Read more
Michel Beheim (1420-ca. 1474), prolific and peripatetic composer of almost 500 song-poems, explored a very wide thematic and stylistic range, embracing almost every type of song accessible to the late medieval and early modern singer. He wrote lyrics on history and love, politics and travel, geography and aesthetics, morals and warfare, satire and diplomacy, polemics and religion, Dracula and ocean monsters - and more. Often his own scribe, Beheim, ever the self-important artist, carefully preserved his work for posterity. Sometimes housed at the highest courts of the Empire, but frequently without sustenance, Beheim led a life in constant search of literary patronage. In the end, he was forced into retirement because his monophonic singing fell out of favor, rivalled by the polyphonic music of the Renaissance courts. This new collection of annotated translations of his work offers an introduction to his vast oeuvre.
«Our foremost translator and commentator, Professor Ogier is a surefooted guide to the challenging oeuvre of Michel Beheim, an under-appreciated author of vast range. Ogier's colloquial, yet true renditions perfectly capture the tone and timbre of a long-stilled, but vital voice. This volume is particularly welcome because it contains many of the first English versions of richly diverse and important song-poems. It is to be hoped that this volume finds a place in our university classrooms, where Michel Beheim will surely gain an appreciative audience.»
(Professor William C. McDonald, University of Virginia)
«James Ogier meets the scientific standards required since the new assessment of Beheim's poetry in the history of pre-Meistersang. This concerns the selection of the poems with its special focus as well as the transcription of Beheim's melodies as an integral part of his art. Therefore, I strongly endorse this publication.»
(Professor Sieglinde Hartmann, Universität Würzburg)
List of contents
Contents: Zugweise - Kurze Weise - Osterweise - Verkehrte Weise - Hofweise - Slegweise - Lange Weise.
About the author
After undergraduate work in German at Lehigh University and the University of Bonn, JAMES OGIER received his doctorate in Germanic Philology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981 and served, until his retirement in 2018, as Professor of German and Linguistics at Roanoke College in Salem, VA. He has previously translated and edited Michel Beheim¿s History of Trieste (2018) and published extensively on Beheim and Oswald von Wolkenstein. His other interests range from the Scandinavian languages (especially Danish, Icelandic, and Finnish) to the study of Maya glyphs and culture, around which he has developed several undergraduate courses, including travel courses. He has received Fulbright grants to Denmark and Germany. He currently resides in New Jersey.
