Wilhelm Metz (composer)
Wilhelm Metz (born March 31, 1828 in Zell am Harmersbach , Baden, † February 12, 1888 in Speyer ) was a drawing teacher, composer , organist and organ expert in the Rhine Palatinate .
Life
Wilhelm Metz was born in 1828 in the Black Forest town of Zell am Harmersbach, a center of ceramic production , as the son of the Catholic married couple Jakob Metz and Eva Henrietta Michl. The father was an earthenware modeler by profession and the family therefore moved to Grünstadt in the Bavarian Rhine Palatinate, also a center of ceramic production, with the well-known earthenware factory , which emerged from the Frankenthal porcelain factory .
Metz grew up in the small town of Grünstadt and entered the Catholic school teacher seminar in Speyer in 1846, which required seven years of primary school attendance and a three-year apprenticeship with a schoolmaster. A clergyman acted as head of the teachers' college; until 1845 Peter Köstler from Grünstadt - who certainly knew Metz personally - and from that year his previous deputy Konrad Reither , later Bishop of Speyer. The respective music teacher at the seminar should also hold the office of Speyer Cathedral Kapellmeister, the seminarians had to sing in church services every Sunday and public holiday. A clear focus of school teacher training was on musical education; Six hours a week she was taught singing, choral work, playing instruments and harmony, while religion and German were taught in just four hours each. The future teachers were obliged to do church service in their employing communities, i.e. to play the organ, singing, setting up and conducting choirs, for which they received thorough preparation in the Speyer seminar.
At the time of Wilhelm Metz's training, Johann Baptist Benz , a well-traveled musician who had also stayed for a long time in Rome , Birmingham , as well as in Munich and Vienna , worked as Speyer Cathedral Kapellmeister and music teacher at the Catholic school teacher seminar. Benz was widely known as an eminent organ player and able composer; Metz received his musical training from him. The young man finished his studies at the Speyer seminar with an examination from August 28th to 31st, 1848, and graduated with “very good” in the subjects “teaching ability, knowledge, religion and singing” and even with “organ playing and drawing” the best grade "excellent". Overall, Metz was in 2nd class, the "very capable". Now he had the title "Schuldienst-Exspectant" and had to take his state employment examination after a 3-year internship.
Apparently because of his talent for drawing, Wilhelm Metz trained for another year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich . He was registered there from May 31, 1849 under the matriculation number 729, in the subject of painting. When he entered the academy, he still stated Grünstadt as his home town.
After completing this additional training, Metz worked as a teacher's assistant in Kübelberg and received on April 29, 1851 the appointment of "administrator of the apprenticeship at the upper boys' class in Blieskastel ".
Wilhelm Metz passed his teaching examination in 1852 as the best candidate of his year. He was the only candidate who was accepted into the first class of the excellent . As a result, Metz received his state employment and on December 16, 1852 became a real teacher at the Catholic-German school in Blieskastel . In December 1853 he was also appointed to the local preparatory teacher for school aspirants (trainee teachers), which he remained until 1858.
The teacher married on April 12, 1853 in Blieskastel Katharina Karolina Henrietta Auguste Briam, daughter of the baker Johann Briam. The couple's daughter Louisa Wilhelmina Metz was born here on January 20, 1859.
Wilhelm Metz was also organist at the parish church. In this capacity he had to play the organ not only on Sundays and public holidays, but also at the daily school masses, to teach the children to sing, to set up a choir, to accompany the funerals with singing and the like.
Main teacher Jakob Gain (1853–1922), a former student of Wilhelm Metz, remembered in his diary from the upper boys' school in Blieskastel in 1919 :
“Since I was born in the immediate vicinity - Lautzkirchen is my home - and my father was a teacher there, I can remember the earlier Blieskastel teachers from my youth. The first I know was the teacher Metz, who was an excellent organist, draftsman and modeler. He often came to Lautzkirchen to play the organ, which was new at the time, outside of church service and school, for his practice and for his joy. Two schoolboys, usually or almost always myself among them, had to kick his bellows, and since he didn't spare the strong registers that needed so much air, sweat often dripped from our foreheads boys. So it gave us little pleasure in helping him with his enthusiasm for art, especially since our understanding of art was still very little developed and the persistence of the player often put our patience to a severe test. Mr. Metz then came to Speyer as a drawing teacher at the secondary school. "
On October 7, 1864 Wilhelm Metz became the acting head of the teaching job for the subscription and Bossier appointed -classes at the tradesmen school Speyer, from 16 April 1865, he got the job formally awarded. At this school, which was called Realschule Speyer from 1877 on, he worked as a drawing teacher from 1864 to 1887, and from 1868 to 1887 he also gave singing lessons there.
Metz was retired on October 16, 1887 due to illness. He died at the age of 60 on February 12, 1888 in Speyer. In an obituary in the annual report of the secondary school in Speyer from 1887/88 it says u. a .: "The teaching staff will keep the memory of a loyal and friendly colleague for him."
Working as a composer
Wilhelm Metz, the enthusiastic organ player and student of Johann Baptist Benz , also began to compose organ works himself.
A handwritten collection booklet for organ music has been preserved in the Speyer State Library, which was compiled by Daniel Klein in 1859 at the Catholic school teachers' seminar there. It also contains a handwritten work by Wilhelm Metz. This handwritten prelude in F major and in 3/4 time is marked Cantabile. With soft voices .
In the music publisher P. Waldecker in Speyer he published, as opus 4, six preludes, a trio and three fugues for the organ . It does not have a year, but is shown in the Handbook of Musical Literature, Volume 5, Leipzig 1860 in the reporting period from 1852 to 1859. The musical work is also mentioned and reviewed in the annual educational report for elementary school teachers in Germany and Switzerland. Volume 12, 1859.
There it says u. a .:
“The composer has done his proper, solid school and he is also endowed with the natural talent without which studying leads to knowledge, but not to ability. Therefore, even if the present organ pieces do not surprise with their definitely emerging novelty and originality in form and content, they do not lack musical meaning. If they are easy to carry out, they will give the organist an artistic satisfaction and will have an edifying effect for the audience. "
He dedicated this organ work Opus 4 to Franz Hauser , the director of the Munich Conservatory , where Wilhelm Metz evidently also continued his musical education in 1862/63. The music collection appeared with a splendid and representative title page. The earlier works with the opus numbers 1 to 3 have not yet been found and are considered lost.
The Opus 4 of Wilhelm Metz contains the following ten organ music with the tempo and registration names:
- 1. (G major, 2/4): Moderato. With soft voices.
- 2. (E minor, alla breve): Largo. With soft voices.
- 3. (D major, 2/4): Andante con moto. With lovely registers.
- 4. (G minor, 6/8): Andante. With strong voices.
- 5. (B flat major, 3/8): Cantabile. With lovely voices.
- 6. (F major, 3/4): Con moto. With strong voices.
- 7. (B flat major, 6/8): Trio. Adagio. With strong voices.
- 8. (A minor, 4/4): (Fugue). Andante. With soft voices.
- 9. (C major, 2/4): Andle con moto. Fugue. With strong voices.
- 10. (F major, 4/4): Marcato. Gap. With a full organ.
Organ pieces from Wilhelm Metz's Opus 4 collection are played again and again, especially in southwest Germany. On December 2, 2006, two pieces by Wilhelm Metz were played at the concert for the inauguration of the new organ in the church of the Saarland University Hospital in Homburg . The Saarbrücker Zeitung recently reported on an organ concert in the Protestant church in Blieskastel, at which on November 29, 2009, music by the almost forgotten composer was also played. Fugue No. 10 (F major) from Opus 4 by Wilhelm Metz is also available in a record recording on the organ of the Ulmet corridor , played by Wilhelm Krumbach .
The music historian Gotthold Frotscher emphasizes in his book History of Organ Playing and Organ Composition , Volume 2, p. 1191, the “simplicity and formal simplicity” of Wilhelm Metz's fugues.
Michael and Gertraud Lamla, the modern biographers of the composer Wilhelm Metz, characterize his Opus 4 in their local history work Contributions to the history of the parish of St. Sebastian in Blieskastel as follows:
“The tempo markings reveal a small preference of the composer for sustained movements. The different meters reveal a wealth of variety. The preludes and the trio have a three-part ABA form. They begin and end in full voice, the middle part is more filigree, it often consists of sequenced motifs. It always ends in a ritardando or in a fermata , which emphasizes the resumption of the first part. Wilhelm Metz proves to be an excellent harmonist who achieves remarkable effects through ties, leads and chromatics . His melodies move in steps that form long arcs or waves, jumps at the turning points create particularly attractive accents. The melodies are vocal and popular, and obviously influenced by traditional songs, especially clearly in the 4th and 5th Prelude. An aria-like influence is noticeable in the trio. The fugue themes and exposures, on the other hand, appear artificial and constructed; Metz shows its true qualities in the free sections of the joints. Also remarkable are the imaginative final cadences of the pieces over long paused organ points, all pieces end in slowing motion. "
For the Catholic parish of St. Sebastian in Blieskastel, Wilhelm Metz set to music an older, polyphonic Sebastian song for the pilgrimage there. In our day it was again included in the Blieskastel regional appendix to the standard hymn book of God's praise of the Diocese of Speyer .
Government organ expert
In 1869 Wilhelm Metz was appointed by the Bavarian government as an organ expert for the Palatinate by the Bavarian government at his own application and after consultation with the Episcopal Ordinariate Speyer , together with the organist of the Protestant regional church , Jakob Heinrich Lützel . His task was to give the factory councils and presbyteries professional advice on the purchase or renovation of the church organs. Expert opinions from Wilhelm Metz are known for the organs of the Catholic churches in Ottersheim near Landau , Bornheim and Kirchheimbolanden , as well as for the Protestant church in Kleinniedesheim .
literature
- Michael and Gertraud Lamla: Contributions to the history of the parish of St. Sebastian in Blieskastel. Saarpfalz – Hefte, Blätter für Geschichte und Volkskunde, 1995, No. 47, pp. 40–62.
- Bernhard H. Bonkhoff, Hans Freytag: Monument organs in the Palatinate. Evangelischer Presseverlag Pfalz, 1990, p. 350.
- Gotthold Frotscher : History of organ playing and organ composition. Volume 2. 3rd edition. 1966, p. 1191.
- August Lüben: Annual pedagogical report for primary school teachers in Germany and Switzerland. Volume 12. 1859, p. 456.
- Adolph Hofmeister: Handbook of musical literature. Volume 5. Leipzig 1860, p. 293.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Official and Intelligence Gazette for the Palatinate, No. 81, Speyer, October 4, 1848
- ↑ Registration Wilhelm Metz, Academy of Fine Arts Munich
- ^ Official and Intelligence Gazette for the Palatinate, No. 77, Speyer, September 27, 1852
- ^ Official and Intelligence Gazette for the Palatinate, No. 2, Speyer, January 6, 1853
- ↑ Palatinate State Library Speyer, music department, signature: Mus. Hs. 45
- ^ Review by Wilhelm Metz, Opus 4, from the annual educational report for elementary school teachers in Germany and Switzerland. Volume 12. 1859
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: clinic page with article about this concert and mention of Wilhelm Metz )
- ↑ Press release of the Saarbrücker Zeitung of November 21, 2009, with mention of the composer Wilhelm Metz
- ↑ Description of the CD Historical Organs in the District of Kusel , with the work of Wilhelm Metz ( Memento from January 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Website of the Homburg City Archives with information on the Blieskasteler Sebastianuslied and its composer Wilhelm Metz )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Metz, Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German composer, organist, organ expert and drawing teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 31, 1828 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zell am Harmersbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 12, 1888 |
| Place of death | Speyer |