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Johann Leisentrit’s Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567: Hymnody of the Counter-Reformation in Germany
- Author: Heitmeyer, Erika
- Author: Wetzel, Richard D.
Johann Leisentrit’s Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567: Hymnody of the Counter-Reformation in Germany
- Author: Heitmeyer, Erika
- Author: Wetzel, Richard D.
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About
Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567, was compiled and published by Johann Leisentrit, a Roman Catholic priest who from 1559 to the time of his death in 1586, was Dean at the Cathedral of St. Peter’s in Bautzen, a town in southeastern Germany. His hymnbook appeared in three complete editions (1567, 1573, 1584), and in abridged editions in 1575, 1576, and 1589. By adapting the vernacular hymn, a genre created by Protestant reformers, Leisentrit hoped to bring back to the “true church” (wahrglaubiger Christlicher Kirchen) those who had defected to Lutheranism. This was a formidable ambition because his diocese was located adjacent to the Moravian-Bohemian regions where the Protestant movement was born and remained vital.
Containing approximately 260 texts set to 175 notated melodies, many borrowed from Protestant sources and adapted to serve Roman Catholic objectives, Leisentrit’s book was the second Catholic hymnbook to be published in the sixteenth century. It surpassed its Protestant and Catholic precursors in scope and provided a model for the profusion of hymnbooks of numerous confessions that appeared in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries .
Wetzel and Heitmeyer present their study in two parts: The first comprises six contextual chapters that survey earlier German achievements in hymnody, provide analyses of the texts and music in Leisentrit’s book, and assess his achievement within the volatile environment of the Counter Reformation. The second gives the melodies in modern notation along with the first stanzas of the texts; provides detailed concordances and references to sources that identify textual and musical provenances; and concludes with six appendixes to facilitate scholarly cross-references. Fourteen of the seventy wood engravings from Leisentrit’s book, many of which are visual representations of the prevailing confessional conflicts, are given in enlarged reproductions.
The authors provide the only comprehensive study in English of a unique religious figure and his efforts to achieve confessional reconciliation in the decades following the Council of Trent. They add to a more accurate interpretation of the relationship between Lutherans and Catholics in the sixteenth century and support the hypothesis that some Lutherans remained more liturgically formal than their Catholic contemporaries.
Contents
- Contents
- Preface
- Part 1 Context, Format and Style
- Chapter 1 Johann Leisentrit and the Council of Trent Decades
- Chapter 2 Early Sixteenth Century Hymnbooks The Protestants Johann Walter, Geistliche Gesang BUchleyn, 1524, 1525 Michael Weisse, Ein New Gesengbuchlen, 1531 Joseph Klug, Geistliche lieder, 1533, 1535 Valentin Babst, Das Babstsche Gesangbuch, 1545 Lucas
- Chapter 3 The Texts of Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567 Commendations and Endorsements Instructional Texts Hymn Texts and Sources Latin Texts and Melody Titles German Texts and Sources Leisentrit's Process of Adaptation
- Chapter 4 The Melodies of Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567 Printing, Notation, and Transcription Issues Melody Sources Mode and Style
- Chapter 5 Illustrations, Borders and Symbols Plates Title Page to Das erste Theil Leisentrit in Prayer Leisentrit's Coat of Arms Dedication to the Holy Roman Emperor Symbols of the Struggles of the Church with Heretics Symbols of the Struggle for Correct
- Chapter 6 Epilogue
- Part 2 The Melodies and First Stanzas of Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567, Transcribed. Sources and Concordances
- Appendix 1Melody Titles and Text Incipits in Order of Appearance in Geistliche Lieder und Psalmen, 1567
- Appendix 2Alphabetical
- Index of Melody Titles with Text Titles or First Line Incipits
- Appendix 3Alphabetical
- Index of First Lines
- Appendix 4 Table of Modal Characteristics of the Melodies
- Appendix 5Table of Wood Engravings and Subjects
- Appendix 6 Latin Hymns and their Adaptations
- Bibliography General
- Index
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