meistersinger [Ger.,=mastersinger], a member of one of the musical and poetic guilds that flourished in German cities during the 15th and 16th cent. The guilds or schools comprised chiefly artisans who claimed artistic descent from the courtly minnesingers. Each member was required to compose and sing according to rigid technical formulas laid down in the Tabulatur. Candidates for the coveted rank of Meister were judged in public contest. Some of the song texts of Hans Sachs and others became famous, but it was Richard Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) that popularized knowledge of the movement.

meistersinger(German; “master singer”)

Any of certain German musicians and poets, chiefly of the artisan and trading classes, in the 14th to 16th centuries. These amateur guilds spread throughout Germany until most towns had one. Their main activity was monthly singing contests. Because of their educational aims of fostering morality and religious belief, they came to be instrumental in promulgating the Protestant message during the Reformation, though their music is not regarded as highly distinguished. The most famous meistersinger, Hans Sachs (1494–1576), devoted his art exclusively to the Lutheran cause after 1530.

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