An unknown source concerning Esaias Reusner Junior from the Music Collection Department of Wroclaw University Library

• Authors: Grzegorz Joachimiak
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

The Music Collection Department of Wroclaw University Library is in possession of an old print that contains the following inscription: ‘Esaias Reusner | furste Brigischer | Lautenist’. This explicitly indicates the lutenist Esaias Reusner junior (1636-1679), who was born in Lwówek Śląski (Ger. Lówenberg). A comparative analysis of the duct of the handwriting in this inscription and in signatures on letters from 1667 and 1668 shows some convergences between the main elements of the script. However, there are also elements that could exclude the possibility that all the autographs were made by the same person. Consequently, it cannot be confirmed or unequivocally refuted that the inscription is an autograph signature of the lutenist to the court in Brzeg (Ger. Brieg). The old print itself contains a great deal of interesting information, which, in the context of Silesian musical culture of the second half of the seventeenth century and biographical information relating to the lutenist, enable us to become better acquainted with the specific character of this region, including the functioning of music in general, and lute music in particular. The print contains a work by Johann Kessel, a composer and organist from Oleśnica (Ger. Ols), who dedicated it to three brothers of the Piast dynasty: Georg III of Brzeg, Ludwig IV of Legnica and Christian of Legnica. It is a ‘Paean to brotherly unity”, which explains the reference to Psalm 133. Published in Brzeg, for the New Year of 1663, by Christoff Tschorn, the print also includes two poetic texts: a sophisticated elegiac distich in the form of a tautogram and a New Year’s ode. It is beneath these texts that we find the above-mentioned inscription relating to Esaias Reusner Jnr. Regardless of whether the autograph on the print is ascribed to Reusner or not, it does indicate his connection with this print, and probably with Kessel’s composition as well. Consequently, we can discover what kind of repertoire the Silesian lutenist played besides familiar lute pieces by his teachers, his own works, and arrangements of his works for chamber ensemble.

Keywords

PL

lute in Silesia; Esaias Reusner Junior; Reusner autograph; Johann Kessel; music in Oleśnica (Ols); music in Brzeg (Brieg); music at the court of the Brandenburg Elector in Berlin; Piast dynasty of Silesia; tautogram

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2012
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 83-102

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Grzegorz Joachimiak

• is a musicology graduate of the University of Wroclaw (MA thesis on a lute tablature from the Łopaciński Public Library in Lublin (PL-Lw 1985) as evidence of European music culture at the end of the seventeenth century, 2009), and a classical guitar graduate of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wroclaw (MA, 2010). His research interests concern mainly Silesian musical culture, especially lute music from that region, and the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a PhD student, he is preparing a dissertation on handwritten lute tablatures from Silesia (University of Wroclaw, Institute of Musicology). He is also a grant-holder of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, among others. He participates actively in various research projects, including an ethnomusicological expedition to Siberia (2006), ‘Collections of old music sources from the sacral and secular centers in Silesia within music culture in Centre Europe context. Cataloging of survived sources (on-going) and ‘The cultural legacy of the monasteries resolved in the former Polish Commonwealth and in Silesia during 18th and 19th centuries: the fate, importance, inventory’ (on-going), has co-organised student workshops cataloguing Silesian music sources in Opole (2008) and organised the Lute Weekend in Wroclaw during the 15th Wroclaw Guitar Festival (2012), and also participates in regional cultural life (concert reviews, lectures on lute music, etc.).