Famous composers and their works, Vol. 3

by Unknown

MUSIC IN GERMANY

Germany, the foremost of musical nations, owes her present supremacy not only to the genius of her great masters, from Bach to Wagner, but also in a large degree to the native impulse of her people, who for centuries have been distinguished for their earnest love of music.

In the Middle Ages the Germans possessed in their folk-songs (Volkslieder), Minnesongs and church chorals a rich fund of music, inexpressibly dear to the people. These precious heirlooms have been cherished and preserved, and their peculiar earnestness, purity of style, and depth of sentiment have rendered them sources of lofty inspirations to the great masters who have achieved for Germany her world-wide fame in music. It is unfortunate that our knowledge of German popular music in the Middle Ages is not as full and trustworthy as that concerning the beginnings of contrapuntal art in the Netherlands,[^[22]] and the development of Catholic Church music. We have the best inferential evidence that the sense of melody and rhythm existed in definite form among the people earlier than in church music. This evidence comes to us from an observation of the devices to which the monks of St. Gallen resorted, in order to popularize the Gregorian song in Germany. For, whereas the plain chant of Gregory seems never to have been musically enjoyable to the Germans, certain sequentiæ introduced by these monks, notably by Notker, surnamed the Stammerer († 912), became universally popular among the people. These “sequences” should not be confounded with the so-called sequences defined in our modern treatises on harmony. A sequentia was a hymn, with words in rhymed Latin set to fitting music. Such sequentiæ were sung by trained choirs at certain moments in the service, and the congregation joined in the phrases like “Kyrie” and “Alleluia” which followed. “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” “Stabat Mater,” and “Dies Iræ” are sequences of this sort. These sequences are really concessions to the popular taste of the time. The mass of the people loved melody and rhythm, characteristics which were ultimately recognized as necessary to church music.

The folk-songs of Germany are quite unlike the Minnelieder (love-songs). This is evident both in the words and melodies. The folk-song is more naïve, tender and rhythmical than the heavy and solemn Minnelied. In most cases the latter resembles the choral in having slow and equal notes. Comparatively few of the old folk-songs have come down to us unchanged, and of still fewer do we know the date of composition. Probably we owe many of them to travelling minstrels, who went about from place to place.

During the sway of the Troubadours, the love of poetry and song spread over Europe, and Germany was directly influenced by them. The Minnesingers were a similar class of knightly lyrists. Their favorite meeting-place was the Wartburg, near Eisenach, at the Court of Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia. Among the most celebrated of these poet-singers were Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Heinrich Schreiber and Heinrich von Zwetschin. The influence of the Minnesingers was greatest in the thirteenth century, and rapidly died out in the following. They were succeeded by the Mastersingers who were of the burgher class, and included in their ranks schoolmasters, clerks and mechanics. The foremost Mastersinger was Hans Sachs, the famous poet-cobbler, who lived in Nuremberg in the sixteenth century. The music of the Mastersingers was in general heavy and expressionless, very much like church psalmody.

Wagner has immortalized both classes of mediæval singers in his “Tannhäuser” and “Mastersingers,” but the true source of his inspiration was not their music, but the poetic and dramatic characteristics of the picturesque life of those days.

The folk-songs were more rhythmical and melodious than either the Minnesongs or Mastersongs. It is certain that as an element of influence in the practice and development of music in the latter part of the Middle Ages and at the time of the Reformation, popular music in Germany had risen to an eminence hardly second to the Gregorian song.

Some of the music of the Minnesingers was a direct outgrowth from the folk-songs. Their poems were composed principally to interest those who lived at court, but the music, so far as it had melodic character, was imitated and developed from the melodies of the people. A rude and simple instrumental accompaniment was characteristic of these productions. The element of declamation, too, must have been very important, for even up to the thirteenth century the “singing” and the “saying” of poetry were identical in meaning.