Peter Janssens

Biography

Peter Janssens (17 June 1934 – 24 December 1998) was a German musician and composer who wrote and performed incidental music for several theatres, and songs and musicals of the genre Neues Geistliches Lied, a pioneer of Sacropop. He worked at a German theatre in Buenos Aires, set several works by Ernesto Cardenal to music and composed in 1992 a passion music, in memory of 500 years after the European invasion in Latin America.

Biography

Born in Telgte, Peter Janssens was the last of nine children and grew up in rural surroundings. He attended the gymnasium Paulinum in Münster. Janssens studied musicology, sociology and history at the Musikhochschule Köln, graduating as a music educator in 1958. He continued his studies from 1961 to 1964 at the University of Münster. He worked as répétiteur at the Theater Münster. From 1966, he composed incidental music for the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen, Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the Staatstheater Darmstadt, among others. He was active at the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele, both in the direction and in performing his own pieces, In 1964/65, he was director of music, composer, pianist and actor at the Deutsche Kammerspiele in Buenos Aires. From 1966, he lectured on song and chanson at the Folkwangschule.
From 1962, Janssens composed religious songs of the genre later called Neues Geistliches Lied, beat masses and later musicals. He wrote numerous songs, children's songs such as "Herr Uklatsch", and musicals such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer – ein Leben im Widerstand (Dietrich Bonhoeffer – A Life in Resistance). He set music to texts by authors such as Alois Albrecht, Friedrich Karl Barth, Ernesto Cardenal, Jürgen Fliege, Rolf Krenzer and Wilhelm Willms. He introduced the term "Sacropop" to Germany, when in 1972 he subtitled his Menschensohn (Son of Man) Ein Sacro-Pop-Musical (A sacropop musical). From 1973, Janssens performed with his musical ensemble Gesangsorchester at the Kirchentag, first in Düsseldorf. In 1992, he wrote Passion der Eingeborenen (Passion of the Indigenous), related to 500 years after the European invasion in Latin America. He was a member of the association which is now the Textautoren- und Komponistengruppe (TAKT).
Janssens died in Telgte. His home town named a road after him on 17 June 2004, which would have been his 70th birthday.

Literature

Barbara Stühlmeyer, Ludger Stühlmeyer: the song Eines Tages kam einer, by Alois Albrecht and Peter Janssens. In: Das Leben singen. Verlag DeBehr, Radeberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-939241-24-9, pp. 87ff.