Johann Schop (c. 1590–1667) was a German violinist and composer, much admired as a musician and a technician. He was a virtuoso, whose compositions for the violin set impressive technical demands for that time. In 1756 Leopold Mozart commented on the difficulty of a trill in a work by Schop, probably composed before 1646. A melody of his was used by Johann Sebastian Bach for the chorale movements of his cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147. Under the English title of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Bach's chorale on the Schop melody has been arranged for different instruments and has gained wide popularity.
Christ lag in Todesbanden, a renowned Lutheran hymn, is set as a chorale fantasia for treble voices. Consistent with his violin writing, this has some florid vocal moments, but is otherwise a very sweet and intimate setting. It is presented as a dialogue between the two voice parts—which intertwine and frequently cross—accompanied only by continuo instruments. The hymn tune is subtly present, but changing meters and ornamental lines soften the effect.
Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele is a sturdy and vigorous motet on the text of Psalm 103. It is somewhat reminiscent of Heinrich Schütz in its alternations of homophonic passages, duets between two voice parts, and imitative passages. It is rarely performed and has never been recorded to our knowledge.
Franz Tunder (1614–1667) was a German composer and organist of the early to middle Baroque era. He was an important link between early German Baroque style, based on Venetian models, and the later Baroque style, which culminated in the music of J.S. Bach. Tunder’s surviving output suggests a marked preference for the chorale fantasia style.
In 1641 he was appointed as organist at Lübeck's main church, the Marienkirche. In 1647 he became administrator and treasurer and remained there for the rest of his life. Tunder began the tradition of “Abendmusiken,” free concerts in the Marienkirche, the most elaborate of which were during Advent. The earliest of these concerts occurred in 1646. The concerts seem to have originated as organ performances specifically for the businessmen who congregated at the weekly opening of the town's stock exchange. These concerts continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and were distinguished from other concerts by having free admission, being financed by the business community.
The motet Nisi Dominus was composed for the Abendmusik concerts. It is a complex, multi-section setting of Psalm 127 (“Unless the Lord built the house, those who built it labor in vain”), a text that seems to beg for word painting, with its vivid imagery.
Although not set for multiple choirs, the composer uses dialogues between different sections of the choir and varies the density of the writing to create a call and response effect that is reminiscent of Venetian composers such as Gabrieli. The sections are separated by florid bass solos.
After the introductory movement and the first bass solo, we encounter a vigorous rising motif to illustrate the word “surgite” (rise up), which halts on the words “postquam sederitis” (after resting). A plaintive series of suspensions describes how we work hard for our bread; then the music descends through the lower voices to describe how those beloved of God are granted peaceful sleep. In a subsequent section, also set off by a bass solo, florid melismas and trumpet-like outbursts describe contending with opponents in court. The Psalm concludes with the traditional doxology, which reprises themes from the opening movement.
Streuet mit Palmen is a motet for the Advent season. It describes the preparations for the coming of Jesus. It is a much simpler and more straightforward work than Nisi Dominus, consisting of an instrumental introduction and four verses alternating with an instrumental ritornello. The verses invite us to receive the eternal Prince of Peace and prepare our hearts for his arrival. The symbolism of palms, olives, and myrtles refers to hope, peace, and joy, and also slightly foreshadows the darker events of the Passion.
Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637–1707) was a Danish-German organist and composer of the Baroque period. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental idioms, and he strongly influenced many composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach. Today, Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers of the German mid-Baroque. His surviving church music is praised for its high musical qualities rather than its progressive elements. The librettos for his oratorios survive, but none of the scores do. This is particularly unfortunate because his German oratorios seem to be the model for later works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann.
Buxtehude's last post, from 1668, was at the Marienkirche in Lübeck. There he succeeded Franz Tunder. In 1673 he reorganized the musical performances initiated by Tunder, known as Abendmusiken, which remained a feature of the church until 1810. He married Tunder's daughter Anna Margarethe in 1668. It was a not uncommon practice for a man to marry the daughter of his predecessor in his occupation. In 1703, Buxtehude offered his position in Lübeck to Handel and Johann Mattheson, but stipulated that the organist who ascended to it must marry his eldest daughter. Both Handel and Mattheson turned the offer down and left the day after their arrival.
In 1705, J.S. Bach, then a young man of twenty, walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilometers (250 miles), and stayed nearly three months to hear the Abendmusiken. Legend has it that Buxtehude extended the same offer of his position to Bach, who also declined.
Nimm von uns, Herr, du Treuer Gott is a chorale cantata, a composition that is based on the text and melody of a hymn, in which each movement or section treats each stanza with a different technique.
The hymn tune used for the text is the tune composed by Marin Luther for the hymn Vater unser im Himmelreich. The Nimm von Uns text consists of seven stanzas; Buxtehude sets the first three and the seventh stanza, along with an Amen.
Jesu, meines Lebens Leben opens with an instrumental sinfonia. The five verses of this hymn are presented in a series of variations. Buxtehude shows off his ability to work creatively by confining the bass line to two measures that repeat for the duration of the piece (a chaconne) and using the upper voices and accompanying instruments to play off this self-imposed limitation. Each variation/verse also alters the number of voice parts in a rather clever fashion.
Verse one has the sopranos singing alone. Verse two utilizes the lower three voices (alto, tenor, and bass), but omits the sopranos. Verse three is sung by the tenors, and then verse four is assigned to the sopranos, altos, and basses, leaving the tenors out this time. All four voices join in verse five, finishing off with an “Amen” in a more imitative style, still built over the two-measure bass line.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was a German Baroque composer and instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. Telemann was and still is one of the most prolific composers in history (at least in terms of surviving works), and was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather and namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally. Telemann's music incorporates French and Italian styles and is even at times influenced by Polish popular music. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies, and his music is an important link between the late Baroque and early Classical styles.
The music of Telemann’s youth is quite different from his mature works. Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz (Psalm 51:10-12) was written when Telemann was only seventeen years old. It hearkens back to Schütz and other earlier North German masters. The setting is simple, elegant, and very confident. The youthful composer skillfully changes the musical mood as the words seem to dictate.
Telemann shows off his technical expertise by setting the first section as a chaconne. The vocal writing is constructed above a ground bass that is a constantly repeating a descending scale. The instrumental accompaniment plays an additional independent line that weaves through the texture.
The second section is for tenor voices only and is very lightly scored. The full chorus comes back in the next part, a cheerful and vigorous alternation between homophonic and imitative writing. A simple and sweet soprano and alto duet follows. The finale is a treatment of a verse from the Lutheran hymn “Komm, Heiliger Geist.” The vocal parts are set in a relatively standard chorale harmonization. What makes this movement unique is the lively instrumental accompaniment under the chorale.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the young man who walked to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude’s Abendmusiken, requires little introduction, of course. A German composer and musician of the late Baroque period, he enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France.
When he composed his motets, works without contemporary poetry and without an independent orchestra, the genre was already out of fashion. However, there was evidently a demand for such works at funerals, a ceremony for which at least some of Bach's motets were written.
Fürchte dich nicht, BWV 228, is such a funeral motet, set for double chorus. The work in two movements draws its text from the Book of Isaiah and a hymn by Paul Gerhardt. Scholars disagree about the composition time and place, which was traditionally believed to be 1726 in Leipzig, while more recent scholarship suggests for stylistic reasons that it was composed earlier, during the years Bach lived in Weimar.
The first verse from Isaiah is the text for the first movement. In the second movement, the second verse from Isaiah is set as a fugue in the three lower voices, juxtaposed with the chorale by Gerhardt, sung by the sopranos. The lower voices are set in a double fugue, with the subject derived from the beginning of the chorale melody and the counter subject an inversion. At one point there is also a strong textual correspondence of biblical quotation and hymn. The conductor John Eliot Gardiner points out that "the biblical 'Ich habe dich bei deinem Namen gerufen' (I have called thee by thy name) leads climactically to the hymn-line 'Ich bin dein, weil du dein Leben ... [gegeben]' (I am thine, for thou hast given thy life). The movement ends with a recapitulation of the music from the first movement for double choir on the final line of the second verse of the Isaiah text.
These Northern German composers all lived during a time when the Lutheran faith was firmly established in this part of the world. The texts of many of these motets and choral concertos are firmly rooted in traditional Lutheran teachings. Yet, their mixture of pessimism, shame, yearnings for redemption, hope, and praise is embedded in music that lifts the listener away from the rather dark nature of some of the texts.
—Patricia Jennerjohn
