Georg Forster (composer)
Georg Forster ( * 1510 in Amberg, † November 12, 1568 in Nuremberg ) was a German doctor, composer and editor of the five-volume song collection Fresh teutsche Liedlein ( 1539-1556 ).
Life
Forster spent his youth in 1521 as a pupil of the composer Lorenz Lemlin at the Heidelberg Hofkantorei. In 1531 he enrolled in Ingolstadt for medicine. In 1534 he became a Fellow to Wittenberg, where he graduated acquaintance with Luther and Melanchthon. Luther received him into his table fellowship and gave him commissions. After graduating in 1539, Forster initially practiced as a doctor in Amberg and Würzburg. During this time, the first two volumes of his collection Fresh teutsche little song appeared. 1542 also brought a tape Forster Würzburg psalms out.
He then became the personal physician of the Count Palatine Wolfgang, Duke of Zweibrücken and Regent of the Palatinate, was appointed to Heidelberg and accompanied the Prince 1542/43 on an arduous campaign against the Duke of Jülich in Flanders. 1544 Forster was the personal physician of the Abbot Frederick Hailsbronn to Nuremberg, but already changed over to Tübingen in 1545, to do his doctorate at the university there. In 1547 he settled as a physician in the city of Nuremberg and married. There appeared in 1549, the third 1556, the fourth and fifth volume of his little song. Together with his friends and colleagues in Heidelberg he also planned a compilation of hymns, this project was, however, no longer realized.
Forster's collection of polyphonic secular songs is distinguished from other contemporary publications (such as the songbook Erhard Öglins of 1521 and the songbooks Johann Ott of 1534 and 1543), first, by their scope and representative completeness and secondly by the fact that they are not only the melodies, but also the texts completely reproduces them ( often found in the other printed songbooks of the time only incipits or first stanzas ). Forster's Fresh teutsche little song can therefore be considered as one of the most important printed sources of the Renaissance or tenor song.
In addition to numerous anonymous folk tunes and the " evergreens " of some composers of the previous two generations (such as Heinrich Isaac and his student Ludwig Senfl or Arnold von Bruck ) also contain the five volumes of some new compositions by Forster himself and his Heidelberger friends Jobst Brandt, Paul Hofhaimer, Caspar Othmayr and Stefan Zirler.
Works
- Fresh teutsche Liedlein (5 volumes 1539/1540/1549/1556/1556 )
- Würzburg Psalms ( 1542)