Meistersinger

The Meistersingers were a German craftsmen guild of the 15th and 16th centuries which cultivated both a literary and musical heritage based on medieval legends. A continuation of the aristocratic minnesingers from the 12th and 13th centuries, the Meistersingers organized schools and guilds in many German cities in order to teach and pass on their traditions. The Meistersingers held regular meetings (usually on Sunday after church) and organized competitions and prizes based on their rules for singing and poetry. Specific rankings were: pupil, friend, singer, poet, and master. A new poem was called a 'lied' or 'gesang.' Numerous poems and songs consequently entered into the German popular main-stream as a result of the Meistersingers.

The favorite musical form of the Meistersingers was the Bar Form: a a b. The term is derived from the medieval German, 'bar,' which was a multi-stanza poem where each stanza was divided into two parts: the 'stollen' (a a) and the 'abgesang' (b). This type of musical form can be traced to the ancient Greeks and it appeard consistantly through the history of Western music, appearing in Mozarabic and Gregorian chant and most notably in the music of the minnesingers and Meistersingers. Bar form eventually became the common form for much German popular music as well as polophonic songs and was the most usual structural form for the German Lutheran chorale.