Born: August 11, 1600 - Friedland [now Frýtland], near Schweidnitz [now Świdnica], Silesia
Died: January 11, 1650 - Breslau [now Wrocław],

Paul Hallmann was a German composer. He was a member of the Kapelle of Duke Georg Rudolph at Liegnitz (Legnica). Described as a ‘gentleman from Strachwitz, near Liegnitz’, he became, through the duke’s admiration for him, a member of the nobility on January 31, 1624, and he was nominated to the princely council in 1632.

Of the sacred works Paul Hallmann wrote for the Protestant ducal court, 14 were formerly kept in the celebrated Biblioteca Rudolphina at Liegnitz. Owing to the scattering of this collection during World War II, some of them disappeared and the rest remained incomplete. Scholz, who knew the Rudolphina before the war, divided Hallmann's works into three groups. The first comprises three masses, a Kyrie and a Magnificat. The five-part mass consists of Kyrie, Gloria and Sanctus, the first movement in Greek, the other two in German. The two six-part masses are both in Latin and both in the form of the missa brevis; one is based on the motet Jerusalem gaude by Jacobus Handl (150 of whose works were in the Rudolphina). According to Scholz no connection with the 5^th tone is recognizable in the Magnificat; it was possibly heard, in accordance with alternatim practice, in the even-numbered verses: Hallmann set only the odd-numbered ones. The second category of works consists of four-part harmonizations of melodies, three of which - A solis ortu cardine, Christum wir sollen loben schon and Was fürchtst du Feind Herodesz sehr - are all based on the same Christmas melody. Hallmann’s most interesting music is found in the four motets that make up the third element in his output. Even so, his relatively simple four-part setting of Siehe wie fein und lieblich is inferior to settings of this text by Hammerschmidt and Schütz. An eight-part funeral motet, without continuo, Ich habe Lust abzuscheiden, is a substantially grander and indeed moving work. Hallmann’s most modern piece is Wer sich wider die Obrigkeit setzet, a five-part concertato with instruments. It includes some expressive word-setting especially at the words ‘Gebet dem Kaiser was des Kaisers, und Gott was Gottes ist’, as though during the Thirty Years War which badly affected Liegnitz between 1627 and 1635 the composer wanted to underline the altercation between the Catholic emperor and the Protestant duke. The text of the only Latin work in this group, Da pacem Domine, is also appropriate to a time of war.

Works

all MSS incomplete

Missa, 5vv, PL-LEtpn, Wn
Missa in festo nativitatis Domini, 6vv, lost
Missa super ‘Jerusalem gaude’, 6vv, lost
Kyrie in festo Michaelis, 4vv, lost
Magnificat quinti toni, 6vv, LEtpn, Wn
Motets: Da pacem Domine, 4vv, LEtpn, Wn; Ich habe Lust abzuscheiden, 8vv, Wn; Wer in gutter Hoffnung will von hinnen verscheiden, 4vv, LEtpn, Wn; Wer sich wider die Obrigkeit setzet, 5vv, insts, LEtpn, Wn
Harmonizations: A solis ortu cardine, 4vv, lost; Christum wir sollen loben schon, 4vv, Wn; Heilig ist Gott der Herr Zebaoth, 4vv, LEtpn, Wn; Siehe wie fein und lieblich, 4vv, LEtpn, Wn; Was fürchtst du Feind Herodesz sehr, 4vv, Wn

Source: Grove Music Online © Oxford University Press 2006 acc. 5/29/06 (Authors: Fritz Feldmann/Dorothea Schröder)
Contributed by Thomas Braatz (May 2006)

Use of Chorale Melodies in his works

Title

Chorale Melody

Year

Christum wir sollen loben schon, 4-pt setting

Christum wir sollen loben schon

Links to other Sites

Bibliography

EitnerQ
E. Pfudel: ‘Die Musik-Handschriften der Königl. Ritter-Akademie zu Liegnitz’, MMg, xxi (1889), suppl., 3-4
W. Scholz: Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte der Stadt Liegnitz von ihren Anfängen bis etwa zum Jahre 1800 (Liegnitz, 1941)
W. Scholz: ‘Das musikalische Leben in Liegnitz bis ca. 1800’, Musik des Ostens, v (1969), 113-43
A. Kolbuszewska: Katalog zbiorów muzycznych legnickiej biblioteki Ksiecia Jerzego Rudolfa ‘Bibliotheca Rudolphina’ [Catalogue of the music collections in Prince Jerzy Rudolf's library in Legnica] (Legnica, 1992)