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Minigraduiertenkolleg  Ideengeschichtliche und kompositionsästhetische Perspektiven zur Symphonischen Dichtung (IKOPS)

In Kooperation mit der Hochschule für Musik Mainz und dem Gutenberg Nachwuchskolleg wurde an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität jetzt das Minigraduiertenkolleg  Ideengeschichtliche und kompositionsästhetische Perspektiven zur Symphonischen Dichtung (IKOPS) eingerichtet.

Veranstaltungen der Abteilung Musikwissenschaft

Gastvortrag "Negotiating Confessional Sound and Space in Early Modern Germany"

"Negotiating Confessional Sound and Space in Early Modern Germany: Gregor Aichinger’s Solennia (1606) for the Confraternity of Corpus Christi" - Gastvortrag von Prof. Dr. Alexander Fisher (Vancouver).

Mittwoch, 13. November 2024, 18.15 Uhr im Hörsaal Musikwissenschaft.

Abstract

In the complex religious geography of early modern Germany, Catholic confraternities were important vectors for the multisensory shaping of urban space, particularly through the medium of processional culture. Confraternal devotion became especially provocative in mixed confessional environments where notions of sacral space were easily violated through public demonstration: the biconfessional city of Augsburg, which by the early seventeenth century became a crucible for religious tensions stoked largely by the reassertion of Counter-Reformation Catholicism, is a particularly striking example. Founded in 1604 through the initiative of the Capuchins and Fugger patricians, the Confraternity of Corpus Christi began to mount spectacular processions for Corpus Christi and Good Friday that wound their way through Protestant neighbourhoods and offered a rich diet of sights and sounds that bolstered Catholic identity, but also triggered exasperated reactions from local Protestants and generated a significant polemical controversy in print.
Confessional debates around the transsubstantiated Eucharist and Catholic processions formed the immediate context for the Solennia augustissimi Corporis Christi (1606) by the Augsburg organist and vicar-choral Gregor Aichinger (c. 1564–1628), a collection of heretofore little-known polyphony designed for the devotional practices of the eponymous confraternity. Dedicated to one of the chief instigators of the recent spectacles, Marcus Fugger (1564–1614), the Solennia features a varied program addressing the varied social and musical backgrounds of Aichinger’s fellow confrères, both Netherlandish-style polyphony for trained choirs and far more schematic works likely intended for amateur devotees. A closer examination of the Solennia offers a window on the diverse musical profile of urban confraternities in the German orbit, as well as the ways in which a musical publication could negotiate the fluid boundaries between liturgical and devotional practice in an environment of rising religious tension.