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Scan 124
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
26 lines. Read by computer on 4 September 2026. Printed page 88. See the scan on archive.org.
1and often less than a bar, taken at random out of the whole range of piano literature from Scarlatti to Brahms, and, provided he has at some time in his life learned the piece (and there is exceedingly little that he has not learned), he can without any hesitation give the exact context and play as many of the preceding or succeeding bars as one cares to ask for.
3He is a most stimulating teacher and employs many ingenious devices for quickening the interest and intelligence of his pupils. One of his methods is to have two pupils sitting at different pianos, and to ask one of them to start some piece (which both must know by heart) and to break off at any bar or note of a bar, as though he were playing for 'musical chairs,' whereupon the other pupil has to take up the thread and respond in like fashion—and so on till the end of the piece. Sometimes, again, he will tell a pupil to play (by heart) the first three or four or five bars of a movement and then, with hands away from the keyboard, to play mentally an equal number of the following bars, and to continue these alternations till the movement is ended. It needs a very short trial to discover how precise and thorough the knowledge of a piece must be before either of these tests can be successfully surmounted. Finally, mention should be made of Pauer's admirable teaching of ensemble-playing, where he makes generous and enthusiastic use of his consummate musicianship.
5H. B.
7PAUKEN. The German name for Kettle-drums. See Drum. v. de P.
9PAUL, OSCAR (b. Freiwaldau, Silesia, Apr. 8, 1836; d. Leipzig, Apr. 18, 1898), writer on music, was educated at Görlitz, where he first learned music from Klingenberg, and at the University of Leipzig. Here he studied music with Plaidy, Richter and Hauptmann, of whose system of harmony he became a warm partisan. In 1860 he graduated Ph.D., and after spending some time in various towns of Germany, especially Cologne, settled in Leipzig in 1866. Becoming known by his private lessons in the science of music, and by his treatise on Die absolute Harmonik der Griechen (1866), he was made teacher of musical history, pianoforte, composition, etc., at the Conservatorium in 1869, and Professor Extraordinarius at the University in 1872. His best and most important work is his translation (the first in Germany) and elucidation of Boethius (Leipzig, Leuckart, 1872). His important Lehrbuch der Harmonik, first published in 1880, went into a second edition in 1894. He also edited Hauptmann's Lehre von der Harmonik (1868), the Geschichte des Claviers (1869), the Handlexicon der Tonkunst (1871-73) and two musical periodicals, the Tonhalle, and its successor, the Musikalisches Wochenblatt. He was for many years musical critic of the Leipziger Tagblatt. F. G.
11PAUMANN, CONRAD (b. circa 1410; d. Munich, Jan. 24, 1473), was a native of Nuremberg. Although heavily handicapped (he was born blind), he eventually attained an honoured position as a musician and as a fine organ-player. He was adopted by Ulrich Grundherr, burgher of Nuremberg, who, recognising the child's musical gifts, had them carefully cultivated. Ulrich died in 1423, but his son Paul also took Paumann under his protection. There is a reference in Hirsch's Lebensbeschreibungen, Nuremberg, 1756, p. 19, to the large organ made and erected in the church of S. Sebald, Nuremberg, by Heinrich Traxdorf in 1444, at the cost of 1150 gulden: possibly Paumann was at once appointed organist; he was certainly occupying the post in 1446. He was married the same year according to a document he issued in 1446, in which he and his wife Margaret Weichserin promised never to leave Nuremberg, where they had been treated with so much kindness, without first obtaining the permission of the burghers.1 That Paumann was a person of some mark at that time is shown by Hans Rosenplüt's poem, Spruchgedichte auf die Stadt Nürnberg, published in 1447, in which he is eulogised as organist and as contrapuntist.
13In 1450 Paumann visited various towns; some time later, in 1467, he took up his residence in Munich, as organist to Duke Albrecht III., receiving a yearly salary of eighty gulden. A visit of his to Ratisbon in 1471 is recorded, when his playing of the organ in the Benedictine monastery, on St. Jacob's Day, drew a large crowd to listen, including the Emperor Friedrich III. and many notable persons in his suite.2 A manuscript volume chiefly treating of events in Ratisbon fell into the hands of A. F. Oefele,3 who quotes a long passage from it stating that Paumann excelled his contemporaries in knowledge of the organ, lute, flute and other instruments, that his fame spread over Europe, and he received many presents from the Emperor Friedrich III., the Duke of Ferrara and others. It must be remembered that practically the only contemporary organist of note was the Florentine Antonio Squarcialupi, who died in 1475.
15Paumann was buried in the Frauenkirche, where a tablet was erected with the inscription:
17'Anno 1473 an Sanct Pauli Bekerungs Abent ist gestorben und hie begraben, der Kunstreichist aller Instrument und der Musica Meister, Conrad Paumann Ritter, bürtig von Nürnberg, und blinter geboren, dem Gott Gnad.'
19An Italian decoration, received from the Pope, entitled Paumann to be called 'Ritter' or knight. Virdung, in his Musica getutscht, 1511, attributes the invention of the lute tablature to Paumann:
21'Ich höre das ayn Blind zu Nürenberg geborn und zu München begraben sei gewesen hatt meister
231 Jahrbücher der Mus. Wissenschaft, ii. p. 75.
242 Mettenleiter, i. 202.
253 Rerum Boicarum scriptores, 1763, i. p. 539.
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