From Spruchsang to the Zeitungslied
In the second half of the fifteenth century, a significant shift occurred in both the social base and the performers of song, which also altered the nature of song performance itself. The traditions of Spruchsang from the fourteenth century and the now flourishing art of the Meistersinger existed side by side in the Austrian region around 1450 (» B. Traditionsbildungen des Liedes, » B. Spruchsang in den österreichischen Ländern, » B. Das Phänomen „Neidhart“). Elevated monophonic songs – what one might call “recital songs” – were still performed by a distinct professional group, the “speakers” (Sprecher) who appear in archival records. This designation already signals an emphasis on the literary aspect. Nevertheless, the musical side was occasionally documented, though only as solo performances. No written evidence survives of their polyphonic realisation with instrumental accompaniment. Among the most prominent Sprecher was Michel Beheim, who also served the Habsburgs: after 1454 at the court of Albrecht VI in Freiburg, and between 1459 and 1465 at the imperial court of Frederick III (» B. Das Phänomen „Neidhart“). Although successors in his role are known by name – Mangolt Groenwald[21] and, under Maximilian, Georg Sayler, who appears in records sometimes as “speaker,” sometimes as “singer” – Beheim already belonged to a dying breed, as he himself lamented at the end of his life. From 1490 onwards, the declining profession – which also served numerous noble estates in the form of itinerant singers, even occasionally female singers – merged with the peddlers of the newly emerging trade of printed broadsheets. Travelling singers could probably sell more song sheets if they had performed them beforehand.[22] melodies and therefore required no notation, occurred gradually. Occasionally, such songs formed an alliance with composed pieces when they included descriptions of historical events or local incidents. The story of a village dispute that got out of hand, attributed to the Bavarian singer and later district judge Hans Hesselloher, circulated not only from around 1450 as a multi-stanza text (Von üppiglichen Dingen), but also inspired various melodic variants. All of these share the distinctive rising fifth and the repeated reciting tones at the beginning, and several were set polyphonically. A three-part version, whose modest polyphony and triple metre – suggesting a neutral (and by no means dance-like) delivery of the text – harks back to the tradition of the solo performance song, survives in a manuscript compiled before 1500, once owned by the Mondsee monastery.[23] The fact that Schmeltzl also drew on it at the Scots’ Monastery in Vienna for one of his quodlibets[24] suggests that the melody spread through Benedictine channels. It might recall the long-standing culture of convivial song in monastic communities, to which the Glogauer Liederbuch attests.
[21] Sterl 1971, 24. Grünwald/Gruenwolt is documented as Persefant (under-herald) in Regensburg from 1483–1487.
[22] Grosch 2013, 48–54.
[23] A-Wn Cod. 3027 (Passau c. 1492–1494), fol. 174v–177r: “Von yppliklichen dingen”. Score reproduction in Curschmann 1970, 22 f.
[24] Quodlibet No. XX quotes the couplet “Da schalt sie jhn ein trollen, ein truncken vnd ein vollen” from the middle of the third Hesselloher stanza (Secunda pars, bars 133–137, rhythm corresponds to the song model, diastematic contour slightly modified, see DTÖ 147/148, 132).
[1] For example, So lanc so meer as So lang si mir (in I-TRbc 90, fol. 344v) or Een vraulic wesen as Ein frölich wesenn (in the songbook of Johannes Heer, CH-SGs Ms. 462, fol. 28v–30r).
[2] Binchois’ Dueil angoisseux becomes De langwesus in I-TRbc 88, fol. 204v, De langwesus; of the frottola line “Tente a l’ora, ruzinente, ch’io vo’ cantar” only “Dentelore” remains in the manuscript CH-Bu F X 1–4 (fol. 97), written by the Augsburg scribe Johann Wüst; a quodlibet from the Sagan partbooks (No. 118) quotes the songs Rabaßkadol and Panny, pany, baby (“Woman, woman, old woman”).
[4] These are RISM numbers 1512/1, 1513/2, [1513]/3, [1513]/3 (published in Mainz in 1517), and 1519]/5 (a woodcut reprint of a lost songbook originally published around 1510 in Augsburg, printed 1514/1515, see Schwindt 2008).
[5] On all three manuscripts, see Strohm 1993, 492–503.
[8] According to Strohm 1993, 519, and Strohm 2001, 23, the manuscript was originally in the possession of the choir school of St. Jakob, Innsbruck, whose members were employed for musical service at court. See also » G. Nicolaus Krombsdorfer.
[10] I-TRbc 89, fol. 388v–389r; I-Fn, B.R. 229, fol. 174v–175r; » Guter seltzamer und kunstreicher teutscher Gesangk; Nürnberg 1544, Nr. 8: “Heyaho nun wie sie grollen dort auff dem Ritten die geschwollen” in the Secunda pars, T. 76–85; textual reference at the beginning, bars 1–13: “Woll wir aber heben an den Danhauser zu singen” (DTÖ 147/148, 63 and 69 f.).
[11] Bienenfeld 1904/1905, 96, note 2.
[12] CH-Zz, Ms. G 438 (written c. 1524); Pfisterer 2013.
[13] A-Wn Mus.Hs. 18810 (c. 1524) and D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527), also known as the “Welser Songbook”.
[14] Also known as the “Herwart” or “Augsburg Songbook”.
[15] Birkendorf 1994, vol. 1, 98.
[16] Schwindt 2013, 126–130.
[17] D-W, Cod. Guelf. 78.Quodl.4 (Southern Germany c. 1505); D-Mbs Mus. ms. 4483 (Southern Germany c. 1515); A-Wn Cod. 4337 (Vienna, early 1520s); D-W Cod. Guelf. 292 Musica hdschr. (Constance?, c. 1525).
[18] CH-Bu F X 10 (1510); CH-Bu F X 5–9 (Fascicle I: c. 1510); CH-Bu F X 1–4 (Fascicle I: c. 1517/1518, Fascicle II: c. 1524); CH-Bu F VI 26 (first quarter of the sixteenth century); CH-SGs Ms. 462 (1510–1516, 1530), also known as the “Heer Songbook”.
[19] See above note 4.
[20] RISM 1534/17: » Der erst teil. Hundert vnd ainundzweintzig newe Lieder…, hrsg. von Johann Ott, Nürnberg 1534.
[21] Sterl 1971, 24. Grünwald/Gruenwolt is documented as Persefant (under-herald) in Regensburg from 1483–1487.
[22] Grosch 2013, 48–54.
[23] A-Wn Cod. 3027 (Passau c. 1492–1494), fol. 174v–177r: “Von yppliklichen dingen”. Score reproduction in Curschmann 1970, 22 f.
[24] Quodlibet No. XX quotes the couplet “Da schalt sie jhn ein trollen, ein truncken vnd ein vollen” from the middle of the third Hesselloher stanza (Secunda pars, bars 133–137, rhythm corresponds to the song model, diastematic contour slightly modified, see DTÖ 147/148, 132).
[25] A-Whh RR V (1489-1492): Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Reichsregister vol. V (1489–1492), fol. 60r.
[26] “Die situationsbasierten Thematisierungsverfahren lassen die Liebe vor allem als kulturelles Handeln in konventionalisierten Umständen erscheinen” (The situation-based methods of thematisation present love primarily as cultural action in conventionalised circumstances): Hübner 2013, 107.
[27] The earliest available source for the polyphonic Elslein song is the Sagan partbooks (PL-Kj Berol. Mus.ms. 40098). There is indeed an earlier transmission from around 1455 in the form of a monophonic melody, but with a Latin text Gaudeamus pariter (CZ-Pnm Vysehrad 376, fol. 39v; digitised in the database Melodiarum hymnologicum Bohemiae: http://tinyurl.com/gaudeamuspariter). It is very likely – or at least possible – that this is a sacred contrafactum of the secular monophonic Elslein song, though this cannot yet be documented.
[28] The earliest sources for this popular song are a broadside print of the text by Albert Kunne (Memmingen, c. 1501, see http://tinyurl.com/Ich-stund-Kunne, metadata at http://tinyurl.com/Kunne-meta) uand a freely paraphrased adaptation of melodic elements under the text marker in the tenor “Ich stund an einem Morgen”, entered around 1499/1500 on fols. 221v–222r in the Berlin mensural codex D-B Mus. ms. 40021. Both suggest a widely known song melody, although no earlier written version is currently documented.
[29] D-B Ms. germ. oct. 280, fol. 48b–49b (Nr. 33): Ich sien den morgenssterren.
[30] Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Geheimes Hausarchiv, 601, XXVI, letter from Duke Philipp to his father Wilhelm V dated 13.10.1593.
[31] On the history of the term, see Grosch 2013, 23–33. See also » B. Minnesang und alte Meister on the terminological tradition of “tenores”, which was initially not associated with polyphony.
[32] Complete transcription of both songs and further remarks in Strohm 1993, 496–499.
[34] Strohm 1989; Leverett 1995; Höink 2012. The overview should also include the Missa Ducis Saxsoniae Sing ich nit wol composed by Nicolas Champion dit Liegeois, whose song basis is already recorded before the South German manuscript D-WGl Lutherhalle Ms. 403/1048 (c. 1535/1536) in Bernhard Rem’s partbook setting D-Mu, 8°Cod. ms. 328–331 (before 1527).
[35] D-Mbs Mus. ms. 3154, fol. 53v: Tannhauser Ihr seid mir lieb (3v), fol. 151r: Veni creator spiritus, and Thanhauser jr seit mir lieb. Heidrich 2005, 54 ff.
[36] Klüpfel; Karl (ed.): Urkunden zur Geschichte des Schwäbischen Bundes (1488–1533), vol. 1, Stuttgart 1846, 24.
[37] On authorship, see Leverett 1995; on the musical style in the context of Frederick III, see Schmalz 1987; on the title, see Strohm 1989.
[38] Schwindt 2006, 51–56.
[40] See Schwindt 2013, 127 and 133.
[41] Edited in Adler/Koller 1900, 269. Further details on this song and its text in Schwindt 1999, 58–62.
[42] Hübner 2013, 107.
Recommended Citation:
Nicole Schwindt: “Lieder in der Region Österreich, ca. 1450–ca. 1520”, in: Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich <https://musical-life.net/essays/lieder-der-region-osterreich-ca-1450-ca-1520> (2016).