Monuments of the German Baroque: Bach and Schütz

Saturday, March 9, 2002 at 8:00 pm
Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston

Ticket information

Performances:

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Musicalische Exequien, Op. 7 SWV 279-281
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)

Texts and Translations    Performing Artists    Concert Program (PDF)

---

Program Notes

J. S. Bach: Jesu, meine Freude

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, truly a “priceless treasure” of the choral literature, is the longest and most ambitious of Bach’s six (perhaps seven) motets, the latter constituting his only corpus of extended unaccompanied choral writing. A work of flawless artistic integrity, its depth of piety, intensity of contrapuntal execution, grandeur of architecture, and pervasive loftiness of expression have earned it a place among the most often performed and most admired works of the entire sacred literature.

The Motet Form

The term motet, from the French mot, throughout the Mediaeval and Renaissance eras denoted a sacred composition, contrapuntal, choral, unaccompanied, usually on a single text and in a single texture, if occasionally in sections, usually not lasting more than several minutes. By the Renaissance, the term was applied to almost any composition fitting this description not otherwise classifiable as a hymn, Mass movement, responsory, etc. Although Schütz and other Protestant composers wrote independent sacred pieces called “motets” in non-Latin tongues, the word is by and large associated with these older, Catholic forms.

In Bach’s day, as today, the choir of the Thomaskirche, his church in Leipzig, regularly performed Latin as well as German motets at services, either a cappella as written, or with organ and/or other instruments doubling the vocal parts. It was in this context that the Bach motets arose.

More like Bach cantatas than the older motets, the Bach motets each comprise several movements of varying textures – Jesu, meine Freude has eleven. As do Bach cantatas, the motets contain chorales, fugues, free choruses, and so on, but there are no arias or recitatifs, or solo parts or instrumental writing of any kind. Nevertheless, Jesu, meine Freude is not inaccurately described as a “chorale cantata.”

The Theology

Any exegesis of BWV 227 must begin with an exposition of its theology, which underlies its genesis, its mood, and every other aspect of its conception and execution.

Jesu, meine Freude was written in 1723, Bach’s first year in Leipzig, for the funeral of Frau Kees, the wife of the Postmaster General: it is a Protestant sermon on death and dying. The two intimately related ideas it expresses are the insignificance of mere bodily death for the true believer, and Jesus the Object of mystical devotion and longing, a longing requited in death. Two texts elaborating these ideas alternately supply the text of the motet’s eleven movements.

The texts of the even-numbered movements are drawn from the Eighth Chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. This difficult but central Christian text presents the basic tenets of Pauline eschatology: “There is now no condemnation on those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Karl Barth (in his Römerbrief) reads “condemnation” as “death sentence”: Those who are, in Pauline terms, “in Christ” are exonerated of their sin, and will not die. Although the body is fleshly and mortal, the Soul of the True Christian is immortal. The proof of this is the Resurrection: “As the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, so shall your mortal bodies be made living.” In Christ is freedom from “Law,” the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament as a now-obsolete covenant whose “old law of the flesh,” which promised death for sin, is now superseded by Christ’s new Law, the “Law of the Spirit.”

The odd-numbered movements set Johann Franck’s 1653 hymn Jesu, meine Freude, whose beautiful Dorian-mode chorale melody (by Johann Krüger, 1653) dominates this masterpiece. This hymn is an adoration of Jesus in mystical terms: Christ the Bridegroom, the Soul’s Treasure, Shield from evil foes, the Lamb of God, Protector and Comforter; Christ the Desired, the Longed-after, the Master of my joys; Christ the Highest Value beside which all the world is but dross. The meaning of being “in Christ Jesus” is illustrated by first-person example.

The Music

Scored for five-voiced chorus, SSATB, BWV 227 exhibits an abundance of architecture. Within its already-described even/odd text dialogue, its movements form a symmetrical arch: the first and last are musically identical, the second and penultimate are long and short elaborations of one movement, the fourth and fourth from last are trios, and at the exact center lies a five-voiced fugue. With the exception of the aetherial Gute Nacht, oWesen in A minor, all the chorale settings are in E minor, which grounds the tonality of the entire work, draping it in dark emotional hues.

The first and last movements, respectively beginning and ending with the words “Jesus, my Joy” (“I am the First and the Last”), “simple” four-voice chorale settings, are among Bach’s most delicately wrought: their displaced passing tones, minor dominants, and other modal chords convey a mystical feel even on their very second beat.

The chorus Es ist nun nichts, #2 a 5, depicts the severity of condemnation and fleshly corruption by a severity of imitative counterpoint, diminished sevenths, and thick texture. Nichts, the “nothing” condemnable, is illustrated by rests in the score, resulting in silence. Unter deinen Schirmen, #4 a 5, and Weg mit allen Schätzen, #7 a 4, are lightly elaborated chorale-settings with the cantus remaining synchronous in the Soprano. Word-painting, as in all of BWV 227, is everywhere, e.g., Weg, weg, weg, Elend, Kreuz..., etc.

The two trios, Denn das Gesetz, #4, for the three higher voices and So aber Christus, #8, for the three lower voices, both free settings of the Epistle texts, breathe a particular grace and contrapuntal felicity.

The five-part chorus Trotz dem alten Drachen, #5, is an elaborate chorale-fantasy replete with vigorous depictions of dragons, rage, Hell and Abyss, as well as “God’s Might holds me in awe,” at which point the score briefly echoes Bach’s early organ fantasia on this chorale, BWV 713.

The violence and violent contrasts of #5 prepare the way for the central fugue, Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich, #6, a 5 in G major, which, along with #8, are the only movements whose major key provides respite from the overall gravity of the work. But even the fugue darkens into the thought, “But if (on the other hand,) Christ’s Spirit be not in you...”

The elaborated chorale #7 and the glowing trio So aber Christus, #8, whose fugato conclusion portrays the “Spirit,” lead into what is for this reviewer the crowning jewel of BWV 227, the chorale-prelude #9, Gute Nacht, o Wesen. The chorale text of this four-voiced movement speaks of bidding farewell to worthless, earthly joys—as in Bach’s senza basso Passion and cantata arias, the absence of the bass voice depicts detachment from the Earthly. The twin sopranos, inverting and crossing in frequent double suspensions over a walking tenor “bass,” create a three-voiced web of striking dissonance and poignancy, into whose center the cantus, given to the alto voice, most unexpectedly and mystically floats in and out (Mozart’s hommage to this movement, the “armored men” duet of Die Zauberflöte, is interesting to compare.)

The unisono ending of #9 leads straightway to #10, an abbreviated repeat of #2 featuring an unprepared shift to a bright G major arpeggio, depicting the Resurrection alluded to by the text. A soprano melisma leads into the closing reiteration of the opening chorale, being the completion of the grand arch and the end of the entire work, Bach’s Jesu..., priceless treasure.

Heinrich Schütz: Musicalische Exequien

Heinrich Schütz: Musicalische Exequien Heinrich Schütz’ moving “German Requiem,” his Musicalische Exequien, is an intensely personal and richly variegated work scored for soloists, continuo, and single and double antiphonal choruses. Esteemed by many as this extraordinary composer’s finest extended composition, the Musicalische Exequien offers deep reservoirs of reverence and consolation. Heinrich Schütz, who was born in Köstritz, Saxony, in 1585 and died in Dresden in 1672, is by most measurements of musical art the greatest German composer of the early Baroque.

The wealth and scope of his genius flow equally through his earliest inspirations to his final works. No other composer before him, save perhaps Josquin or Dufay, was so masterful a synthesist of different musical styles and ideas. From the delicate affettuoso of the Monteverdi influenced Opus I Italian Madrigals to the massed sonorities of his huge polychoral Psalmen Davids, heavily laced with homage to one of his teachers, Giovanni Gabrieli, to the chamber-like intimacy of his Kleine geistliche Konzerte, to the noble and embracing humanity of the Weihnachts-Oratorium and the Musicalische Exequien, Schütz’s cosmopolitan grasp of divergent musical style and effect is a source of wonderment to the musicologist, and of delight to the listener. By refining the lessons of the past, as do most great artists, Schütz amalgamates these elements and catalyzes them into an alloy which, while retaining the strengths and individualities of the originals, forges a uniquely new, stronger entity. The Musicalische Exequien is an example of Schütz’s art at its fullest maturity. Rife with echoes of the styles of his teachers, it is yet a completely original statement.

---

The original edition of the Musicalische Exequien has the following preface on its title page:

Musical Exequies
As they were Observed at the Grand Funeral Ceremonies
in Christian memory
of the late Honored
Prince Heinrich
the Younger and Eldest Reuss/Lord of Plauen/
Member of the Council of His Imperial Roman Majesty
in Gretz/Cranichfeldt/Gera/Schleitz/Lobenstein/etc.
on the Fourth day of February last in Gera/before and
after the Funeral Sermon/and in Accordance with the
Wishes often Expressed by his late Highness during his Life-time
sung to a Soft and Concealed Organ
for 6, 8, or more voices
and
with accompanying Basso Continuo in two copies
the one for the Organ, the other for the Conductor or the Violone
Together with a Detailed List of the Musical Contents of this
Little Work
and Instructions for the Necessary Arrangements, Addressed to the Gracious Reader
Humbly set to Music, by Command, in final Commemoration
and published in print by
Heinrich Schütz - Electoral Saxon Capell-Meister
Printed in Dresden by Wolf Seyffert in the Year
1636

---

We know from research that Prince Heinrich was not only an acquaintance of Schütz and a patron of the arts, but a competent singer as well. The prince was also a realist; about a year before his death he selected certain texts from the scriptures and hymn verses dealing with the subject of death, the transitory nature of life here on earth, and the resurrection and its promise of hope, and decreed that they be set to music to be performed at his funeral. His widow and sons commissioned Schütz to set these texts, which, it should be noted, Prince Reuss had also requested be engraved upon his copper coffin. It’s not too great a stretch to speculate that Schütz’s imagination had been all the more fired by the task of composing this work for so musically knowledgeable and wholly pious a patron. Space prohibits a note equal to the scope of this great work, so the listener is urged to flesh out the bones of this all-too-skeletal guide.

Basics:

(1) The work is in three sections. The first and longest is, in Schütz’s terms, a “Concerto in the Form of a German Requiem”; the second is a double-chorus antiphonal motet; and the third is a five-voice German-language setting of the Nunc dimittis, embellished by a distant trio representing two Seraphim and a “Blessed Spirit,” the departed soul of Prince Heinrich.

(2) The text of the work is a masterful mixture of verses from the Scriptures and German hymnists, personally selected by the Prince. Schütz’s genius in setting these words will be touched upon shortly.

(3) Schütz directs that the core of the performing body for Part I be six voices with organ, and he indicates in the “score” (no score per se exists — the only source materials are single-line parts edited by Phillipp Spitta for Volume XII of the Schütz Werke Verzeichnis in 1892) where additional voices are to be added for choral emphasis. Part II adds two voices designated Tutti to the first six, making possible two four-part antiphonal choirs. Part III reduces the number of basic voices to five, directing them to sing alternately “fortiter” and “submisse” (forte and piano), as accompaniment to the heavenly trio soaring high above.

Highlights:

the Kyrie, Christe, and Kyrie eleison feeling of the opening section, and the supplicating, dovetailed setting of the text “erbarm dich” (have mercy)
the rising musical line for the word “leben” (live) and its subsequent fall for “sterben” (die) in the second Kyrie. “Sterben,” as one would expect, is an important word in this work, and one of the recurring miracles in the Exequien is the rich variety of its setting throughout
the beautiful rocking and comforting triple meter introduced in the midst of duple on the words “hilf ihn aus der Sünden Not” (rescue [man] from the misery of sin)
the color of the choral setting of the text “Angst, Not, und Trübsal überall” (anguish, misery and grief everywhere)
the tenor duet and the word “Wolle,” wool; the curl of the fleece imitated by the two intertwining voices, almost as warp and woof
the one-beat pause for silence after the alto’s “eine kleine Augenblick” (a brief moment)
the bass telling of departed souls’ death and misery, sopranos 1 and 2 reassuringly floating above repeating “aber sie sind in Frieden” (but they are at peace)
the alto, tenor 1 and 2, and bass quartet beginning “Herr, wenn ich nur dich habe,” in which the failing of strength and soul is painted so touchingly in the music. Note the word accents which emphasize “allzeit”, the omnipresence of God’s salvation
the imitative counterpoint at “Ach, wie elend,” the desolate harmony which underscores the wretchedness of our earthly days, and the major-key resolution showing the release which comes in death, “wir müssen alle sterben”
the skipping joyfulness of “I know that my Redeemer lives”
the ecstatic rise, fall, and rise of stretto-like exclamations passed among all six solo voices with “Herr, ich lasse dich nicht” (Lord, I will not let you go)
the pleasing suspensions illustrating the text “Halt dich an mich” (hold fast to Me), and the first repeat of music and text heard earlier in the work, but now more fully developed with syncopation and richer harmony. A particularly felicitous facet of Schütz’s genius is the increasing complexity of counterpoint as the cadence is approached
a second repeat of music and text heard before. This time, the eight-part motet echoes the tenor solo of the same text, with one important change: the word accent falls on the repeated refrain “so bist du, doch, Gott.” “Doch” is an intensive in German, and the contrast of the word accent here, emphasizing the fact of God, is most compelling
the quietly repeated assurance of the choir in Part III that God’s salvation is for all people (“für allen Völkern”)
and finally, as a reminder to us of the reason for the work’s composition, and indeed of our own transience, the falling away of the musical tissue in the last chorus to reveal the three heavenly spirits intoning their last word, solo: “sterben.”

-- Copyright (c) 1998 by John W. Ehrlich