From Heaven on Earth – Lute Music from Kremsmunster Abbey

With P. Ferdinand Fischer (-Pecheur) may a new discovery in the field of high baroque lute music finally reach the light of public attention. Although he was known as a lute player in the Benedictine Abbey of Kremsmünster and as the scribe of one of its books of tablatures, he has hardly been considered as a composer. Indeed the bald details of his life are of little help here. Born in 1651 in Kuchl, he matriculated at the university of Salzburg in 1661, entered Kremsmünster in 1677. After his theological studies in Salzburg he was annointed as a priest in Linz, was professor in the high schools of the Abbey 1683-86, and subsequently prior until 1691, converted two muslims in 1687 and lived until his death as a priest in Buchkirchen near Wels. His obituary emphasises the variety of his abilities, and chronicles from as late as 1777 cite his mastery of solo lute playing (in simplici testudine scite pulsanda magister), that sweetened the loneliness of his monk’s cell (cellae solitudinem dulciter temperare nouit). He will have brought his mastery in lute-playing with him from Salzburg.