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25-458: The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century. In their work, a Bar is not a single stanza (which they called a Liet or Gesätz ); rather, it is the whole song. The word Bar is most likely a shortening of Barat , denoting

50-487: A costume which was not seldom motley and which was often sumptuous. In Nuremberg, where the master singers flourished particularly, the special festivals were opened with free singing, in which anybody might sing, though not belonging to the corporation. In this the choice of the subjects was left comparatively uncontrolled. Then followed the chief singing, when only those who belonged to the corporation were allowed to sing, and only on scriptural subjects. The judges sat behind

75-547: A curtain. There were four: one watched whether the song was according to the text of the Bible , which lay open before him; the second whether the prosody was correct; the third criticized the rhymes; the fourth the tunes. Every fault was marked, and he who had fewest received the prize. Meistersinger poetry played a large part in German town life of the 15th and 16th century. The tradition often reinforced German burgher values; as such, it

100-510: A different melody ( Abgesang – 'aftersong'). One such tune ( Ton in Meistersinger terminology) by Hans Folz (c1437–1513) illustrates this: [REDACTED] Note that the B section is not necessarily the same length as each A section. The B section can also incorporate parts of the A section's phrase: in the above example, the final 14 notes of the B section match the final 14 notes of each A section (see also Rundkanzone ). In this example,

125-680: A house. The names of his wife and daughters are recorded. He died in Basel in 1287. Like Gottfried von Strassburg , whom he admired, but unlike most other poets from the time, Konrad did not belong to the nobility. His varied and voluminous literary work is comparatively free from the degeneration which set in so rapidly in Middle High German poetry during the 13th century. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , "[h]is style, although occasionally diffuse,

150-515: A singular likeness to the technicalities invented by the lesser, and even by the better, poets two centuries earlier in Southern France. The meetings took place either in the town hall ( Rathaus ) or, more frequently, on Sundays in the church. Three times a year, at Easter , Pentecost , and Christmas , special festivals and singing competitions were instituted. At such competitions or Schulsingen , judges ( Merker ) were appointed to criticize

175-480: A skillful thrust in fencing. The term was used to refer to a particularly artful song – the type one composes in songwriters' guilds. The AAB pattern does, however, describe each stanza in a Meistersinger's Bar , which is divided into two Stollen (A), which are collectively termed the Aufgesang , followed by an Abgesang . The musical form thus contains two repetitions of one melody ( Stollen – 'stanzas') followed by

200-548: A three part AAB form with the first part repeating. Such AAB forms may be found in works ranging from Lutheran chorales to " The Star-Spangled Banner " to songs by Schubert , Schumann , and Brahms. Bartók made use of the Bar form in the 20th century, and most blues follow the pattern "A 1 A 2 B." The German musicologist Alfred Lorenz, in his studies of Wagner, abstracted the concept of barform to include anything resembling an AAB structure at any level of scale: "The essence of

225-469: Is an story on the eaten heart. It tells of the relationship between a knight and married noblewoman who had a jealous husband. After the knight died during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land his squire attempted to deliver the knight's heart to his lover. The husband saw the squire before, ordered the heart to be prepared in a tasty manner and gave it to his wife, the lover of the knight. When she became aware of

250-469: Is dignified in tone; his metre is clearly influenced by Gottfried's tendency to relieve the monotony of the epic-metre with ingenious variations, but it is always correct; his narratives—if we except Die halbe Birn , of which the authorship is doubtful—are free from coarseness, to which the popular poets at this time were prone, and, although mysticism and allegory bulk largely in his works, they were not allowed, as in so many of his contemporaries, to usurp

275-580: The 15th at Augsburg and Nuremberg . Nuremberg, under the leadership of Hans Sachs , became the most famous school in the 16th century, by which time Meistersinger schools had spread all over Germany and farther north, to Magdeburg , Breslau , Görlitz , and Danzig . Each guild had various classes of members, ranging from beginners, or Schüler (corresponding to trade apprentices ), and Schulfreunde (equivalent to Gesellen or journeymen ), to Meister . Meisters were poets who could both write new verses to existing melodies and invent new melodies. The poem

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300-545: The 17 never-repeated notes starting the B section would have been called a Steg by the Meistersingers: literally, " bridge "; whence comes the term for a contrasting section in popular music. Composer Richard Wagner in act III of his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , used the word Bar incorrectly as referring to a stanza of the prize song. This was based on his misreading of Wagenseil. Bach 's famous biographer Spitta in his monumental 1873–80 biography , emphasized

325-530: The Bar does not reside in the actual length, but in the distribution of its powers. Whether the Bar occupies 3 measures or 1,000 is irrelevant; it is always a regular Bar if [its] essence is fulfilled: a double appearance as against a single balancing occurrence of equal weight." Lorenz argues that this short-short-long structuring principle occurring at multiple scales at once gives Wagner's music its feeling of ever-present forward momentum. Meistersinger A Meistersinger (German for "master singer")

350-466: The competitors and note their offences against the rules of the Tabulatur . Prizes were awarded, and those who sang ill were fined. The prize was sometimes money, sometimes a crown, as at Nuremberg in the time of Hans Sachs. Flowers had also an important part in these competitions. Often in the older days one singer would hang up a wreath as a challenge and as a reward for victory. The meistersinger often wore

375-486: The founders of their guild twelve poets of the Middle High German period, including Wolfram von Eschenbach , Konrad von Würzburg , Reinmar von Zweter , and Heinrich Frauenlob . Frauenlob allegedly established the earliest Meistersinger school at Mainz , early in the 14th century. The schools originated first in the upper Rhine district, then spread elsewhere. In the 14th century schools operated at Mainz, Strasbourg , Frankfurt , Würzburg , Zürich , and Prague ; in

400-611: The guild of Meistersingers and their singing contest. Konrad von W%C3%BCrzburg Konrad von Würzburg (c.1220-1230 – 31 August 1287) was the chief German poet of the second half of the 13th century. As his name suggests, Konrad hailed from the Franconian town of Würzburg . By the standards of medieval poets, his life is unusually well documented. He spent part of his life in Strasbourg and his later years in Basel , where owned

425-518: The place of poetry." Konrad wrote a number of legends ( Alexius , Silvester , Pantaleon ) illustrating Christian virtues and dogma ; Der Welt Lohn , a didactic allegory on the familiar theme of Frau Welt , the woman beautiful in front, but unsightly and loathsome from behind. Die goldene Schmiede is a panegyric of the Virgin Mary ; the Klage der Kunst , an allegorical defence of poetry. Herzmaere

450-574: The role of Lutheran chorales, almost all of which are in AAB form, in what he considered the most mature of Bach's cantatas. Composer Johannes Brahms claimed the AAB form of the chorale " Jesu, meine Freude " generates larger formal structures in Bach's motet of the same name . Subsequent popularity and study of the use of AAB stanzas in Bach's and Wagner's works has led to wide adoption of the term Bar form for any song or larger musical form that can be rationalized to

475-837: The theme of which has been made familiar to modern readers by Uhland in his Kastellan von Coucy , is one of the best poems of its kind in Middle High German literature. There is no complete collection available of Konrad's works. Some examples are: The shorter poems, Otto and Herzemaere , can be found in Erzählungen und Schwänke des Mittelalters , edited by H Lambel (2nd ed., 1883). Later German translations of Konrad's most popular poems were published by K Pannier and H Kruger in Reclams Universalbibliothek (1879-1891). See F Pfeiffer in Germania , iii (1867), and W Goither in

500-399: The whole story, she died. His most ambitious works are two enormously long epics, Der trojanische Krieg (consisting of more than 40,000 verses, and unfinished) and Partenopier und Meliur , both of which are based on French originals. Konrad's talents are best showcased however in his shorter verse romances, such as Engelhart und Engeltrut , Kaiser Otto and Das Herzemaere ; the latter,

525-407: Was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry , composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part. The Meistersinger maintained and developed the traditions of the medieval Minnesingers . They belonged to the artisan and trading classes of the German towns, and regarded as their masters and

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550-451: Was middle-class popular art rather than high art. The " Meistergesang " culminated in the 16th century and declined shortly thereafter. Meistersinger traditions lingered in southern Germany as late as the 19th century: a society in Ulm dissolved in 1839; the last school died out at Memmingen in 1875. The plot of Richard Wagner 's 1868 opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg revolves around

575-419: Was paid to fitting the syllables to the melody than to the text's meaning, sentiment, or message. The various songs were divided into three strophes , and each strophe was divided into two Stollen and a discant or Abgesang . Plate, in " Die Kunstausdrücke der Meistersinger ", gives a long list of the various features of rhythm and rhyme in this complicated poetry, in all of which can be observed

600-501: Was technically known as a Bar or Gesetz , the melody as a Ton or Weis . The songs were all sung without accompaniment. The rules of the art were set down in the so-called Tabulatur or law-book of the guild. The Tabulatur dealt with three matters: (1) The kinds of poems and the parts of a meistergesang; (2) permissible rhymes; (3) mistakes to be avoided, including errors of delivery, of melody, of structure and of opinion and, especially, errors of rhyme, word choice, or meter. Poetry

625-550: Was to them a mechanical art that could be learned through diligent study, not something dependent on divine inspiration. Their songs cover a variety of strophic forms corresponding to the many new tunes which the Meistersingers invented and gave complicated names such as Gestreiftsafranblumleinweis (Little striped saffron flower melody), Fettdachsweis , Vielfrassweis (Melody of eating much), geblümte Paradiesweis (Flowery paradise melody), etc. More attention

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