Power and ambition: Georg Rhau’s strategies for music publishing

Abstract

There is almost no fundamental study on the Reformation that does not emphasise the importance of printing for the movement’s success: the printing press first made Martin Luther famous beyond a narrow theological context.1 In the early years of the Reformation, Wittenberg became a centre of printing and publishing, despite lacking basic preconditions for success.2 Lying in the Empire’s North-East, it was far from major trading routes, unlike cities such as Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt or Mainz. Although Luther and his circle complained about the problems caused by Wittenberg’s isolation, they succeeded in establishing Wittenberg as a unique place – a unique brand – in the printing and publishing market.3 Even before Luther’s Reformation transformed the printing industry across the Empire, a fledgling printing industry existed in Wittenberg. Its motor was the university, founded by Elector Friedrich III (‘the Wise’) of Saxony in 1502, to serve mainly as a centre for the education of administrative staff.4 Early Wittenberg printers such as Nikolaus Marschalk, who produced the first printed book in Wittenberg in December 1502, or Wolfgang Stöckel, the first official university printer, produced their books mainly for local educational purposes. The first printer in Wittenberg who published music was Johannes Grunenberg.5 In 1508, he was invited by Johannes von Staupitz (c. 1465–1524), one of the founders of the university, to establish a printing workshop. In 1511, Grunenberg printed a small pamphlet containing a piece for four voices, a student drinking song in humanistic fashion, with woodblocks of low quality.6 This chapter focusses on Georg Rhau, one of the key figures of Wittenberg printing in the first half of the sixteenth century. Rhau was not only one of the most productive printers of theological and propagandistic literature of his time, but also the most active music printer. The first part of this chapter presents general observations about Rhau’s activities as a music printer, based mainly on the data collected by the vdm team.7 The paper then focusses on Rhau’s polyphonic music books, outlining Rhau’s efforts to use the Wittenberg brand to market polyphonic music books. The third part presents new evidence about polyphonic music books produced for special occasions, a genre that has been largely neglected by musicological scholarship. Finally, the fourth part of this chapter discusses a lost polyphonic music book by Rhau that prompts some questions about the role of this genre in the music printing industry.