Paul Kugelmann

Paul Kugelmann was a German composer and trumpeter born in Augsburg and died in Königsberg in 1580. His career is set within the musical life of the Prussian ducal court, where he spent much of his career, and he is remembered above all for a collection of polyphonic songs of a conservative character.

He moved to Königsberg probably in 1542, following the death of his brother Johann. He is first documented as a trumpeter in the Hofkapelle in 1548 and served as principal trumpeter in two periods: from 1549 to 1553 and from 1575 to 1580. In 1558 he published in Königsberg the collection Etliche teutsche Liedlein, geistlich und weltlich, which brings together 121 polyphonic songs, 88 of them by him. His style was deliberately old-fashioned: he often took the tenor voice directly from earlier songbooks, and his harmonisations are not always very skilful. The models attributed to him are Paul Hofhaimer and Caspar Othmayr. He also wrote several occasional pieces for Duke Albert and his son Albert Frederick, now lost.

His brothers Melchior and Christoph also worked as trumpeters at the Königsberg court, and his son Barthel was a trumpeter in the city guard from 1567. Kugelmann is today a useful witness to musical practice in the Duchy of Prussia in the mid-sixteenth century, although his output did not achieve the same prominence as that of the great polyphonists of his time.