Overview
Biography
Romanus Weichlein（11 November 1652 – 8 September 1706）, who was also known as Andreas Franz Weichlein before taking his monastic vows, was an Austrian composer and violinist. He began his musical studies at home in Linz and continued at the monastery in Lambach before moving on to study at the University in Salzburg. It was while a student in Salzburg that Romanus probably met Heinrich Biber, a musician whose compositions proved as models for Weichlein’s own works.
Romanus was born into a family of musicians—more specifically, a family of organists. Romanus’ father eventually opted out of the profession in favor of becoming an innkeeper, while his brother stayed in the game as a church organist. Romanus, though, found his musical voice in the violin and was by all accounts, an extraordinary player. A contemporary account speaks with great acclaim of his performance of his (now lost) solo sonata at the Passau Cathedral for the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Weichlein worked both as a musical director at a Benedictine convent in Salzburg, and later in 1691 as a chaplain at a convent in Sabione.
There, Weichlein introduced instruments into the church services that until that time, had been exclusively accompanied with only a cappella singing.
In fact, after his ordination, Romanus rarely went to Lambach. A letter from a fellow monk, Pater Georg Schönberger, reveals that in 1684 he was the spiritual father in the small parish of Oberkirchen in Lower Austria, when he was promoted to chaplain and musical prefect of the Benedictine convent of Nonnberg (the oldest continually existing nunnery in the world) in Salzburg. On September 22, 1691, the Nonnberg abbess wrote to the abbot of Lambach requesting the services of the venerable P. Roman Weichlein, for the newly founded Expositur in Säben in the Southern Tyrol as chaplain and musical instructor. The request was granted, and Weichlein took up his post on October 16, 1691, remaining in service until January 1705. After briefly returning to Lambach, he left again for Kleinfrauenhaid in present-day Burgenland, and incorporated parish of Lambach, where he died a year later in 1706 of the plague.
Reports are mixed of Weichlein as a personality. The Salzburg abbess praised him highly in seeking his services, and he left Säben with the warmest of references. However, the aforementioned letter from P. Georg Schönberger tells a different tale: he was sent to Säben as a monastic visitor to investigate the riots caused by Weichlein's violent outbursts. According to Schönberger, Weichlein told his cook "if you say only three words to me that I don't like, I will beat you so that you will remember it for the rest of your life." When the scolded cook attempted to defend herself verbally, Romanus chased her to her room and then reportedly broke down the door, whereupon they fought using objects to hand.
Weichlein published two collections during his lifetime: Parnassus Ecclesiastico-Musicus (Ulm 1702), a collection of works composed for the liturgy in Säben, and Encaenia Musices (Oeneponti 1695). Manuscripts survive in the Kremsmünster, Salzburg-Noonberg and Lambach abbey archives. Although Romanus Weichlein remains in the shadow of his great contemporaries Schmelzer, Biber and Muffat, he nevertheless developed, perhaps in part arising from his eccentric nature, a quite individual personal style, justly securing him a solid place in the history of music.
