(Ger.).
The name given to a particular type of concert held in the Marienkirche, Lübeck, during the 17th and 18th centuries. The exact origins of the Abendmusiken were already obscure in the mid-18th century, but they began as organ recitals, probably during Franz Tunder’s tenure as organist (1641–67), perhaps even earlier. The original purpose may have been to entertain businessmen who assembled in the Marienkirche to await the opening of the stock exchange at noon on Thursdays. However, Tunder already referred to them as ‘Abendspiele’ in 1646. It is also possible that the Lübeck businessmen who financed them were imitating the municipally sponsored organ recitals in the Netherlands, where Reformed Church doctrine prohibited the use of the organ during church services.
Tunder’s musical offerings later included vocal and instrumental soloists, but Buxtehude, who succeeded him, added orchestra and chorus, necessitating the building of four extra balconies in 1669 to accommodate 40 performers. He also changed the time from a weekday to 4 p.m. on the last two Sundays of Trinity and the second, third and fourth Sundays of Advent, a schedule that was maintained throughout the 18th century. Although as late as 1700 Buxtehude presented programmes of assorted choral and solo vocal music, he had much earlier introduced oratorios at these concerts. A libretto for his 1678 oratorio Die Hochzeit des Lamms survives (published in Pirro); it is in two parts, presumably performed on two successive Sundays. Two Buxtehude oratorios advertised for publication in 1684, Himmlische Seelenlust auf Erden and Das Allerschröcklichste und Allererfreulichste were each in five parts. Under Buxtehude’s successors, Johann Christian Schiefferdecker (1679–1732), Johann Paul Kunzen (1696–1757), his son Adolf Carl Kunzen (1720–81) and Johann Wilhelm Cornelius von Königslöw (1745–1833), it became standard practice for the organist to compose and present each year a new oratorio in five parts, extending over all five Sundays. The subjects were mainly taken from the Old Testament (see Oratorio, §7).
Only two oratorios survive that are known to have been performed at the Lübeck Abendmusiken: Adolf Kunzen’s Moses in seinem Eifer gegen die Abgötterey in den Wüsten (in D-Bsb) and Absalon (in D-LÜh). Wacht! Euch zum Streit, published by Willi Maxton, under the title Das jüngste Gericht, as a work of Buxtehude (Kassel, 1939), is anonymous in the manuscript source, and its authenticity as a work of Buxtehude has been the subject of controversy (see Ruhle; see also Buxtehude, dieterich, §2(viii)). Before World War II manuscripts of numerous other oratorios by Adolf Kunzen and von Königslöw were still extant at Lübeck; they are discussed by Stahl but were lost during the war. They contained chorale settings in addition to the more usual components: recitative, arias and choruses, both dramatic and contemplative.
The Abendmusik concerts were financed mainly by the business community; individual donors were rewarded with a printed libretto and a good seat, but admission to the church was free, and disorderly conduct during the performances was often a problem. In 1752 Johann Kunzen instituted the practice of charging admission to the dress rehearsals that were held on Fridays in the spacious stock-exchange hall, and in time these performances became the more important ones. The free Sunday performances in the Marienkirche were abolished in 1800, and ten years later the Lübeck Abendmusiken ceased entirely as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. The term has since come into general use for concerts in churches anywhere.
SmitherHO
A. Pirro: Dietrich Buxtehude (Paris, 1913)
W. Stahl: Die Lübecker Abendmusiken im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Lübeck, 1937)
O. Söhngen: ‘Die Lübecker Abendmusiken als kirchengeschichtliches und theologisches Problem’, Musik und Kirche, xxvii (1957), 181–91
M. Geck: ‘Die Authentizität des Vokalwerks Dietrich Buxtehudes in quellenkritischer Sicht’, Mf, xiv (1961), 393–415; xvi (1963), 175–81
G. Karstädt: Die ‘extraordinairen’ Abendmusiken Dietrich Buxtehudes: Untersuchungen zur Aufführungspraxis in der Marienkirche zu Lübeck; mit den Textbüchern des ‘Castrum Doloris’ und ‘Templum Honoris’ in Faksimile-Neudruck (Lübeck, 1962)
G. Karstädt: ‘Die Instrumente in den Kantaten und Abendmusiken Dietrich Buxtehudes’, Beiträge zur Musikgeschichte Nordeuropas: Kurt Gudewill zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. U. Haensel (Wolfenbüttel, 1978), 111–21
G. Karstädt: ‘Richtiges und Zweifelhaftes in Leben und Werk Dietrich Buxtehudes’, Musik und Kirche, xlix (1979), 163–70
G. Karstädt: ‘Buxtehude und die Neuordnung der Abendmusiken’, Festschrift für Bruno Grusnick, ed. R. Satzwedel and K.-D. Koch (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1981), 119–27
K.J. Snyder: ‘Buxtehude and “Das jüngste Gerichts”: a New Look at an Old Problem’, ibid., 128–41
S.C. Ruhle: An Anonymous Seventeenth-Century German Oratorio in the Düben Collection (Uppsala University Library vok.mus.ihskr.71) (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1982)
K.J. Snyder: ‘Lübeck Abendmusiken’, 800 Jahre Musik in Lübeck, ii, ed. A. Edler, W. Neugebauer and H.W. Schwab (Lübeck, 1983), 63–71
K.J. Snyder: Dietrich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck (New York, 1987)
G. Flaherty: ‘Literary Perspectives on the Texts of Buxtehude's Abendmusiken’, Church Stage and Studio: Music and its Contexts in Seventeenth-Century Germany, ed. P. Walker (Ann Arbor, 1990), 193–203
K.J. Snyder: ‘Buxtehude, the Lübeck Abendmusiken, and “Wacht! Euch zum Streit gefasset macht”’, ibid., 205–28
K.J. Snyder: ‘Partners in Music Making: Organist and Cantor in Seventeenth-Century Lübeck’, The Organist as Scholar: Essays in Memory of Russell Saunders, ed. K.J. Snyder (Stuyvesant, NY, 1994), 233–55
G. Webber: North German Church Music in the Age of Buxtehude (Oxford, 1996)
K.J. Snyder: ‘Franz Tunder's Stock-Exchange Concerts: Prelude to the Lübeck Abendmusiken’, GOArt Research Reports, ii (2000)
KERALA J. SNYDER