GÖTZ Nachtigall

On mild spring nights the nightingales sing in the Meisenheimer Hof, reminding us of an important German poet who once lived here on the Obergasse: Johann Gottfried von Herder, known by many as "Nachtigall" (Nightingale).

Johann Nikolaus Götz, born in Worms in 1721, studied theology in Halle and belonged to the "Association of Halle Poets" that he had helped found. He was a leading representative of Anakreontik, a characteristic rococo style of poetry named for the Greek poet Anakreon. After his journeyman years, Götz was commissioned as a superintendent in Meisenheim in 1794. He lived just a few meters away in the Lutheran administrative building at Obergasse 19. His family ties to the city were strong, as both his father and grandfather had served as Meisenheim rectors. From here he moved to Winterburg near the Soonwald. Despite significant pressure to move to Berlin, he served as superintendent and remained in the small town on the Hunsrück until passing away in 1781.

Götz, treasured and praised by no less than Prussian King Frederick the Great, Goethe, Lessing, Wieland and Mörike, was a poet given to figurative language and melodic verses that worked within formal structures. Many composers set works by Götz to music, including Joseph Haydn. He also made important translations from the Greek and French. Yet today he is almost completely forgotten, not least because most of his poems were published anonymously during his own lifetime. This reflects the poet's concern that his works, given to free-spirited, even frivolous tones, were at odds with his position as an officeholder in the 'Lutheran orthodoxy."

A day at Meisenheimer Hof might well be described using the words from one of Götz's verses, "The Merry Fellow": "

Free from gnawing jealousy,
From solemnities freed,
I know today's pleasantry
A source for tomorrow's shall be."