Oswald von Wolkenstein - Barbican

programme note
rest from your cares’), one of Oswald’s most beautiful
poems, is a Romeo and Juliet vignette in which the sad
syllables of the woman seem to be trying to slow the pace of
her lover’s impending departure.
Two years before Oswald’s marriage, when Henry V was
galloping once more unto the breach at Agincourt, our poet
found himself in the entourage of Friedrich IV, Duke of
Austria, at the Council of Konstanz. These councils were long,
drawn-out affairs: some delegates would arrive in March,
others turn up in mid-May, so volatile were travelling
conditions and the political climate of the time. Andreas
Scholl likes to imagine that ‘at night, there would be drinking,
and musicians and poets like Oswald would present their
new compositions, commenting on politics and life. His
friends must have loved to hear of his exploits and
escapades, his fantasies and his fights.’ While kings and
princes, diplomats and dukes lingered long, these were
creative times for Oswald von Wolkenstein.
Soon after Konstanz, Oswald found himself sent as a
diplomat to the service of Sigismund, King of Hungary. He
didn’t much like it, on the evidence of his complaints and
curses in the stomping ‘Wes mich mein bül’ (‘Whatever gifts’).
4
Absence from his lady, noisy children and even bed-bugs
were added to the family disputes, peasant uprisings and
dislocation of principalities and powers that were the
constant companions of Oswald’s life. No wonder that he
fled, in his few private moments, to poetic refuge, and to the
comforts and containment of chivalric literary convention.
For Oswald used music primarily to communicate his poetry.
He would borrow from sources such as the graceful melodies
and suave harmonies of the ballate and madrigals of the
highly fashionable Francesco Landini (c1325–97), from
French trouvère songs, and from the more raw and robust
melodies of his German predecessors. As Scholl says, ‘He
was no mere troubadour: he performed for his equals, for
nobles; and wherever he went, he hooked up with courtly
musicians. He brought back their melodies, and often sold
them as his own – after all, there was no great risk of being
exposed in the Tyrol, and ordinary people really didn’t travel
very far in those days.’
No more than an amateur polyphonist, Oswald delighted in
borrowing one melody with which to offset another. His
‘contrafacting’ can be heard in songs such as ‘Ach, senliches
leiden’ (‘Alas, heartfelt pain’) and ‘Kom, liebster man!’