An unknown source concerning Esaias Reusner Junior from the Music Collection Department of Wrocław University Library
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Date
2012
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Katedra Muzykologii, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PTPN, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM
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Abstract
The Music Collection Department of Wrocław University Library is in possession of an
old print that contains the following inscription: ‘Esaias Reusner | fürste Brigischer | Lautenist’. This
explicitly indicates the lutenist Esaias Reusner junior (1636–1679), who was born in Lwówek Śląski
(Ger. Löwenberg). 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 confi rmed 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 specifi c 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. Öls), 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 fi nd 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.
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lute in Silesia, Esaias Reusner Junior, Reusner autograph, Johann Kessel, music in Oleśnica (Öls), music in Brzeg (Brieg), music at the court of the Brandenburg Elector in Berlin, Piast dynasty of Silesia, tautogram
Citation
Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology 11, 2012, pp. 83-102.