Playing in Instrumental Ensembles
In Schubinger’s time, a significant portion of instrumental music was still part of an “oral tradition.” Researchers have now been able to reconstruct quite precisely the methods by which instrumental ensembles spontaneously created polyphonic pieces.[29] The point of departure were existing melodies familiar to the musicians, which depending on the occasion could be a liturgical chant, a song melody, one of the so-called tenores available for dance music, or a single voice extracted from a polyphonic vocal composition. This cantus prius factus was played in the tenor range, from around 1500 increasingly also in the discant. The other instruments provided higher or lower voices, following standardised interval progressions that guaranteed the contrapuntal correctness of the piece while simultaneously enriching the melodic lines with figurative or ornamental, often formulaic, turns. This type of “improvisation” was thus highly determined by guidelines, models, and patterns. Additionally, it is conceivable that the music, especially when played by well-rehearsed ensembles, tended to become fixed through routine and repetition and possibly consisted of more or less fixed pieces reproduced from memory. Therefore, it is somewhat misleading to equate instrumental practice indiscriminately with “improvisation”, as is often done in the literature. Moreover, extemporised ensemble playing was based on the same compositional principles as composed or written vocal music and could lead to elaborate results, especially among professional instrumentalists, which did not fundamentally differ from composed polyphony.
This connection between instrumental practice and vocal composition is particularly relevant in the context of a second area of instrumental music-making. Around the mid-fifteenth century, originally vocal pieces, especially chansons and song settings, but also motets and mass movements, increasingly entered the repertoire of string and wind instrumentalists. A note-for-note reproduction was probably the exception. Instead, adaptations to the technical and tonal conditions of the instruments were to be expected, as well as diminutions (ornamentations) or the addition of new voices to the original setting, using the same or similar procedures as in the spontaneous production of instrumental pieces.[30]
The incorporation of vocal polyphony into the repertoire of instrumental ensembles created the basis for the aforementioned innovation in performance practice around 1500, which also was its immediate continuation: the accompaniment of the vocalists by cornetts and trombones. Whether the wind players also maintained that same flexible handling of the original works, such as adding ornamentation or additional voices, as in purely instrumental realisations, is not directly documented but quite conceivable. Such possibilities are still underused in today’s performance practice.
[29] Fundamentally Polk 1992a, 169–213; see also Gilbert 2005; Neumeier 2015, 273–290.
[30] For an overview of instrumental music-making around 1500 see Coelho/Polk 2016, especially 189–225; Grassl 2013.
[1] From Schubinger’s service record of 1514 ( » Abb. Schubingers Dienstrevers 1514).
[2] See for example D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 89 (1495), fol. 17r; Vol. 90 (1496), fol. 17r; Vol. 93 (1499), fol. 22v.
[3] Grassl 1999, 208, referring to Wessely 1956, 130–134. See also the documents from 1514, according to which Schubinger was employed as a “Posaunist” (trombonist), although at that time he also, if not primarily, appeared as a cornettist.
[4] D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 80 (1487), fol. 65r.
[5] D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 82 (1489), fol. 66r; Vol. 84 (1490), fol. 68r; Vol. 89 (1495) [no fol.]; Vol. 90 (1496), fol. 90r. Diettel also distinguished himself from the other city pipers by occasionally receiving a slightly higher salary (40 or 44 fl. instead of the usual 36 fl.).
[6] D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 81 (1488), fol. 16r.
[7] Cf. McGee 1999, 731–732; McGee 2008, 166–168.
[8] D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 55 (1457), fol. 112v, online: https://lod.academy/bmb/id/bmb-bm-03uw/1.
[9] McGee 2000, 215–216.
[11] Grassl 2019, 223 and 231–234.
[12] Polk 1994a, 210.
[13] B-Baeb Algemeen Rijksarchief / Archives générales du Royaume, V132–41287 (Stads Rekeningen Mechelen 1507/1508), fol. 211r; V132–41291, (Stads Rekeningen Mechelen 1511/1512) fol. 209v; Protocol of the Constance Cathedral Chapter 1510: “ex parte Augustini lutiniste domini Cesaris” (see Krebs 1956, 24, no. 4091); D-Nsa Reichsstadt Nürnberg, Losungsamt, Stadtrechnungen 181, fol. 617v: “Item ij gulden dem Augustin K mt lautenisst zu Juliane anno 1517”.
[14] See Polk 1989a, 496, 500, and 502; McGee 2000, 215; Prizer 1981, 163; further examples in Polk 1989c, 526–527, 542–543; Polk 1990, 196–197; McGee 2005, 149–150; McGee 2008, 210–212.
[15] Although polyphonic lute playing was possible to some extent with plectrum technique. See Lewon 2007. Cf. » Instrumentenmuseum Laute.
[17] » I. Ch. “Musica Lauten und Rybeben”; Nedden 1932/1933, 26–27; Ernst 1945, 222–223; Polk 1992b, 86; Polk 1994b, 407; Schwindt 2018c, 275–276.
[18] B-Baeb Algemeen Rijksarchief / Archives générales du Royaume, V132–41287 (Stads Rekeningen Mechelen 1507/1508), fol. 211r. For Lenaert (or “Lionhardt”) see the references in Polk 1992b, 86–87; Polk 2001a, 93–94; Polk 2005a, 64 and 66.
[19] Polk 1992a, 73–75; Polk 1987, 180; specifically for Nuremberg cf. Green 2005, 13.
[20] Depiction of the choir wagon in the Triumphzug (» Abb. Triumphzug Kantorei.).
[21] See the compilation of evidence in Grassl 2019, 230–246.
[22] See, in addition to the evidence mentioned in » G. Augustin Schubinger (English), note 57, 58, 61, also the minutes of the Constance Cathedral Chapter 1510: “ex parte Augustini lutiniste domini Cesaris. Als derselb Augustini etlich tag im chor zur orgel vnd den sengern uff dem zingken geblausen hat, ist capitulariter conclusum, im zu erunge 2 fl. zeschencken” (see Krebs 1956, 24, no. 4091).
[23] Cochlaeus 1512, 90–91.
[24] Grassl 2017, 347–349 and 357–358; Grassl 2019, 217–221 and 227–228.
[25] Nedden 1932/1933, 28; Wessely 1956, 85, 88, 101–103, and 108–111; Polk 1992b, 86. Cf. in particular the “collective” or “group entries” in: D-Asa Baumeisterbücher, Vol. 97 (1503), fol. 28r: “Item x guldin Ko mayt. Busanern dero fünffe”; Vol. 98 (1504), fol. 26r: “It. viij gulden Jörigen Holland, Jorigen Eyselin, Hannsen Stevdlin vnd Vlrich Vellen Kö. mayt. Busaunern”.
[26] Polk 1992a, 109; Green 2011, 20.
[27] See the entries in the Nördlingen account books of 1506 and 1507 (» Abb. Zahlung der Stadt Nördlingen an Schubinger, 8. Juni 1506), as well as » G. Augustin Schubinger (English), note 67.
[28] Henning 1987, 87 (plate 183), 90 (plate 211), 94 (plate 255).
[29] Fundamentally Polk 1992a, 169–213; see also Gilbert 2005; Neumeier 2015, 273–290.
[30] For an overview of instrumental music-making around 1500 see Coelho/Polk 2016, insb. 189–225; Grassl 2013.
[32] Cf. from the extensive literature on this repertoire only Polk 1997; Strohm 1992; Jickeli 1996; Banks 2006.
[33] For Pirckheimer’s biography see: http://www.pirckheimer-gesellschaft.de/html/will_car.html.
[34] Edition in: Willibald Pirckheimers Briefwechsel, Vol. 1, edited by Emil Reicke (Publications of the Commission for the Study of the History of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Humanist Letters 4), Munich 1940, p. 371.
[35] This could refer to the distinction between two-part and one-part bassedanze (in the terminology of contemporary French dance literature: basses danses mineurs and majeurs).
[36] Letter of June 29, 1506, edited in: Willibald Pirckheimers Briefwechsel, Vol. 1, edited by Emil Reicke (Publications of the Commission for the Study of the History of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Humanist Letters 4), Munich 1940, p. 380. See also Meyer 1981, 62–64 on this correspondence.
[37] Nothing more precise can be determined about “Boruni”, the arranger, i.e., probably the intabulator of Binchois’ composition. Perhaps he was an older relative of the Milanese lutenist Pietro Paolo Borrono, born around 1490 and renowned in the mid-sixteenth century.
[39] This emerges from a remark in Ulrich’s letter to Lorenzo de’ Medici (» G. Ch. Schubinger, Lorenzo de’ Medici and Isaac), stating that Ulrich had waited in vain for his brother and “Zoani Maria che suona el liuto” in Ferrara.
[40] McDonald 2019, 13–14.
[41] See especially Birkendorf 1994, Vol. 1, 97–101; Schwindt 2018c, 542–545; see also Brinzing 1998, Vol. 1, 137–150; » B. Kap. Aufschwung der Liedkunst; » D. Zur musikalischen Quellenlage.
[42] This was either Jakob Hurlacher the Elder, who served as an Augsburg city piper from 1495 to 1530 (not just from 1508, as regularly claimed in the literature; see the entries in D-Asa Baumeisterbücher), or Jakob Hurlacher the Younger, who was a member of the Augsburg wind ensemble from 1502 to 1506 and from 1509 to 1517.
[43] See in detail Brinzing 1998, Vol. 1, 151–154; Neumeier 2015, 252–254.
[44] Brinzing 1998, Vol. 1, 150.
[45] Polk 1991, 158; see also Filocamo 2009. Consequently, Polk’s speculation that the “Mantüane[r] dantz” could be identical to one of the bassedanze sent by Beheim (cf. » H. Ch. A South German Humanist Correspondence) and therefore Schubinger or Giovanni Maria Ebreo its “composer” is purely speculative.
[46] Schwindt 2018c, 280.
[47] Schwindt 2018c, 280; see also Birkendorf 1994, Vol. 1, 184.
[48] Schwindt 2018c, 120–124.
[49] Unterholzner 2015, especially. 79–89, 96–98; Schwindt 2018c, 73–76.
[50] Cf. Lütteken 2010 LIT, 20–21; Polk 2001b; Schwindt 2018c, 20–24.
[51] Besides Schubinger, these include the organist Paul Hofhaimer, the lutenist Albrecht Morhanns, the trombonists Hans Neuschel and Hans Steudl, and the piper Anton Dornstetter. See the relevant image program texts in Schestag 1883, 155 and 158–160.
Recommended Citation:
Markus Grassl: „Instrumentale Musikpraxis im Lebensbereich Augustin Schubingers (ca. 1460–1531/32)“, in: Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich <https://musical-life.net/essays/instrumentale-musikpraxis-im-lebensbereich-augustin-schubingers-ca-1460-153132> (2023).