Ruf

(Ger.: ‘cry’, ‘shout’).

A medieval sacred acclamation in a Germanic language. Friedrich showed that it was often of one or two lines and could have been used for congregational singing at the end of the sermon, at the end of Mass or on some secular occasion. The Leise is normally considered a more developed sub-category of the Ruf and comprises four lines. Rufe are found in German, Dutch and Czech; some can be traced to the 9th century, and many served as bases for German Reformation hymns which have been used ever since.

During the second half of the 17th century the term Ruf was also applied in the German-speaking lands to the single-section military trumpet signal more generally known as the Chiamata. By the late 18th century the term had come to indicate a simple rising arpeggio figure.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG2 (‘Leisen and Rufe’; V. Mertens) [incl. further bibliography]

H.C. Koch: Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt, 1802/R)

A. Hübner: Die deutschen Geisslerlieder (Berlin, 1931)

E. Friedrich: Der Ruf: eine Gattung des geistlichen Volksliedes, Germanistische Studien, clxxiv (Berlin, 1936)

V. Mertens: ‘Der Ruf: eine Gattung des deutschen geistlichen Liedes im Mittelalter?’, ZDADL, civ (1975), 68–89

DAVID FALLOWS