Meistersang#

Meistersang (master song), strongly formalised didactic lyric poetry of the 15th and 16th centuries practised in so-called singing schools after fixed rules (tabulaturs). The meistersingers, who belonged to the craftsmen class of the towns, based their meistersang on the minnesingers and epigrammatists of the 13th and 14th centuries (the 12 "alte Meister" - "old masters") like Walther von der Vogelweide, der Marner and Friedrich von Sonnenburg. The lieder composed in complicated "tones" (melodies and metric schemes) in stanzas were performed at contests. The pioneers of meistersang in Austria were Heinrich von Muegeln, Peter Suchenwirt and Michel Beheim. There were Austrian singing schools in Schwaz (from 1532), in Wels (1549-1601, Paulus Freudenlechner), where H. Sachs also stayed for a short time, in Freistadt, Steyr (1562-1615) and Eferding (1606-1616). The Counter-Reformation forced many of the mostly Protestant Austrian meistersingers to emigrate (esp. to Germany).

Literature#