also special reprint, both parts: Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1888).
• The Catholic German hymn in its ways of singing. From the earliest times to the late seventeenth century. Edited on the basis of handwritten and printed sources. 4 volumes (volume 1: 1886; volume 2: 1883 (!); Volume 3: with addendum to the first 2 volumes. 1891; volume 4: with addendum to the first 2 volumes. Edited by Joseph Gotzen after the author's death. 1911). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1883–1911, (With a total of 1664 melodies, this four-volume edition is a standard work of German Catholic hymnology).

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Bäumker  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Wilhelm Bäumker in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Wilhelm Bäumker Collection in the University and City Library of Cologne