Ossi-Renaissance
Oswald
von Wolkenstein was a man of rather coarse manners. He looked coarse.
His portrait is even coarse, no whitewashing: beard stubbles, scars, one
eye shut for a lifetime. He looked more like a robber baron than a
noble semblance of knighthood in the Romantic sense. This impression is
conveyed and intensified by many of his song texts. Performers have
taken their cue from these: this roughneck, this bardic master-poet of
drastic phrasings must also have been musically rough, a kind of tavern
minstrel in a castle atmosphere: “strum, strum”. Very gradually, over
the course of many years, a change of perspective has crept in. The
results can be heard on this CD. The man from the lower (South Tyrolean)
nobility, the singer, instrumentalist, tunesmith (as one might formerly
have said): as a mercenary he was not just along for the ride in
campaigns between Northern Europe and Northern Africa – he was receptive
to everything new, especially music. Mostly in southern lands, at
numerous courts, listening to the performances of colleagues, he picked
up on new and cutting-edge developments, and this was above all:
polyphony.
He adopted musical models for his new texts. He
apparently composed some too, showing himself to be rather a man of the
Renaissance than of the late Middle Ages. This comes across when
listening to these new recordings, decidedly different from those
largely familiar by now. Even monophonic songs: artful.
One song on this CD exemplifies this with particular clarity: Durch aubenteuer tal und perg
(Kl 26, Track 4). Sung here by Marc, who accompanies himself on the
lute, is one of Oswald’s most radical texts: a personal account of
escape, capture, imprisonment. (The translation can be found starting on
page 523 of the revised re-issue of my Wolkenstein biography)[1]. In
this song text the poet truly did not mince words. But what we hear is a
different matter. The coarse material is filtered as it were by musical
means, it becomes refined. The radical becomes musically elevated and
idealised. The melismas for example, are carefully calculated by Oswald:
no longer a mere addition to monophony, mostly shrugged off until now,
they are an essential ingredient of his style. That which is coarse and
drastically phrased is subtly articulated in music. A metamorphosis
takes place: a merging of intentions of both poet and composer, whose
setting adapts and transforms the latest trends. In this way the
seemingly plain and simple song blends into the soundscape of delicate,
subtle polyphony. We have to see Wolkenstein differently, when listen to
him here.
Dieter Kühn
The Songs of Oswald von Wolkenstein
While
the lives of most late medieval poet-composers are hidden to modern
scholars, that of Oswald von Wolkenstein stands out in illuminated
contrast: his life and acts are chronicled in over one thousand
non-literary accounts [2]. These sources, however, surprisingly fail to
describe Oswald “the Minnesänger”, but rather provide numerous
details about Oswald the politician, diplomat, landowner, and aggressive
legal opponent. Practically all we know of his poetic and musical
activities has been transmitted through two large manuscripts, now in
Innsbruck and Vienna, which he commissioned personally in order to
preserve his works. These manuscripts constitute virtually his entire
œuvre, around 130 songs altogether. As one might expect, their contents
overlap for the most part, though some contributions are unique to only
one manuscript. Duplicates appearing in both sources, on closer
inspection, are in fact not identical in detail: through these, Oswald
allows us to peer into his methods by transmitting texts that straddle
the border between authoritative and performance versions. Despite
numerous recordings making many of his songs accessible to a wide
audience, there remains compositions that have yet to reach modern ears —
either problems with their notation have yet to be satisfactorily
solved, or the songs are simply too strange and alien to be considered
accessible.
Oswald’s œuvre presents a broader artistic spectrum
than we can observe in any other author of the German middle ages:
foremost, it is both poetically and musically sophisticated, ranging in
tone from simple to complex; it displays not only both traditional and
experimental approaches, but also those that reflect new developments of
his time. The songs are demanding to perform: the singer must act as
storyteller, all the while negotiating the phenomenal melodic ranges
encompassed in his monophonic songs, while his polyphonic works require
virtuosic effects to subtly enrich the sound world to which they belong
[3].
This recording is dedicated to a selection of Oswald’s songs
which have been, for the most part, rarely heard today. Among these are
polyphonic pieces for which we have made a first functional edition.
These include Freu dich, du weltlich creatúr (Track 3), Gar wunniklich hat si mein herz besessen (Track 5) and, as the personal wish of Ulrich Müller, Wol auff, wol an
(Track 9), a song which he had hoped one day to hear for himself.
Ensemble Leones runs the gamut of performance possibilities, employing
the bandwidth of the medieval instrumentarium: from a capella voices to
the full sound of the ensemble; from Horn des Wächters, which
blurs the border between “signal” and “musical” instrument, across the
humanistic revival of the cetra to the traditional instruments of the
German-speaking world: vielle, lute, harp, hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes and
transverse flute.
The Cosmopolitan – A little Programme Guide
The
compact size of this booklet format does not allow the inclusion of
texts and translations, so instead we offer the following guided tour of
all the tracks, with details about the contents and characteristics of
each piece.
Texts and translations into modern German, English
and French are available for download as a PDF file from the ensemble’s
homepage (www. leones.de). Song texts in their original versions are
also freely accessible from the website of the “Oswald von
Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft”: www.wolkenstein-gesellschaft.com/texte_oswald.php. An English translation of all Oswald lyrics was published by Albrecht Classen [4].
Oswald employed seven languages to create [1] Do fraig amors,
his macaronic masterpiece of a love song, dedicated to his beloved
wife, Margarete. The refrain highlights the didactic fun of this Babelic
banter: “Do it in German and in Italian, rouse it in French, laugh in
Hungarian, bake bread in Slovenian, let it resound in Flemish! The
seventh language is Latin”.
The postlude to this first song is [2] Stampanie,
an instrumental arrangement upon “Do fraig amors” in a dance format to
which Oswald often refers. When he uses the word “Stampanie” (=
estampie), however, he usually intends it as a metaphor for socializing
with convivial company.
To create [3] Freu dich, du weltlich creatúr,
Oswald may have recycled the music of a French chanson that has not
survived in any other sources. We should be thankful for Oswald’s
enthusiasm as a collector – without it, this composition (and others!)
would have been lost forever. We present it here in an instrumental
arrangement for the solo plectrum lute.
[4] Durch aubenteuer tal und perg
fulfils all our expectations of what an Oswald song should be like: a
monophonic epic of an autobiographic adventure tale; fifteen strophes of
brilliant and self-styling entertainment. The story goes as follows:
after having fallen into legal troubles, Oswald was captured and held in
the dungeons of a number of castles before he was finally led before
his sovereign, Frederick, Duke of Austria. He cleverly weaves into his
story a description of the journeys that brought him well around half
the known world: from Heidelberg on to England, Scotland, Ireland, over
the seas to Portugal, and even to Marocco and Granada. Rather than
sharing his table with the high nobility, as he was used to on those
journeys, he had to share his plank bed with a servant – quite a fall
from grace! He was heavily guarded in those dungeons; he has traded in
his knightly spurs for hard iron cuffs. Despite his situation he
obviously has not lost his sense of humour: “For twenty days I was lying
there, instead of dancing. What I lost in cloth at my knees I saved in
the soles of my shoes.” Finally, Duke Frederick decided that he would
rather enjoy Oswald’s company than have him moan away in his prison: “We
should be singing fa, sol, la together and writing courtly poems about
the beautiful ladies” — or at least these are the words that Oswald put
in his sovereign’s mouth. In any case, he was released, for which he
thanks both his duke and God. In the end, he seems to have learned his
lesson: “The fire of my vanity has often been quenched by Him without
the need of water.”
[5] Gar wunniklich hat si mein herz besessen
is a heartfelt love song in the form of a two-voice canon. The music
appears to be of French origin, though no concordance has been found.
Oswald cleverly alternates melismatic passages with syllabic text
setting in an interweaving of accompaniment and recitation. Despite the
intimate and complex exchanges between singers, the text can always be
understood.
The impressively large-scale [6] Es seusst dort her von orient is a monophonic Tagelied.
Oswald opens the song from the perspective of the far-travelled wind
who, having swept through all the lands from India, across Syria, Greece
and Northern Africa, to Spain and Southern France, finally reaches a
pair of lovers in South Tyrol who have spent the night in secret. The
watchman’s horn announces the dawning day – a signal also that it is
time for the lovers to part ways. Their farewell words and vows turn to
amorous embraces, and one thing leads to another... the refrains develop
into explicitly erotic descriptions. Oswald at his best!
The two-voice [7] Ach senliches leiden, today one of Oswald’s most popular songs, is densely packed with Schlagreimen
— literally “rhyming blows” — that vividly describe the pangs of love
(e.g. “crying, sighing, dying!”). Oswald’s unusual metaphors in this
song reveal his experience of a sea voyage to the Holy Land. He compares
himself to the dolphin who dives into the deep of the sea when a storm
comes and resurfaces only when the sun returns to bathe him with light.
The outcome of this lover’s lament remains unresolved: “Waiting gnaws at
me, hoping tortures me; it robs me of my senses!”
[8] Wes mich mein búl ie hat erfreut
is a typically catchy Oswald tune, whose charm, paired with his ironic
autobiographical text, has made it one of his most popular. Our
arrangement for the bagpipes highlights the melodic qualities of this
piece.
With [9] Wol auff, wol an we join “Ösli” and
“Gredli” (Oswald and his wife Margarete) in the bathtub. Two voices
represent our protagonists in this joyous springtime song. One of the
most peculiar polyphonic settings in Oswald’s œuvre, its notation
presents numerous editorial puzzles. How should we understand its
rhythm? Its counterpoint? With this premiere recording, Ensemble Leones
offers an example of how Oswald’s “organum-like” pieces may have worked
in practice. Certainly the cascading parallel fifths – typical of this
style – have a fantastic effect when the two lovers descend into
innuendo, singing: “Put on leaves, little shrub, sprout, little herb!
Off to the bath, Ossi, Gretli! The blossoming of the flowers overcomes
our tiredness”.
[10] Ain gút geboren edel man is
one of the few three-voice settings in Oswald’s manuscripts. As with
other polyphonic settings, it is probably a contrafactum for which no
concordance has been found. We have arranged this delightfully
unpretentious composition for transverse flute and cetra.
It is not entirely clear if the Tagelied-canon [11] Nu rue mit sorgen was meant to be sung by two or three voices. As it works very well with three, we decided that the two lovers in their morning
embrace
should be joined by the watchman on the tower, represented by a third
singer. Despite the disappearance of the morning star making them aware
they must part (lest their secret meeting be discovered!) they move
closer together. Finally they do separate and bid each other a fond
farewell.
“Who is she who is more radiant than the sun, who
boldly quenches and revives the withered wreath? Who is she who leads
the circle dance, and grants the mild month of May the sprouting of new
plants?” These rhetorical questions and those that follow in [12] Wer ist, die da durchleuchtet
have only one answer, which Oswald gives indirectly. She has the power
to lead the believers away from the path to hell: “Oh pure, honest lady,
our shield; break the devil’s spear, deflect his lance, beauteous
virgin! Amen”.
[13] Ich klag is another polyphonic
setting that survives thanks to Oswald’s avid borrowing. He apparently
meant to write a text to this three-voice composition, but never quite
got around to it. It remains a fragment, a sketch. We perform the music
instrumentally: first as a plectrum lute solo, then with vielles and
transverse flute.
[14] Mit gúnstlichem herzen is a canon for New Year and, with its extremely close entries, seems almost like a counterpart to Gar wunniklich hat si mein herz besessen (Track 4).
One
voice begins a phrase, the second then takes over and completes both
meaning and rhyme, and soon both voices mutually interject to create a
dazzling effect. The musical setting joins two independent texts
together to yield new meanings. As the first proclaims: “Out of
heartfelt affection I wish you an especially good New Year and whatever
on earth your heart might desire!” the second voice answers
simultaneously, “Your singing and pleasantries please me, that is truly
so; my loyalty shall be your reward: this wish, my love, shall come true
for us both”. The following interwoven phrases produce a new
“con-text”: “It shall be like that, treasure, truly” – “I thank for the
words and am your servant”. - “Think of me, my companion!” - “If it
pleases you always anew, than it shall be so!” The second verse reveals
that the dialogue partners are in fact again none other than Oswald
(“Os”) and his wife Margarete (“Gret”).
The extremely virtuosic, two-voice [15] Herz, prich makes excessive use of an associative string of Schlagreime
(see track 7), almost like a stream of consciousness. The two voices
toss single words, or even single syllables, at each other, which
complement each other and combine to form an intelligible text. With
these short words, the pangs of love can almost be felt physically:
“Heart, break! Seek revenge! See — pain spoils happiness and turns
natural love into eternal sorrow”.
Oswald’s linguistic prowess,
which we witnessed in the beginning of this recording, shows itself
again with a setting that incorporates no fewer than five languages.
[16] Bog de primi was dustu da includes texts in German, French,
Latin, Slovenian and the Romance dialect from his valley: Ladin. We
frame this refined, macaronic love song with an instrumental version of
what is now probably Oswald’s most famous drinking song: Wol auff, wir wellen slauffen.
Marc Lewon
1. Kühn, Dieter: Ich Wolkenstein. Die Biographie (Erweiterte Neufassung), Frankfurt/Main (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag) 2011 (= Das Mittelalter-Quartett: Viertes Buch).
2. Complete life accounts are available in an edited version with commentary in Schwob, Anton (Ed.): Die Lebenszeugnisse Oswalds von Wolkenstein. Edition und Kommentar, 5 vol. Wien et al. (Böhlau Verlag) 1999-2013.
3.
An overview of the state of Oswald research with a comprehensive
bibliography is available in Müller, Ulrich and Margarete Springeth
(Ed.): Oswald von Wolkenstein. Leben – Werk – Rezeption, Berlin, New York (Walter de Gruyter) 2011.
4. Classen, Albrecht: The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein. An English Translation of the Complete Works (1376/77- 1445), New York (Palgrave Macmillan) 2008 (The New Middle Ages).
