Neusidler, Hans (EN)

Neusidler, Newsidler, Neusiedler, Hans *1508 or 1509 Pressburg (now Bratislava), †2 February 1563 Nuremberg, German lutenist, composer, teacher, and luthier. At the beginning of 1530, he arrived in Nuremberg, where he soon obtained the right of residence (21 February) and got married (13 September). Despite his lively professional activity, which earned him great recognition among his contemporaries, he turned to the city council for financial support due to the need to support 13 children he had with his first wife and four more with his second (married on 4 May 1556).

Almost all Neusidler’s collections are clearly educational. The 1536 textbook was published in two parts, the first of which is intended for beginners who are self-taught. It contains instructions on reading tablature and on performing the pieces themselves. The works (mainly intabulations of German songs and dances) are arranged according to difficulty: 2-voice intabulations (with the Canto and Alto voices of the original German Lieder omitted) are followed by 3-voice intabulations (Alto again omitted), with ten models repeated across these groups to allow students to track their progress. For the tenth piece in each of these groups, Neusidler provides detailed fingering for the left hand, and for the twentieth piece, for the right hand. The intabulations are accompanied by dances in simple routines and short, easy praeludia. Part 2, intended for advanced students, contains only intabulations, apart from very elaborate praeludia, with chansons and motets slightly predominating over German models. The 1540 collection is, in a sense, the third part, intended for those who have already mastered the art of playing; apart from five reprinted pieces, Neusidler again included mainly intabulations of German songs and dances. The 1544 collections repeat the concept of the first series, with half of book 1 and a quarter of book 2 filled with reprints of previously published works, while book 3 contains only nine new 4-voice intabulations of 2- and 3-part motets. The 1547 collection consists almost entirely of reprints selected from earlier books (Neusidler added only 2 dances here), while the 1549 collection consists of almost 75% previously unpublished works. 

Excluding repetitions, Neusidler’s collections contain 15 pieces of the praeludium type (also called “Fundamentum,” “Fantasey,” or “Trium mit fugen”), over 200 intabulations, and nearly 50 dances (the distinction between these two groups is sometimes impossible to make). Among the intabulation models, more than half are German songs (from P. Hofhaimer, through numerous lesser composers, to L. Senfl), about a quarter are chansons (from J. Ghiselin, through Josquin des Prés and others, to N. Gombert and C. Janequin), about 1/8 are sacred works by Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German composers, and the smallest group are models for Italian texts. Among the dances, the predominant structure is a two-part layout: duple meter + proportio (called “Hupff auff”); the term “Italian dance” appears quite often, and there is also a single occurrence of “Bavarian dance,” “Netherlandish,” “Jewish,” or other names not related to nationality. Der Polnisch Tantz, named as such in the table of contents of book 2 from 1544, is the oldest of the “Polish dances” that later spread to many countries.

Literature: E. Radecke Das deutsche weltliche Lied in der Lautenmusik des 16. Jahrhunderts, “Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft” VII, 1891; O. Chilesotti Di Hans Newsidler e di un’antica intavolatura tedesca di liuto, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” I, 1894; O. Körte Laute und Lautenmusik bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1901; J. Dieckmann Die in deutscher Lautentabulatur überlieferten Tänze des 16. Jahrhunderts, Kassel 1931; H.P. Kosack Geschichte der Laute und Lautenmusik in Preussen, Kassel 1935; W. Boetticher Studien zur solistischen Lautenpraxis des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1943; K. Dorfmüller Studien zur Lautenmusik in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, «Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte» XI, 1967; H. Radke Zur Spieltechnik der deutschen Lautenisten des 16. Jahrhunderts, “Acta Musicologica” LII, 1980; R. Chiesa Storia della letteratura del liuto e della chitarra. Il Cinquecento: Hans Neusidler, “Il Fronimo” no. 42–47, 1983–84; H. Minamino Sixteenth-Century Lute Treatises with Emphasis on Process and Techniques of Intabulation, thesis, University of Chicago, 1988; Ch. Dupraz Les duos de luth en Allemagne dans la première partie du XVIe siècle, in: Luths et luthistes en Occident, eds. Ph. Canguilhem et al., Paris 1999; J. Lüdtke Hans Newsidler in Nuremberg, “Journal of the Lute Society of America” XLIV, 2011.