Papers by Sonja Tröster
Musik in Bayern, Bd. 86, 2021
Eine der Fragen, die mit Blick auf das weltliche Liedrepertoire des 16. Jahrhunderts meist nur un... more Eine der Fragen, die mit Blick auf das weltliche Liedrepertoire des 16. Jahrhunderts meist nur unbefriedigend beantwortet werden können, ist diejenige nach den Autoren der Texte. Insbesondere bei den mehrstimmig vertonten Liedtexten kann nur für einen sehr kleinen Prozentsatz ein Schöpfer erschlossen werden. 1 Da es sich bei den Liedern häufig um Liebeslieder handelt, die einer Person in den Mund gelegt sind, die im mehrstimmigen Satz aber wohl von mehreren Personen gesungen und für verschiedene Gelegenheiten genutzt wurden, nimmt etwa Harald Haferland an, dass die Dichtung bewusst von der Person des Dichters abgelöst und einem "neutralisierten Ich" zugewiesen wurde. 2 Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es bemerkenswert, dass für das Lied Mein Fleiß und Müh ich nie hab g'spart, das in zwei Vertonungen von Ludwig Senfl bekannt ist, 3 sogar zwei verschiedene Personen in zeitgenössischen Quellen aufscheinen, die jeweils als Urheber des Textes bzw. der Melodie vermutet werden. 1 Zum Beispiel nimmt man an, dass sich Autoren über Akrosticha in ihre Liedtexte einschrieben, wie im Falle der Lieder Adams von Fulda oder des autobiografischen Lust hab ich g'habt zur Musica von Ludwig Senfl. Auch Paul Hofhaimer berichtet in einem Brief, dass er einen eigenen Text vertont hätte. Doch auch weitere Personenkreise kommen als Lieddichter infrage: Mithilfe von Anspielungen aus dem Liedtext konnte Nicole Schwindt den kaiserlichen Rat Sigmund von Dietrichstein als Autor von Senfls Vertonung Kain höhers lebt noch schwebt identifizieren (Schwindt,
Geselliger Sang. Poetik und Praxis des deutschen Liebesliedes im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, 2024
Journal of the Alamire Foundation, 2016
The number of chansons ascribed to Antoine Brumel is small. As he was mostly active in France and... more The number of chansons ascribed to Antoine Brumel is small. As he was mostly active in France and Italy, it is surprising that more than half of this repertory is also present in sources from German-speaking areas. This remarkable strand of transmission has hitherto not been investigated. This article presents new concordances for Brumel’s chansons and proposes channels of transfer to the German cultural sphere. The circumstances in which selected sources originated and the different ways in which some of the compositions were adapted are discussed. Of particular importance is the identification of a contrafact of Brumel’s Le moy de may in the manuscript Basel, Universitatsbibliothek, Ms. F.X.17-20, as the chanson was previously believed to be only fragmentarily preserved in Florence, Conservatorio, Ms. Basevi 2442. This new concordance allowed the recovery of the missing bassus part of one of Brumel’s most interesting chansons.
The number of chansons ascribed to Antoine Brumel is small. As he was mostly active in France and... more The number of chansons ascribed to Antoine Brumel is small. As he was mostly active in France and Italy, it is surprising that more than half of this repertory is also present in sources from German-speaking areas. This remarkable strand of transmission has hitherto not been investigated. The article presents new concordances for Brumel’s chansons and proposes channels of transfer to the German cultural sphere. The circumstances in which selected sources originated and the different ways in which some of the compositions were adapted are discussed. Of particular importance is the identification of a contrafact of Brumel’s "Le moy de may" in the manuscript Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. F.X.17-20, as the chanson was previously believed to be only fragmentarily preserved in Florence, Conservatorio, Ms. Basevi 2442. This new concordance allowed the recovery of the missing bassus part of one of Brumel’s most interesting chansons.
In 1891 Johannes Bolte published an essay on a set of embroidered partbooks he discovered in the ... more In 1891 Johannes Bolte published an essay on a set of embroidered partbooks he discovered in the Royal Library in Brussels. The text and music of the four-part song "Mag ich dem Glück nit danken viel" are stitched on a linen ground with silk and gold thread. Bolte copied the lyrics and identified the source as a present for Mary, Queen of Hungary and governor of the Netherlands. The precious object is nowadays lost without trace, but the song itself survived in a concordance and was most likely composed by Ludwig Senfl. The paper drafts a scenario for the origin of the Brussels partbooks, by relating them to further sets of embroidered partbooks, which have survived in the collections of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck. It also traces all of the music known to have been transmitted in the same style – only very few of the sources are still extant – and collates the characteristics of those exquisite musical presents.
Senfl-Studien 1, 2012
Mag ich Unglück nit widerstan, which bears the acrostic “Maria” in all its differing text version... more Mag ich Unglück nit widerstan, which bears the acrostic “Maria” in all its differing text versions, is a Lied that came to be known as the “Song of the Queen of Hungary.” Although Mary of Hungary, the sister and confidant of Charles V, never openly confessed to her liking for the Reformation, Mag ich Unglück with a sacred text variant is included in many of the protestant hymnbooks. But the earliest known witness of the Lied is a setting by Ludwig Senfl that for the first time appears in 1523. The popularity of the song itself seems to have been influ- enced by its connection with major topics of the time which also apply to Mary’s life and fate: love, death and questions of faith. The article attempts to gather information for a possible genesis of the text variants of the song, and sets them in relation to other acrostic-songs for members of aristocratic circles. It further- more pursues the contexts in which the song and various contrafacta were placed in pamphlets throughout the 16th century thus reflecting events in the early years of the Reformation in the German-speaking realm.
heute etwa 30 deutsche Lieder bekannt. 1 Diese Zahl mutet in der Gegenüberstellung mit seinem ges... more heute etwa 30 deutsche Lieder bekannt. 1 Diese Zahl mutet in der Gegenüberstellung mit seinem gesamten Schaffen nicht besonders groß an, doch auch von deutschen Komponisten seiner Generation -etwa Heinrich Finck und Paul Hofhaimer -sind nur wenige Liedsätze überliefert. Aus diesem Grund sind Aussagen zu der Stellung, die diese Lieder in Isaacs Schaffen einnehmen, schwierig zu treffen. Offen bleiben auch die Fragen, von wem sie in Auftrag gegeben wurden und zu welchen Gelegenheiten sie tatsächlich erklangen. Gleichzeitig ist die Ansicht, dass Isaac eine zentrale Rolle in der Entwicklung der Gattung des deutschsprachigen mehrstimmigen Liedes einnahm, allgemein anerkannt. 2 Bereits in frühen Zeugnissen der deutschsprachigen Musikwissenschaft brachte man Isaacs Liedern -mit einigem Nationalstolz, da man ihn als Deutschen ansah 3 -besonderes Interesse entgegen. Die Volksliedforscher betrachteten sie als einen Schatz an authentischen Zeugnissen des Volksgesangs, 4 während die historisch orientierte Musikwissenschaft in diesem Repertoire einen ersten Höhepunkt des genuin deutschen Schaffens im Bereich der mehrstimmigen Komposition zu erblicken glaubte. 5 Bereits im Jahr 1907 erschien eine Edition der weltlichen Werke Heinrich Isaacs, die alle erhaltenen Lieder wiedergibt. 6 Im Blickfeld des Musikliebhabers hat das Lied Innsbruck
Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, 2008
Online Publications by Sonja Tröster
Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich, 2017
Music Documentation in Libraries, Scholarship, and Practice (RISM Conference 2012), 2012
Libraries around the world have launched projects to have their valuable books digitized. As thos... more Libraries around the world have launched projects to have their valuable books digitized. As those digital collections are growing very fast, it often proves difficult to keep an overview of which sources are accessible and where to find them. Therefore it is necessary to have intermediary resources where the digital images as well as source-related information are compiled with a focus on a certain topic. In regard to musical sources, this function can be taken on by a catalogue raisonné for a composer, published online.
Open Access Books by Sonja Tröster
New Senfl Edition. The Collected Works of Ludwig Senfl (Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 163), 2023
It is the opening piece in Ottaviano Petrucci's Motetti A (RISM 15021). The motet also appears as... more It is the opening piece in Ottaviano Petrucci's Motetti A (RISM 15021). The motet also appears as an example of the Hypoionian mode in Glarean's ΔΩΔΕΚΑΧΟΡΔΟΝ (Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1547; RISM 15471). Concerning its manuscript transmission, see NJE 23.6, CC. 39 Finck, Practica musica, sig. Aij r . 40 These are the exemplars in D-B, D-HB, D-Z (a total of nine complete and eighteen incomplete sets of the print survive). See Gustavson 1998: 184-5, 334. The modified text of the D-B exemplar is transcribed in the Critical Report. 41 This text is transcribed as well in the Critical Report. mitting what must have been the original text matching Josquin's setting both had Catholic owners: the Munich choirbook D-Mbs Mus.ms. 12, copied under Senfl's supervision, and D-Mu 4° Art. 401, a closely related set of four partbooks that bind together books 1-4 of Andrea Antico's Motetti prints, issued in Venice in 1520 and 1521, and a manuscript addition that opens with Josquin's Pater noster / Ave Maria followed by Senfl's Ave, Maria … Virgo serena.42 The sixteenth-century reception of Senfl's reworking of Josquin thus could be said to equal that of Josquin's model, which likewise survives in several Central European sources as a contrafactum.43 Cum pluribus vocibus: Praising the Lord and his Earthly Representatives The vast majority of the 111 motets by Senfl edited in the first four volumes of the NSE are based on sacred texts. The few exceptions are the funerary motet on the death of an Augsburg patrician Quid vitam sine te (SC M 90; NSE 2.41); Tristia fata boni (SC M 116; NSE 2.52), which ruminates on hope and fate; and *Martia terque quater (SC *M 54; NSE 4.7).44 The poetry of all three motets is composed in neo-Latin, and each setting pays heed to the texts' quantitative metrical verses. The text of the exceptional Martia terque quater, Senfl's only surviving tribute motet, is arranged in three elegiac distichs and alludes to both the Roman Emperor Augustus and Charlemagne through ancient images and textual references.45 The motet was most likely composed for Charles during his stay in Innsbruck in May 1530 and was tailored to the occasion, as is already evident in the first distich, which calls on Germania to applaud upon the emperor's arrival from Italy: Martia terque quater Germania plaude triumphans, Caesar ab Italia, Carolus, ecce venit! Applaud three times in triumph, martial Germany, four times applaud, the Emperor comes from Italy, Charles, behold, he comes! 42 The first ten compositions transcribed in the manuscript sections are by Josquin and Senfl. The heading 'fuga in subdiapenthe. Ludo: Senfl. Anno dominj MD.XXX' appears later on fol. 55 v of the manuscript section in the tenor partbook in conjunction with Senfl's O sacrum convivium (i) (SC M 75; NSE 3.19), which suggests either the date of composition or copying. See Rifkin 2005: 133-4. 43 For example, D-B Mus. ms. 40021, D-GOl Chart. A 98 ('Gotha Choirbook'), D-Ngm 83795, and PL-Kj Mus. ms. 40013. See NJE 23, CC: 54-6, 91-4. 44 The two canons, Manet alta mente repositum (SC M 53; NSE 4.22) and Omne trinum perfectum (SC M 78; NSE 4.23), are not included in this tally, since the titles are derived from the canonic instructions and these pieces were probably composed without text. It is not possible to clarify the question of the types of text on which the Preambulum (SC M 86; NSE 4.10, only preserved in tablature) and the motet fragment (SC M 42; NSE 2.56) are based. 45 See NSE 4.7 for the text, a translation, and further information. XVI DTÖ 163.4 Charles had been crowned emperor a few months earlier in Bologna by Pope Clement VII and thus could now be legitimately addressed by that title, and Innsbruck represented an important first stop in German-speaking territory on the way to Augsburg. That these words clearly refer to Charles is confirmed once again by the concluding exclamation 'Charles, here he comes!', heard at the end of each of the three distichs. References to Italia and Germania also resonate with the idea of the translatio imperii, which places Charles V in the line of succession stretching back to Charlemagne.46 In the second distich, the unknown poet uses an allusion to Vergil's Aeneid 6:792-5 to praise Augustus as the inaugurator and ruler of a golden age who will extend the empire beyond its borders:47 Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos proferet imperium Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified, who will make a Golden Age again in the fields where Saturn once reigned, and extend the empire beyond the Libyans and the Indians.48 These words conjure up an image that Charles also claimed for himself, since he ruled over an empire of vast dimensions, the boundlessness of which was also expressed in his motto 'plus oultre'. At the same time, the reference to Augustus recalls the period of peace initiated by the earlier ruler, known as the pax Augusta -a vision transferred to Charles: on the one hand, the text acclaims the peace concluded with the pope in Bologna and, on the other hand, it places great hopes in Charles' ability to mediate urgent religious matters in the empire in the light of the upcoming Diet of Augsburg. The music is also interspersed with symbols that allude to Charles:49 for example, the mensuration sign C2, prescribed in the first two partes of the motet, which has the same meaning as the tempus imperfectum diminutum of the tertia pars, could represent Carolus Caesar (Charles the Emperor) as 'twice C'. Additionally striking is the apparent significance of the number '3' depicted through the structural canon, in which three voices are derived from one notated voice. In a sacred context, the number three symbolises the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; in terms of the fate of the empire, the legitimation of the ruling Habsburg family was equated by analogy with the dynastic succession of Frederick III, Maximilian I, and Charles V. Another constellation of three in the House of Habsburg was also represented visually at this time on medals, namely the succession of Maximilian I, Charles V, and
New Senfl Edition. The Collected Works of Ludwig Senfl (Denkmäler der Tonkunst 163), 2022
The editors of the edition owe thanks to many colleagues and institutions for their help and supp... more The editors of the edition owe thanks to many colleagues and institutions for their help and support. Without the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), which provided generous financial assistance (P 27469), the work of the edition would not have been possible. The Department of Musicology at the University of Vienna (Birgit Lodes) and the Department of Musicology and Performance Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Nikolaus Urbanek) cordially hosted the project within their premises. We also would like to express our thanks to the many libraries and archives that provided reproductions of sources for Senfl's music. Especially important to mention are the following institutions, whose personnel greatly facilitated the work of the edition through their kind and ready responses to our inquiries:
New Senfl Edition. The Collected Works of Ludwig Senfl, hrsg. mit S. L. Edwards und S. Gasch, Wien: Hollitzer (Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 163), 2022
Dieser Band wird an die beitragenden Mitglieder der Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe von Denkmälern de... more Dieser Band wird an die beitragenden Mitglieder der Gesellschaft zur Herausgabe von Denkmälern der Tonkunst in Österreich (Subskribenten) zu wesentlich ermäßigtem Preis abgegeben. Bei Aufführungen der in diesem Band veröffentlichten Werke sind die Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich als Quelle auf Programmen, in Ansagen usw. zu nennen.
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Papers by Sonja Tröster
Online Publications by Sonja Tröster
Open Access Books by Sonja Tröster
The Senfl Catalogue serves as an encyclopedic research tool for further scholarly investigation: it not only presents a lively and coherent picture of Senfl’s œuvre, but also helps to explore the broader musical culture of his time. At the same time, the in-depth presentation of Senfl’s music provides performers of early music with new information on repertory that adds to the soundscape of the Renaissance.