Roman Hoffstetter

Roman Hofstetter OSB (also: Romanus Hoffstetter, born April 24, 1742 in Laudenbach, today part of Weikersheim, † May 21, 1815 in Miltenberg am Main ) was a German composer and violist.

Life

From 1763 he lived as a Benedictine monk in the monastery Amorbach, where he probably led the music of the monastery. After the dissolution of the monastery in 1803, he worked as a freelance musician.

Works

From Hofstetter three concertos for viola, and twelve string quartets are obtained in two collections ( op 1 and op 2). Among the sacred works Hofstetter's Mass in F major for soloists, chorus and orchestra, and organ appear is emphasized. The work is published on the CD Festive music from the Southwest German Benedictine monasteries of the label Ars Musici. As an admirer of the music of Joseph Haydn wrote in his style.

Hofstetter as putative author of Haydn, Op 3

A certain degree of fame Hofstetter by musicology. The six string quartets op.3, originally Joseph Haydn were attributed were allocated in one of Alan Tyson and HC Robbins Landon in the journal Musical Times published study Hofstetter 1964. Of these string quartets of Haydn neither manuscripts nor Hofstetter exist. The oldest source, a pressure of the Parisian publisher Bailleux from 1777, Haydn mentioned as the composer of Opus on the title page. However, it can be seen in the sets of parts of the first two quartets that from them the name Hofstetter was blotted out. Landon and Tyson concluded that Hofstetter was the author of all six plants probably Bailleux and they 've sold out in paragraph reasons better known under the name of Haydn. This hypothesis was confirmed by the most Haydn researchers. A published 1986 essay by Günther Zuntz, the Tyson and Landon imputed serious philological errors and advocated the retention of the attribution to Haydn, on the other hand, was largely ignored.

If Hofstetter is the author of the String Quartets op 3, then he is also the composer of a very, known under the name of Haydn piece, the so-called Serenade (2nd movement, Andante cantabile, C major ) from the Quartet No. 5 in F major.