Arrangements of traditional German Protestant hymns for several parts or voices. Chorale settings have developed since the early 16th century within two main traditions: ensembles for two or more voices or for a combination of voices and instruments; and settings for organ, that is, ‘organ chorales’. Compositions in both categories vary from the simplest of harmonizations to the most elaborate contrapuntal and formal designs.
ROBERT L. MARSHALL/ROBIN A. LEAVER
1. The Reformation generation: Johann Walter and his contemporaries.
2. Development of the ‘Cantional’ and the chorale motet, c1570–c1630.
3. Chorale concerto: Praetorius, Schein, Scheidt, c1610–50.
4. Chorale cantata, c1650–c1700.
5. Early 18th century: J.S. Bach.
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
The first substantial musical publication of the Reformation, the Geystliches Gesangk Buchleyn of Johann Walter (i), prepared under the active supervision of Martin Luther, appeared in Wittenberg in 1524. The collection contained 38 four- and five-part arrangements of 35 melodies set to 32 hymn texts. In his foreword to the volume Luther explained that he desired part settings so that ‘young people, who should and must be trained in music and other proper arts, would free themselves from love songs and other carnal music and learn something wholesome instead’, and, further, that he wanted ‘to see all the arts, especially music, used in the service of him who has given and created them’. The compositions, then, were intended primarily for the schools, but they were also to be used in the church service.
From the first, the newly created repertory of the German Protestant hymn was presented and conceived within the stylistic framework of traditional and prevailing art music. In all Walter’s settings the chorale tune is treated as a cantus firmus, that is, the melody is presented in its entirety in a single voice. About half of the arrangements reflect the stylistic conventions of the previous generation, adopting the contrapuntal techniques common to both the Netherlandish motet and the local tradition of the secular Tenorlied of the late 15th century; the chorale melody appears in long note values in the tenor part (doubled in canon in the five-part settings) and is decorated by strongly contrasting, lively counterpoints in the surrounding parts, whose non-declamatory, melismatic character suggests instrumental participation, either colla parte or alone. The ornamental lines unfold with almost complete melodic independence, although they occasionally present a ‘pre-imitation’ of the cantus firmus at the beginning of chorale lines. But this retrospective ‘late Gothic’ polyphonic style, with its obviously symbolic treatment of the chorale as the structural and stable centre of the composition, is modified by a more modern harmonic style characterized by frequent bass line motion by 4ths and 5ths and by full sonorities instead of open 5ths on the strong beats. The remaining settings are cast in a more chordal or homophonic texture. The concern, reflecting contemporary humanist influence, is for full sonority and the clear projection of the text in all parts. Again the chorale cantus firmus usually remains in the tenor, but the outer parts are more vocal in character; there is little melismatic writing and no use of imitative polyphony.
The Geystliches Gesangk Buchleyn provided the classic example of the Protestant cantus firmus chorale motet for the early 16th century. Moreover, it established two basic but opposing approaches to chorale setting that were to endure throughout the history of the genre: the heterogeneous polyphonic style in which the cantus firmus voice is clearly differentiated from the others; and the more homogeneous chordal style in which the cantus firmus is presented essentially in the same rhythmic values as the other parts.
Walter’s collection was continually expanded and revised during the following years until, with the appearance of the final edition in 1551, over 80 German chorale settings in three to six parts had appeared in the volume at one time or another along with an increasing number of Latin compositions. The volume (from 1544 bearing the title Wittembergisch deudsch geistlich Gesangbüchlein) ultimately represented the basic liturgical repertory for the central German regions. The later editions reflect notable changes in style, particularly a growing preference for the homophonic type of chorale setting (although the more polyphonic style never completely disappeared) and for settings with soprano rather than tenor cantus firmus.
Next to Walter’s Gesangbüchlein the most important early collection of chorale settings was the Newe deudsche geistliche Gesenge (Wittenberg, 1544), which appeared under the auspices of the principal Protestant music publisher of the Reformation period, Georg Rhau. This too was prepared explicitly for school use but was clearly intended for the church service as well. Unlike Walter’s publication, the Newe deudsche geistliche Gesenge was an international and interdenominational anthology containing 123 compositions by 19 composers, of whom the best-represented are Balthasar Resinarius, Arnold von Bruck, Lupus Hellinck, Ludwig Senfl, Benedictus Ducis, Sixt Dietrich, Thomas Stoltzer and Stephan Mahu. Resinarius and Dietrich, along with Walter, were the leading composers of the Reformation generation, the three together often referred to as the ‘Erzkantoren’ (arch-Kantors); but Bruck, Senfl, Stoltzer, Mahu and Hellinck were all Roman Catholic, and their inclusion in the volume is indicative of Rhau’s cosmopolitan intent. The anthology reveals in general no stylistic advance beyond Walter’s two basic types, the traditional Resinarius preferring the more polyphonic textures and the modern Dietrich the text-orientated homophonic style. Several works, however, tend towards the style of the chorale motet of the later 16th century, most notably Hellinck’s setting of Christ lag in Todesbanden.
The 1540s also witnessed the publication of numerous volumes of bicinia and tricinia, two- and three-part compositions that presumably served pedagogical purposes but whose history was to continue into the 17th century. One of the most important bicinia collections, Rhau’s Bicinia gallica, latina, germanica (RISM 15456) included settings of German chorales.
Caspar Othmayr’s Cantilenae aliquot elegantes ac piae (154610) was another significant publication of the period. It further refined Walter’s homophonic type, stressing a more declamatory treatment of the text in all voices and a concomitant reduction in the role of the tenor as an isolated cantus firmus. Othmayr’s settings therefore also form part of the stylistic transition to the later 16th-century chorale motet style that appeared fully developed in Walter’s penultimate published work, his six-part setting of Luther’s chorale Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort (Wittenberg, 1566). Even so, Walter’s successor at the Saxon court, Matthaeus Le Maistre, is still best regarded as a transitional figure. His Geistliche und weltliche teutsche Geseng (Wittenberg, 1566), for four and five voices, with their strong contrast between cantus firmus and free voices, are quite conservative, while his Schöne und auserlesene deudsche und lateinische geistliche Gesenge (Dresden, 1577), for three voices, reflecting the influence of Othmayr and Lassus, favour systematic imitation of short syllabic units or the motivic treatment of the chorale melody.
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
The opposing tendencies already evident in Walter’s earliest chorale settings led during the last third of the 16th century on the one hand to the flowering of the strictly homophonic setting and, on the other, to the through-imitative chorale motet. Although some of Walter’s contemporaries, notably Dietrich, had continued to compose homophonic settings, most of the German Protestant musicians of the 1540s, 50s and 60s concentrated on polyphonic works. The main exponents of the chordal style at the time were rather the Calvinist composers who were interested in developing a simple setting of the Genevan Psalter suitable for private home devotions. Loys Bourgeois’ 50 four-part Pseaulmes de David (Lyons, 1547), and Claude Goudimel’s setting of the complete Psalter, Les pseaumes … mis en musique à quatre parties (Geneva, 1564), accordingly consisted of strictly note-against-note, four-part harmonizations, in which, however, the melody was still placed in the tenor (see Psalms, metrical, §II, 2(ii)). With the publication of Ambrosius Lobwasser’s German translation of the psalter in Leipzig (1573) this manner of composition spread to Germany; Lobwasser included both the original melodies and Goudimel’s four-part settings. Finally, the theologian Lucas Osiander adapted the strictly chordal style to the traditional Lutheran chorale melodies and published the first collection of true four-part chorales under the title Fünffzig geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (Nuremberg, 1586). These settings, however, did not merely imitate the Calvinist Psalter publications, for Osiander, motivated by the desire to encourage and facilitate congregational singing in the church service, moved the chorale melody from the tenor to the soprano part in order to ensure its audibility. This may reflect the influence of the older Italian falsobordone practice or even that of the contemporary secular villanella. In Osiander’s simple harmonizations the text is declaimed simultaneously in all voices and the phrases of the chorale strophe are clearly articulated by cadences marked by fermatas.
Osiander’s innovation, soon referred to as the ‘Cantionalsatz’ or ‘cantional’ style, so successfully fulfilled its utilitarian purpose that similar chorale collections, or Cantionale, were widely produced throughout Lutheran Germany during the next 50 years. Important Cantionale were published in Leipzig by Calvisius (1597) and Schein (1627); in Dresden by Rogier Michael (1593) and Erhard Bodenschatz (1608); in other central German cities by Melchior Vulpius (Leipzig, 1604, and Jena, 1609); in Nuremberg by H.L. Hassler (1608) and Melchior Franck (1631); in East Prussia by Johannes Eccard (Königsberg, 1597) and Bartholomäus Gesius (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1601); finally in north Germany by Joachim Burmeister (Rostock, 1601) and Michael Praetorius. In the sixth, seventh and eighth parts of his encyclopedic Musae Sioniae (Wolfenbüttel, 1609–10), Praetorius presented a total of 742 harmonizations for 458 hymn texts, comprising settings of almost all the chorale melodies in use at the time, many in every local variant.
Cantionalien and cantional-style chorale harmonizations continued to be produced throughout the 17th century and beyond, but the genre reached its highpoint between about 1590 and 1630 when it was cultivated by such major composers as Eccard, Schein, Hassler and Praetorius. Hassler’s and Schein’s four-part chorales are enriched by the latest harmonic innovations emanating from Italy (incipient major–minor functional tonality, a wider and more expressive vocabulary of triads, 7ths and dissonances). But by 1627 the inclusion of a basso continuo part in Schein’s Cantional signalled the eventual internal dissolution of the style; and as early as 1597 the active accompaniments in Eccard’s five-part settings, suggestive of the rhythmic and textural richness of polyphonic writing, had already resulted in a mixed style between the strictly chordal Cantionalsatz and the truly polyphonic motet. It was, however, precisely Eccard’s intermediate style that was to be appropriated more than a century later when the cantional genre enjoyed a second flowering in the four-part chorales of Bach.
The appearance of the cantional style in the 1580s can be understood as the adoption of mid-16th-century French Calvinist psalmody modified by the discant style of the Italian falsobordone and villanella and incorporated into a long-standing German practice, but the chorale motet of this period generally refined and continued the indigenous polyphonic tradition established by the Reformation generation. The Geistliche und deutsche Gesenge of Georg Otto (Erfurt, 1588), for example, and many chorale motets of Leonhard Schroeter and Joachim a Burck still consisted of decorative outer parts embellishing a continuous structural tenor cantus firmus, the style familiar from the settings of Walter and Rhau’s collection of 1544. But next to this conservative mainstream there appeared a smaller modernist school of chorale motet composers who continued the trend, already evident in Hellinck’s setting of Christ lag in Todesbanden, towards greater equalization of the tenor and the other voices. Lassus’s chorale motets in his Neue teütsche Liedlein mit fünf Stimmen (Munich, 1567, 1572) and his four-part Neue teutsche Lieder (Munich, 1583) contributed to this development. It was not until the turn of the century, however, that the systematic line-by-line presentation of the chorale melody in imitation by all voices, a technique already common in the 16th-century Netherlandish motet, was completely established in the chorale motet repertory in the Nuremberg publications of Melchior Franck and H.L. Hassler, and in the Musae Sioniae of Praetorius.
During the 1580s the most progressive composers usually preferred to abandon the cantus firmus altogether and replace it with freely invented material characterized by a constantly shifting texture alternating between greater and lesser degrees of pure polyphony and declamatory homophony. This style (often called song motet) was capable of the greatest expressivity and drama; it was derived from the motets of Lassus and adopted for both traditional and new chorale texts, most notably by two of Lassus’s pupils: Leonhard Lechner, in his Neue teutsche Lieder (Nuremberg, 1582, for four and five voices); and Eccard, in his Preussische Festlieder (published posthumously, Elbing, 1642; Königsberg, 1644).
Shortly after 1600, the traditional cantus firmus motet, too, particularly those of Hassler, Melchior Franck and especially Michael Praetorius, became receptive to the most significant musical developments of the time – specifically the late 16th-century Italian madrigal – after a period of about 20 years (c1580–1600) during which the genre had been cultivated for the most part in relative isolation by conservative composers of modest abilities.
The chorale treatment in Melchior Franck’s Contrapuncti compositi deutscher Psalmen und anderer geistlichen Kirchengesäng (Nuremberg, 1602), clearly indebted to the late 16th-century Netherlandish tradition, is based on the principles of complete equality of the voices and the systematic presentation of each line of the complete chorale melody in imitation. Indeed, each voice in Franck’s chorale settings remains tied as much as possible to the motivic material of the chorale cantus firmus, a result that often could be achieved only by treating the rhythmic values in which the text was declaimed with a flexibility quite uncharacteristic of the motet style, approaching at times the declamatory freedom and shifts of rhythmic motion typical of the contemporary Italian madrigal.
Hassler’s Psalmen und christliche Gesäng (Nuremberg, 1607, for four voices) are related to Franck’s Contrapuncti, sharing with them an almost identical repertory. But Hassler’s collection is rather a compendium of styles in which Franck’s strict imitative type is only one of several approaches to the chorale melody, along with more traditional compositions with tenor or soprano cantus firmus. Like Franck’s, and indeed all chorale motets of the 16th and early 17th centuries, Hassler’s were to be sung by the choir in the church service as part of the performance of the principal Sunday chorale (the Haupt- or Graduallied) according to the alternatim practice in which the individual strophes were rendered by the congregation, choir or organ (see §II below).
The nine parts of Praetorius’s monumental Musae Sioniae (1605–10), taken in their entirety with a total of over 1200 compositions, provide a comprehensive and generally retrospective survey not only of the chorale motet but of all the forms of chorale composition developed in the 80 years after the Reformation – from the bicinium and tricinium to the Cantionalsatz to the Venetian-style polychoral motet. But in the fifth part of the Musae Sioniae (Wolfenbüttel, 1607) Praetorius consistently applied techniques that were only incipient in the works of his contemporaries. The cantus firmus, for example, is often treated with considerable rhythmic variability and melodic freedom. Sometimes the mixture of rhythms within one chorale phrase even results in the creation of short, independent motivic fragments that serve to isolate the meaning of individual words or concepts of the text at the expense of the melodic integrity of the chorale line as a whole: see, for example, the five-part setting of Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ in Musae Sioniae, part 5 (no.67 in the complete edition), especially the treatment of the word ‘Christenheit’.
In the foreword to the ninth part of Musae Sioniae (Wolfenbüttel, 1610) Praetorius suggested a systematic categorization of the principal types of 17th-century cantus firmus treatment. He described three ‘manners’ (Arten): ‘Muteten-Art’, ‘Madrigalische Art’ and ‘Clausul-Art’. In the ‘motet style’ the cantus firmus is kept intact in one voice and presented in phrase units of one complete chorale line at a time; the texture is based on the principle of imitative counterpoint; rhythmic motion is mainly in large note values; and the chosen unit of declamation remains constant. Instead of the even disposition of vocal ranges found in the traditional motet style, the ‘madrigal style’ adopts the basic texture of Viadana’s Cento concerti ecclesiastici (Venice, 1602), which consists of strongly contrasting registers of two higher parts (usually sopranos or tenors) projected against one lower part (Praetorius, however, made only sparing use of Viadana’s instrumental basso continuo); a thorough-going cantus firmus is abandoned; and all the voices are permeated by material derived from the chorale tune, which is dissolved into rhythmically varied motifs. Praetorius referred to the ‘Clausul-Art’ as ‘an innovation invented by the author himself’. The (untranslatable) ‘Clausul-Art’ is a mixture of quite heterogeneous elements, in effect the attributes of the first two categories; against a statement of the complete cantus firmus presented in long notes in one voice, the other two voices develop throughout a single melodic and textual clause of the chorale in the modern, Italian concertante manner, breaking it down into small, short-breathed and rhythmically variable motivic fragments.
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
During the second decade of the 17th century the latest Italian compositional practice continued to influence German Protestant composers, particularly as the principles of the concertato style became increasingly familiar to them. This led to the creation of a new form – the chorale concerto.
With the publication in Wolfenbüttel in 1618 of the third part of his theoretical work, Syntagma musicum, and his latest collection of chorale settings, Polyhymnia caduceatrix et panegyrica, Praetorius became the advocate and leading exponent of the large-scale chorale concerto. The instrumental combinations in Polyhymnia caduceatrix range from continuo-accompanied solo voices and simple colla parte instrumental doubling to complete vocal and instrumental choruses conceived as illustrations of the 12 manners of scoring described in the third part of Syntagma musicum. But for all their colouristic variety the compositions of Polyhymnia caduceatrix never completely disguise an underlying texture of only four or five real parts inherited from the traditional cantus firmus chorale motet. The genuinely modern, concertato elements in these settings are reflected rather in the rhythmic flexibility and melodic freedom of each voice (frequently featuring coloratura scales and virtuoso passage-work), in the exploitation of echo effects, and, most of all, in the clear formal organization that arises from the use of ritornellos and other repetition schemes as well as from strong contrasts of metre, texture and scoring between adjacent sections of a work.
The dissolution, brought about by the Thirty Years War, of the large musical establishments attached to many German courts and churches soon made the composition of elaborately scored chorale concertos of the type in Polyhymnia caduceatrix unfeasible. Accordingly, Praetorius’s contemporaries preferred the geistliches Konzert (i.e. sacred vocal concerto for small ensemble), a form directly modelled on Viadana’s Cento concerti ecclesiastici and, like these, best understood as in principle constituting a reduction of the large sacred concerto in which tutti ritornellos and independent instrumental choirs were eliminated and the texture was restricted for the most part to one standard type – two upper parts (usually sopranos or tenors) and continuo.
In the first part of his Opella nova, geistlicher Conzerten … auff italiänische Invention (Leipzig, 1618), Schein appropriated this format for the chorale, also using the bold harmonic vocabulary of the Italian style. Schein’s chorale concertos, scored for two to four voices with basso continuo, also frequently reflect the influence of Praetorius’s ‘Clausul-Art’. In the opening composition, for example, a setting of Luther’s Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland for two sopranos, tenor and continuo, each line is presented as a cantus firmus in the tenor part with the two sopranos manipulating in alternation and imitation short motifs of the chorale melody cast in the typically free rhythms of the concertato manner. In other compositions of Opella nova a strict cantus firmus is missing entirely; fragments of the chorale tune appear in the solo voices either ornamented with the affective embellishments and coloratura passage-work of the Italian monodists or declaimed in a parlando-like stream of quavers (see, for example, Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund and Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam). With his setting of O Jesu Christe, Gottes Sohn, for solo soprano, violin obbligato and continuo, Schein abandoned the traditional melody altogether and in effect created the first ‘chorale monody’.
The 80 chorale settings included in the four parts of Scheidt’s Newe geistliche Concerten (Halle, 1631–40) belong to a more conservative school, indebted rather to the chorale motets of Musae Sioniae (but now consistently provided with basso continuo) and to Scheidt’s own organ style (see §II below) than to the expressionistic vocal concertos of the Italian monodists. Unlike Schein, Scheidt frequently set not only the first but several strophes – sometimes all – of a chorale, much in the manner of the chorale variations for organ. Most of Scheidt’s settings in the Newe geistliche Concerten are scored for three voices (usually cantus, tenor, bass) and continuo (obbligato instruments are only rarely used); the constituent sections, each consisting perhaps of one or more strophes or only of part of a single strophe, are set in contrasting styles. The first section is typically cast as a traditional polyphonic chorale motet, with each line of the cantus firmus presented in imitation, and is a concerto only in the use of the basso continuo and solo scoring. Interior sections may then be set in trio texture according to the ‘madrigalian manner’; but Scheidt made considerably more use of literal quotations of the chorale melody and less use of the ornamental vocabulary of the monodists. The final section is normally treated as a simple chordal Cantionalsatz (see Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, 1634, and Herr Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht, 1640). The principles of strong stylistic contrast and clear sectionalization embodied in Scheidt’s multipartite chorale concertos were to furnish the model for the chorale cantata of the following generation.
The great contemporary of Schein and Scheidt, indeed the leading German Protestant composer of the 17th century, Schütz, did not cultivate the chorale genres extensively or systematically, although more than 50 chorale settings are scattered among his works, mostly as isolated items in larger collections. But they range in style from the cantional harmonizations in his four-part setting of the Becker Psalter (Freiberg, 1628; seeChorale, §10), to cantus firmus chorale concertos and freely composed chorale monodies cast in the contemporary Italian style in the Kleine geistliche Conzerte (Leipzig, 1636, and Dresden, 1639; e.g. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland and Wann unsre Augen schlafen ein respectively); to retrospective a cappella chorale motets in the Geistliche Chor-Music (Dresden, 1648), in which, however, references to the traditional melodies are usually indirect or tenuous; as well as to the large-scale polychoral setting of Komm, Heiliger Geist for voices and instruments in Symphoniae sacrae, part iii (Dresden, 1650).
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
During the second half of the 17th century the production of church music increased enormously throughout the Protestant regions of central and northern Germany. With few exceptions, and in contrast to earlier periods, most of this repertory never appeared in print. Individual Kantors, music directors, or organists of the principal town churches and Lateinschulen, and to a lesser extent the court Kapellmeister, composed or collected in manuscript the works most suitable for local conditions. As a result numerous extensive repertories of manuscripts were established, the largest surviving collections being the so-called Düben, Bokemeyer and Grimma collections (now, respectively, in S-Uu, D-Bsb and D-Dlb). But significant collections are known to have existed in Leipzig, Lüneburg and elsewhere; indeed, about 95% of the repertory is thought to be lost.
The predominant form of church music remained the sacred concerto at first. But the trend towards greater internal differentiation, already apparent in Scheidt’s Newe geistliche Concerten, reinforced by increasingly marked musical (and, later, textual) contrasts between the sections, by the last quarter of the century had gradually transformed the initially unified geistliches Konzert into a hybrid form, the cantata, whose sections, now relatively independent, closed movements, appropriated variously the formal and stylistic traits of the prevailing genres of the time – the concerto, the motet, the aria and the chorale. By the end of the century the cantata also adopted the textual and musical forms of the contemporary Italian opera.
As in all previous genres of German Protestant church music, the texts and melodies of the congregational chorale continued to a greater or lesser extent to provide the raw material for the church cantata. But while the strophic form of the chorale lent itself well to the multipartite structure of the cantata, the principle of contrast that was to govern the succession of individual movements made the use of the chorale as the sole text problematic. Nonetheless, the ‘pure’ chorale cantata per omnes versus, in which all the strophes of a single chorale were set with no other text material, was one of the principal cantata types, at least in the early history of the form. Later the ‘mixed’ chorale cantata was preferred, interpolating biblical passages or freely invented verses between the chorale strophes. Conversely, single chorale strophes or movements appeared at the beginning, middle or end of a cantata based mainly on other texts; and isolated vocal or instrumental quotations of a chorale cantus firmus were frequently superimposed on solo or choral settings of non-chorale texts.
The various uses of the chorale in the cantata were cultivated in different ways and at different times in north, central and south Germany. The north German composers were the first to abandon printed collections and to cultivate the cantata. Moreover, most of the 150 or so surviving pure chorale cantatas (in contrast to mixed cantatas with chorale movements) were written by north German musicians, although some of the earliest examples of the form were composed (before 1650) by the south German, or rather, Nuremberg, composers J.A. Herbst (a work based on the cantus firmus Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein) and J.E. Kindermann (a setting of Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme). (Although Nuremberg is in south Germany, it clearly belonged to the central German musical heritage throughout the 17th century.) In north Germany influences of the Italian monodic tradition, as represented by the sacred concertos of Schein and Schütz, survived longest. The characteristically expressive harmonies and declamation used for vivid and subjective text interpretation, as well as the techniques of concertante fragmentation and free elaboration of the cantus firmus (analogous to those found in the contemporary north German organ chorale), and the fluid shifts of texture and styles within the single strophe (rather than between one strophe and the next), resulted in highly complex and individualized forms attained at the expense of the unity of the individual movements and the structural clarity of the cantata as a whole. The hallmarks of the north German chorale cantata can be observed in those of Franz Tunder, Nicolaus Bruhns and, most notably, the six large chorale cantatas of Buxtehude (e.g. his setting per omnes versus of Herzlich lieb, hab ich dich, o Herr).
The pure chorale cantata is seldom found among the works of central German court Kapellmeister. Only one example survives, for instance, by the prolific J.P. Krieger – his setting of Ein feste Burg, which retains a uniform scoring throughout, rendering its classification as a cantata questionable. But the genre is quite well represented in the works of the town Kantors of the region, particularly the Thomaskantors of Leipzig, Sebastian Knüpfer and Johann Schelle. Among composers active in south Germany, only Pachelbel and perhaps one or two others are known to have contributed to the form.
The mixed cantata, containing one or more chorale movements, flowered later than the pure chorale cantata and was apparently more extensively cultivated, especially in central Germany; about twice as many survive. But the hallmarks of the central German cantata and its characteristic treatment of the chorale were established quite early in the second half of the 17th century. Before 1655 Johann Rosenmüller, in at least five of his sacred concertos, used what was to become the typical central German final chorale movement, a straightforward chordal harmonization, usually in 3/2 metre, decorated by ornamented obbligato parts in the upper registers (this modification of the cantional style had been created by Johannes Crüger in his Geistliche Kirchen-Melodeien, Leipzig, 1649). By 1670 Knüpfer had developed a standard design for the central German cantata in which several movements, each unified within itself and strongly contrasting with adjacent movements, were symmetrically disposed according to scoring, metre and texture (see his Was mein Gott will and Es spricht der Unweisen Mund wohl; also Schelle’s Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schar). In contrast to the north Germans, Rosenmüller, Knüpfer and their successors made practically no use of the monodic style. They used clear, simple structural forms and an undecorated cantus firmus; in their choruses they preferred relatively sophisticated contrapuntal textures based on imitative polyphony (or even canon) to a highly affective and sophisticated harmonic vocabulary. Later central German composers, notably Knüpfer’s successor, Schelle, cultivated a more homophonic choral style, and the internal movements of their cantatas began to be dominated by settings without cantus firmus. By the end of the 17th century the structural clarity and more objective style of the central German cantata had been almost universally adopted in north and south Germany, appearing in the works of the Hamburg composers Joachim Gerstenbüttel and Georg Bronner as well as in those of Pachelbel.
By 1700 the pure chorale cantata was abandoned almost entirely throughout Germany in favour of the mixed type. Typical examples are the compositions on Christ lag in Todesbanden and Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Johann Kuhnau (Schelle’s successor), in which only the tutti movements at the beginning and end are set to strophes of the chorale; the internal movements interpolate recitatives, arias and biblical settings.
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
At the beginning of the 18th century, German composers again became receptive to the latest Italian secular developments. The forms and styles of the contemporary Italian opera and, before long, the instrumental concerto as well, exerted as strong and as fundamental an influence on German Protestant church music as had the concertato madrigal, the monody and the sacred concerto a century earlier. Symptomatic of this was the appearance in 1700 of the Geistliche Cantaten statt einer Kirchenmusic by the Weissenfels poet and theologian Erdmann Neumeister. The title marks the first use of the term ‘cantata’ in connection with sacred music, and it is indicative of the collection’s nature and significance, for Neumeister’s texts consist exclusively of his own freely invented lyrics, all cast in the basic secular text forms of contemporary Italian opera and cantata: the madrigalian (i.e. free-verse) recitative, and the more tightly constructed aria. The two types alternate systematically throughout each cantata.
Neumeister’s innovation, usually referred to as the ‘new’ cantata, immediately became immensely popular, and his texts were set to music by J.P. Krieger, Kuhnau, F.W. Zachow and others. The restriction to recitative and aria texts only in the ‘new’ cantata, however, was soon modified by Neumeister himself and others, and by 1710 the traditional text sources, biblical passages and chorales, were reintroduced into the German cantata. But their role thenceforth was generally considerably more modest. The only composer of the time to cultivate the chorale extensively was J.S. Bach.
At first Bach made no use of the madrigalian recitative and aria forms of the new Neumeister type. On the contrary, his earliest cantatas adhere strongly to the late 17th-century central and north German traditions with their mixed texts, drawing to a large extent on the standard chorale repertory and passages from the Bible. His setting of Christ lag in Todes Banden (bwv4), possibly composed in Mühlhausen in 1708 (or perhaps earlier), in fact is cast as a pure chorale cantata, specifically as a series of chorale variations per omnes versus. Its symmetrical ordering of movements (choruses at the beginning, middle and end, separated by duets and arias) with the final chorus set as a simple four-part chorale harmonization, clearly reflects the central German norm going back to Knüpfer. The composition seems to have been influenced by cantatas on the same text by Kuhnau and Pachelbel. The opening and middle strophes are treated as elaborate chorale motets with the cantus firmus presented in long notes in one voice while the remaining voices have imitative motivic material mostly derived from the chorale melody. To a lesser degree elements of the north German practice are evident as well, as in the mixture of techniques within the opening chorus and the decoration of the cantus firmus in the first duet.
The style of Bach’s later chorale cantatas, particularly the 40 settings he wrote in 1724–5 in Leipzig as part of a complete cantata cycle for the church year, has no known antecedents, although Bach may have taken the idea for the project from one of his predecessors as Thomaskantor, Johann Schelle, the only other composer known to have written a complete annual cycle of chorale cantatas (now lost). Bach’s settings of 1724–5 achieved a unique fusion of the older mixed chorale cantata tradition with the more recent operatic idioms of the Neumeister type. The opening chorale strophe is typically set as an elaborate movement for chorus and orchestra (often described as a ‘chorale fantasy’) and the final strophe as a simple harmonization in cantional style. The internal strophes, however, are not set literally but are paraphrased and recast in the forms of recitatives and arias. Accordingly, Bach’s creation has been called ‘chorale paraphrase’ cantata. In his chorale cantatas of the late 1720s and 30s, and also in several of the 1724–5 cycle, Bach preferred to set the literal chorale text throughout rather than paraphrases of it. But he retained the musical design of the 1724–5 cycle, which consisted of an opening chorale chorus followed by a succession of recitatives and arias and a concluding four-part chorale.
In his mature chorale cantatas Bach drew on devices from all the prevailing vocal and instrumental genres of his own and earlier periods, characteristically combining two or more simultaneously. The solo movements are usually freely composed recitatives and arias, but they often contain direct or indirect allusions to the chorale melody, perhaps appearing as an instrumental cantus firmus. But the most extraordinary demonstrations of technical virtuosity are in the opening choruses. Here Bach adopted as his usual model the design of the contemporary Italian instrumental concerto as perfected by Vivaldi, the orchestra presenting in effect the ritornellos based on the opening instrumental tutti in alternation with the separated lines of the chorale in the chorus, which function in the formal conception as the solo episodes of the concerto design. The chorale lines themselves are still ultimately cast in one of the two fundamental types of chorale setting, the chordal cantional harmonization or the polyphonic chorale motet. Other chorale choruses may be based not on the concerto model but on the combination of the chorale with other forms: the French overture (bwv61, 20); the strict chorale motet with colla parte instruments (bwv2, 28); the recitative, with chorale interpolations (bwv73, 27); or the extended basso ostinato (bwv122). Perhaps Bach’s most remarkable combination of techniques is in the opening chorus of Jesu, der du meine Seele (bwv78) in which the bar form chorale is presented as a cantus firmus chorale motet, each line being prepared in the lower parts by a polyphonic pre-imitation before the entry of the chorale melody in the soprano. Between statements of the chorale lines there is a ritornello, based on the orchestral introduction, which has the metre of the sarabande. This entire concerto plus chorale motet structure rests on the almost uninterrupted repetition of a basso ostinato that uses the old passacaglia theme of a chromatically descending 4th. The movement, then, combines simultaneously the formal and stylistic properties of the bar form chorale, the chorale motet, the sarabande, the Baroque concerto and the passacaglia. In their expressive depth, their enormous formal variety and their sophistication, Bach’s chorale cantatas constitute not only a comprehensive summation of the history of chorale setting but also its greatest artistic manifestation.
Among the cantatas of Bach’s contemporaries only those of Christoph Graupner contain relatively ambitious chorale settings; but Graupner composed no real chorale cantatas. The few chorale cantatas of Telemann use the chorale melody only in the outer movements, where it is set in simple chordal style. Occasional chorale movements, again mostly in simple settings, also appear in cantatas by G.H. Stölzel, J.F. Fasch and others.
Chorale settings, §I: Vocal settings
During the second half of the 18th century the growing secularization inspired by Enlightenment attitudes brought about the gradual decline of the religious institutions that had historically supported the production and performance of Protestant church music in Germany: the well-trained school choirs directed by professional Kantors; volunteer church choruses (Kantoreien); and regularly employed court and town musicians. Moreover, the rise of theatre and concert music at this time attracted the most talented musicians away from the church. In response to the new aesthetic ideals of simplicity and naturalness the operatic elements of the early 18th-century church cantata, which had been increasingly cultivated by composers (C.H. Graun, G.A. Sorge, J.P. Kellner) and criticized by theologians – secco recitatives, da capo arias, vocal virtuosity – were suppressed in favour, once again, of biblical and chorale texts, or the new sacred lyrics (Geistliche Oden) of such important poets as C.F. Gellert (1715–69). The new musical settings, accordingly, were generally more directly melodious, the textures more chordal.
In the central German regions of Saxony and Thuringia, however, most of the traditional forms were still cultivated; motet composition began to gain in popularity as instrumentally accompanied cantatas declined. J.L. Krebs, a pupil of Bach, and the Dresden Kantor G.A. Homilius and other composers of the region composed motets in which, typically, chorale and biblical texts were combined in textures of greater (e.g. Krebs’s Erforsche mich, Gott) or lesser contrapuntal complexity (Homilius’s So gehst du nun, mein Jesu, hin). The motets of the Leipzig Thomaskantor J.F. Doles usually included chorales that were either set as a four-part Cantionalsatz decorated by a solo rendering of a biblical passage or presented in systematic alternation with four-part settings of the biblical quotation.
The leading cantata composers of the generation after Bach were, again, Homilius and Doles. In the late 1760s, having composed chorale cantatas modelled on those of Bach and Telemann, Doles cultivated a ‘new kind of church music’ (in the words of his successor, J.A. Hiller), in which each strophe of a traditional chorale was sung to identical music; a setting of the tune for a four-part chorus was reinforced by a trombone choir (increasingly popular from the late 18th century) and perhaps by the congregation itself, while the rest of the orchestra performed framing ritornellos and interludes between the chorale lines. This ‘figurierter Choral Dolesscher Art’ was taken up by a number of composers, notably Hiller, C.G. Tag and D.G. Türk.
By the 19th century church cantatas were composed as a rule only for the principal feasts and for special occasions. In general both the style and the scoring of these works were kept modest with a view to congregational participation. The four-part chorale settings published by J.F.S. Döring in 1827 represented the three current principal types: simple strophic settings intended for the school choir, perhaps in alternation or together with wind ensembles (or organ accompaniment) and the congregation; the Doles type; and ‘chorale cantatas’ containing chorale strophes only in the outer movements. More ambitious settings followed in the wake of the Bach revival of the late 1820s. Between 1827 and 1832 Mendelssohn, the leading proponent of that revival, composed five chorale cantatas based exclusively on the chorale texts, although not always using the traditional melodies. These rather retrospective settings, however, include cantus firmus choruses modelled on those of Bach, simple chorale harmonizations, and lyric arias.
The backward-looking tendency observable in the chorale cantatas of Mendelssohn, the a cappella motets of J.G. Schicht, and later in Brahms’s chorale motet, Es ist das Heil uns kommen her op.29, was a creative response to the Restoration movement in the Lutheran church that had begun in the second decade of the 19th century (see Chorale, §14); this movement led not only to the scholarly investigation of the chorale and liturgical traditions but also to intensive consideration of the question of ‘proper’ church music. This in turn led to successive revivals of older styles, each presented as the ideal: 16th-century a cappella music, especially that of Palestrina and Eccard; then the church music of Bach; and later that of Schütz. The trend continued into the early 20th century with settings by Heinrich Herzogenberg and most notably Reger’s four Choralkantaten zu den Hauptfesten (1903–5), which are strophic cantus firmus settings for solo voices, organ and accompanying instruments.
The examples of Brahms, Herzogenberg and Reger, but most of all the restoration of the de tempore liturgy and the efforts to create a national German hymnbook using the original forms of the traditional chorale repertory, provided the stimulus for the extensive production of artistically ambitious church music from about 1910 on. The chorale cantatas of Arnold Mendelssohn belong to the early stages of this renewal. The trend received further impetus during the anti-Romantic reaction that set in after World War I, leading to the cultivation of a more elaborate polyphonic style. In 1928 Ernst Pepping’s Choralsuite for large and small choirs marked the beginning of the composer’s long series of chorale-based church music in a style characterized by the use of cantus firmus techniques, strict polyphonic texture and a tonal idiom derived from the Renaissance church modes. Other publications of Pepping’s include Kanonische Suite in drei Chorälen (1928) and his Deutsche Choralmesse (1928) – a six-part setting of the Gloria and Credo chorales (Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr and Wir glauben all an einen Gott) and other traditional texts. The work led to further cycles of chorale masses by Hugo Distler, Wolfgang Fortner, Karl Marx and J.N. David. Some of Distler’s chorale settings are reminiscent either of the note-against-note style or the polyphonic cantus firmus style of Johann Walter. In general the 20th-century chorale motet repertory of Distler, Günter Raphael, J.N. David and others was characterized by a great variety of styles; but all were predicated on the retention of the cantus firmus, a cappella scoring and strict polyphony.
The 1930s and 40s witnessed a renewal of interest in the Cantional. Simple settings began to appear with Distler’s collection Der Jahrkreis op.5 (1932–3), in which the four-part harmonization was rejected in favour of two- and three-part linear writing based on a lightly varied cantus firmus. Pepping’s Spandauer Chorbuch, published between 1934 and 1941 (271 settings of 250 chorales for two to six voices, all contained in the congregational hymnbook), is the most exhaustive collection of chorale harmonizations since the 18th century. As in Distler’s Jahrkreis the texture is polyphonic but maintains a generally simultaneous declamation of the text.
Chorale cantatas based exclusively on the original texts were composed by Kurt Thomas, Fritz Werner, Walter Kraft and others. After World War II interest continued to be focussed on three of the principal genres from the early 16th century onwards: chorale harmonizations, chorale motets and the chorale cantata. Contributions to these genres were made notably by Siegfried Reda and Helmut Bornefeld. Throughout the 20th century the emphasis was on technical sophistication, cultivation of the traditional genres, faithfulness to the historical texts and melodies, and liturgical usefulness.
2. Chorale ricercare and chorale variations, c1600–50: Sweelinck, Scheidt, Scheidemann.
3. Chorale fantasia and chorale prelude, c1650–c1700: Buxtehude and the north German tradition.
4. Chorale fugue and chorale partita, c1650–c1700: Pachelbel and the central German tradition.
5. Early 18th century: J.S. Bach.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
The function of the organ in the early Protestant church service was not to accompany the congregational singing of chorales. The congregation at that time always sang a cappella and completely in unison. Nor is it clear exactly what role Luther expected the instrument to play in the service, for he rarely referred to it in his writings, not mentioning it at all in his hymnbook forewords, the Formula missae or the Deutsche Messe. But he evidently appreciated the organ’s traditional function in the Roman Catholic service in which it played the alternate verses or sections of certain Gregorian chants – principally the Magnificat, the Te Deum, the gradual and the hymn – for the Reformation applied the alternatim practice to the strophic German chorale as well as to the Latin items of the liturgy.
Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, when the chorale was always performed in its entirety (i.e. per omnes versus), strophes sung in unison by the congregation often, for the sake of variety, alternated with strophes performed polyphonically by either the school choir, the Kantorei or the organ. The alternatim practice therefore allowed for numerous possible combinations – of polyphonic and unison textures, of a cappella and instrumental ensembles, and of choral, congregational and organ performance – in addition to the possibilities of having only the congregation, the choir or the organ perform alone all the strophes of the chorale.
There was, however, no specific literature for the organ in the Reformation period, since Luther and other Protestant theologians were wary of its secular associations and disapproved of displays of virtuosity. Accordingly, they rejected autonomous organ music in the church service. Rather the entire liturgical repertory was available to the instrument; and Protestant organists, adopting a long-standing tradition, prepared intabulations of polyphonic vocal pieces (for example, from the collections of Johann Walter and Georg Rhau; see §I, 1 above), typically adding idiomatic passages and embellishments to the original compositions. Or they improvised on the chorale cantus firmus according to rules and formulae developed by the organists of the ‘Fundamentum’ tradition that extended back at least to the mid-15th century, to the Fundamentum organisandi (1452) of Conrad Paumann and the repertory of the Buxheim Organbook. The Fundamentum techniques enabled organists to improvise simple chordal settings, lively counterpoints round a long-note cantus firmus (bicinia), as well as other contrapuntal textures, by mastering a limited number of basic contrapuntal procedures, a vocabulary of stereotyped melodic figures, and a repertory of diminution patterns and embellishments that were to be applied directly to the chorale melody itself, according to the practice known as coloration.
By the early 16th century, organ settings of Gregorian melodies published in the Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang (Mainz, 1512) by Arnolt Schlick already used devices that became significant in the later history of the Protestant organ chorale, notably the use of introductory pre-imitations in the accompanying parts preceding the entry of the cantus firmus, and the separation of the cantus firmus into segments, each of which was decorated by independent accompanimental counterpoints proceeding in imitation (see Schlick’s setting of Da pacem).
In marked contrast to the history of vocal chorale settings, no organ chorales by central or north German organists survive from the Reformation period. With few exceptions the early 16th-century liturgical organ repertory consists almost exclusively of settings of Latin liturgical chants by south German Catholic organists. The earliest extant organ setting of a Protestant chorale is an intabulation of Aus tiefer Not by the Protestant Swiss organist Hans Kotter. No other Protestant organ chorales are known from the first half of the 16th century and only isolated examples from the 1560s. But church agendas from the post-Reformation generation testify to the increasing role of the organ, and the first important publication to contain Protestant organ chorales, the Orgel oder Instrument Tabulatur by E.N. Ammerbach, appeared in Leipzig in 1571. Together with the second edition of 1583, Ammerbach’s tablature contained a total of about 20 chorales, largely of praise and thanksgiving, which for the most part did not remain in the repertory. Some of these chorales were intabulations of vocal settings. Reflecting the same stylistic tendencies as the roughly contemporary Cantional (see §I, 2 above), Ammerbach’s settings are for four parts in a loosely homophonic texture with the cantus firmus usually in the discant. But the lower parts are rhythmically activated and notable for their dissonances.
Towards the end of the 16th century, organ tablatures consisting apparently of intabulations of vocal chorale settings were prepared by Bernhard Schmid (i) (1577) and Jacob Paix (1583) and owned by Christoph Loeffelholz von Colberg (1585). A more extensive collection of 77 chorales, written in a four-part homophonic style related to Ammerbach’s, was August Nörmiger’s Tabulaturbuch auff dem Instrument, a manuscript from 1598 that for the first time in the history of keyboard literature was arranged according to the church year and included settings of the more familiar chorales (e.g. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland and Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her). Of great importance is the so-called Celle tablature of 1601 (now lost), the first known source of organ music from north Germany since the mid-15th century and containing about 75 chorale settings of which 61 survived, including compositions on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein and Vater unser im Himmelreich. Most of the settings were anonymous; the only composer mentioned by name was Johann Stephan (Steffens). Again, the embellished chordal style familiar from the Ammerbach tablature is represented, but more ambitious compositions appeared in the Celle tablature too (see §2 below).
Organ chorales in basically homophonic style, either strictly chordal or with embellishments applied to the melody or the accompanimental parts, continued to be cultivated after 1600, not only, as in the past, for use in alternatim performances but also, as contemporary testimony makes clear, to accompany congregational singing. The first mention of the organ for this purpose is in the Melodeyen Gesangbuch (Hamburg, 1604), a collection of cantional-style chorale settings in choirbook format, composed by the principal Hamburg organists of the period: Hieronymus Praetorius, Joachim Decker, Jacob Praetorius (ii) and David Scheidemann. The practice of accompanying the congregation with the organ grew only gradually during the 17th century and did not become the rule until the 18th.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
In addition to the continued production of relatively modest and basically utilitarian organ chorale harmonizations the turn of the 17th century witnessed the appearance of more elaborate and autonomous chorale arrangements. Their function, if any, in the church service of the time is not clear (they were possibly performed instead of motets on Sundays when the chorus was unavailable, or during the distribution of Communion when extended chorale settings were possible). The Celle tablature already contained many organ chorales constructed in emulation of vocal genres, specifically in the manner of the contemporary chorale motet with each line of the chorale set as a point of imitation (e.g. a five-part setting of Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein). This organ counterpart of the chorale motet has itself been called a ‘chorale motet’, or, adopting the terminology variously used in the early 17th century for similarly constructed instrumental compositions, ‘chorale canzona’, ‘chorale fantasia’ or chorale ‘ricercare’. The causes of consistency and simplicity seem to be best served by restricting the term ‘chorale motet’ to vocal compositions, using the term ‘chorale ricercare’ for the analogous and relatively strict organ form in which each line is presented in fugal imitation, and reserving the term ‘chorale fantasia’, finally, for the fundamentally freer and more idiomatic organ chorale type that appeared somewhat later and in which each line is characteristically developed several times in different ways.
The chorale ricercare quickly became one of the favourite organ chorale forms of the time. Particularly large-scale examples were contributed by the leading master of the vocal chorale motet, Michael Praetorius (see his Ein feste Burg and Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam) as well as by the Hamburg organist Jacob Praetorius and others. In addition to adopting the form of the indigenous chorale motet, early 17th-century German organists, following the example of the vocal composers, sought to expand the formal and stylistic resources at their disposal by studying foreign developments. At the same time that sacred and secular Italian vocal music began to exert a strong influence on the style of Protestant vocal music, a similar phenomenon can be observed in the organ repertory. The Tabulatur Buch of Bernhard Schmid (ii) (Strasbourg, 1607) was the first such collection in Germany to include a large number of original organ works by Italian composers (the Gabrielis, Merulo and others), and exposed native organists to the elements of the Italian organ style – the sparkling passage-work of the toccata and the rhythmic patterns and textures of the canzona.
Slightly later, a second foreign keyboard idiom, that of the English virginalists, was transmitted to German organists through the Dutch Calvinist master Sweelinck. By adapting the keyboard variation form of the English virginalists to the Protestant chorale Sweelinck became, apparently, the creator of the chorale variations for organ, compositions intended exclusively for concert performance and not for the church service. The basic principle of the chorale variations form is the presentation of the chorale melody, treated usually as a cantus firmus stated in long notes, in several different settings. In Sweelinck’s compositions there are normally four variations in a set; the individual variations are mostly for three voices, but also for two or four, and they are characteristically connected by transitional passages. The cantus firmus can appear in any voice and is usually unornamented, although for the sake of variety, especially in bicinia, Sweelinck sometimes alternated ‘plain’ and ‘coloured’ presentations of the chorale melody within the same variation.
English influence is most apparent in the active contrapuntal voices of Sweelinck’s two- and three-part variations, which typically embellish the cantus firmus with idiomatic keyboard figuration derived from short, mosaic-like motifs that are literally and mechanically repeated in sequence. But Sweelinck’s four-part chorale variations are his most successful; they are characterized by a love of variety that often results in a relatively non-systematic, almost improvisatory composition, alternating within a single verse chordal and contrapuntal textures, lively and calm lines, and even occasionally deriving some of the contrapuntal motifs from elements of the cantus firmus. In Sweelinck’s few individual variations with a coloured cantus firmus, the principle of embellishment is the same as that used in contrapuntal voices; the melody is adorned with idiomatic, patterned keyboard figuration spun out by sequential repetition, a technique that results in little differentiation between the accompaniment and the cantus firmus. In his chorale variations Sweelinck was not particularly concerned with creating strongly organized cycles. The individual verses are generally similar to each other, adjacent two- and three-voice settings typically sharing their prevailing rhythmic motion. The sense of cyclic design is created only by the increasing number of voices from one variation to the next.
Sweelinck’s two leading German pupils, Scheidt and Heinrich Scheidemann, brought the form and the keyboard idiom of Sweelinck’s chorale variations to Protestant central and north Germany, respectively, where they were no longer concert pieces but part of the church service. The genre reached its highpoint in the works of Scheidt. Most of the elaborate settings of German Protestant chorales in his monumental publication, Tabulatura nova (Hamburg, 1624, published in three parts), are in the form of chorale variations. A total of 16 different variation types have been distinguished in Scheidt’s chorale variations, according to the number of voices, location of the cantus firmus, plain or coloured treatment of the melody, the type of texture (homophonic, imitative polyphony, canonic), etc. There are two to 12 variations in each cycle, for two, three or four voices, with the four-voice settings prevailing.
In contrast to Sweelinck’s, Scheidt’s variation sets, as they appear in the Tabulatura nova, reveal a systematic principle of internal order. The succession of the constituent variations, like Sweelinck’s, is largely controlled by the number of voices in each variation; but Scheidt normally replaced the principle of increasing the number of voices with a symmetrical pattern, generally based on the order of four–three–two–three–four voices (with the first three-voice variation often omitted). Moreover, the styles of the individual variations are designed to contrast with one another. The opening four-voice variation is typically cast as a chorale ricercare with the cantus firmus in the discant and imitative polyphony prevailing. The two- and three-voice variations are usually close to the Sweelinck style: lively counter-voices embellish a sustained cantus firmus, and the two-voice group often makes use of double counterpoint (the cantus firmus presented as the upper and lower part in succession). As a rule the second (or only) three-voice variation has the cantus firmus in the tenor. In the final four-voice variation, the cantus firmus is in the bass, or in two voices, or coloured in the discant and with a chordal accompaniment. The similarity to the design of Scheidt’s multi-sectional chorale concertos in the Newe geistliche Concerten (see §I, 3 above) is apparent, but there is no evident connection between the musical style of the individual variations and the texts of the individual strophes of the chorale.
Nor is it clear that the variations, in spite of their systematic ordering in the Tabulatura nova, were actually intended always to be performed in their entirety as complete cycles. Unlike Sweelinck’s chorale variations, Scheidt’s are only rarely connected by transitional passages; normally each is a separate, autonomous setting. And it may be significant that instead of the term ‘Variatio’, found in the headings of Sweelinck’s variations, Scheidt used the term ‘Versus’, and that some of Scheidt’s variation cycles were demonstrably partly constructed from earlier single pieces that survive separately in some sources. But the symmetrical organization of the variation sets in their final published form strongly suggests that they were ultimately regarded as unified works. The publication of the south German J.U. Steigleder’s Tabulatur Buch (Strasbourg, 1627), containing 40 variations for two, three and four voices on the Vater unser chorale (mainly in the style of Sweelinck), constituted, along with the Tabulatura nova, the culmination of the chorale variations genre, and was surely intended as a repository of alternative settings and not as a closed cycle (the same is true of a contemporary manuscript compilation of 20 variations on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr composed by various members of the Sweelinck school).
Scheidt’s chorale fantasia on Ich ruf zu dir is one of a few early 17th-century uses of the term ‘fantasia’ for an organ chorale, and it reveals Scheidt’s love of rational constructions. Each chorale line has two parts and each is treated in the same general manner: a pre-imitation of each line in small note values is followed by a systematic presentation of the cantus firmus in long note values in each voice against an increasing number of counter-voices, normally concluding with a four-part chordal setting. The work is significant for its mixture of techniques, using points of imitation, long-note cantus firmus setting, and techniques of fragmentation familiar from Scheidt’s own chorale concertos.
In contrast to the chorale variations and the chorale fantasia included in the Tabulatura nova, in his late publication, the so-called Görlitzer Tabulatur-Buch (1650), Scheidt took up the genre of the four-part chorale harmonization, offering 100 of the best-known chorales arranged in the order of the church year and Luther’s catechism. These brief works may have been intended either to accompany the congregation or for use in alternatim performances; but in their free and extensive use of passing notes, suspensions and syncopations in the inner parts they are more advanced than the basically homophonic chorale settings in the Ammerbach and Celle tablatures, and form an unmistakable stylistic link with Bach’s four-part chorales.
The publications of organ works by Scheidt and Steigleder were actually exceptional. Only seven tablature prints, including Scheidt’s and Steigleder’s, appeared in Germany before 1650. The German organ repertory of the early 17th century was almost entirely transmitted in manuscript. The most significant manuscript collection of the period 1620–40, the so-called LynarB or Lübbenau tablatures (now in D-Bsb), contains a repertory predominantly of chorale settings by anonymous composers, but it also includes organ chorales by Sweelinck, Jacob Praetorius (ii), Melchior Schildt, Scheidt and Scheidemann. The appearance of another important manuscript source, the two so-called Zellerfeld tablatures (now in D-CZ), led to the discovery of a large number of previously unknown works by Scheidemann. As a result there are now more extant compositions by Scheidemann than by any other 17th-century north German composer with the exception of Buxtehude. Moreover, they reveal Scheidemann not only to be the greatest Sweelinck pupil next to Scheidt but also to be the founder of the specifically north German school of organ composition
A total of 35 organ chorales by Scheidemann survive; most are transmitted in the form of cycles of several chorale verses (usually two or three), but it is not certain whether these sets of variations – any more than those of Scheidt and Steigleder – were necessarily intended as integral sets and not simply as collections from which the performer was expected to choose individual settings. Along with Scheidt, Scheidemann inherited Sweelinck’s stylistic synthesis of the English virginalist keyboard idiom with the contrapuntal and cantus firmus techniques of the strict vocal forms – the bicinium, tricinium and chorale motet. And like Scheidt he replaced Sweelinck’s relatively loose organization and love of variety with a stronger sense of internal unity, ensuring that the same rhythmic motion and cantus firmus treatment were maintained throughout a verse. Scheidemann’s keyboard figuration is spun out more freely than Sweelinck’s, betraying a growing independence from the patterned sequences and other techniques inherited from the virginalists. Scheidemann obtained variety by creating contrasts of register and tone-colour (he may have been the first in history to exploit the colouristic resources of the pedals for this purpose), and by imaginatively constructing the opening imitations of his settings according to a large number of different schemes (using the cantus firmus or the counter-theme as the subject, using basically short or long notes, direct or invertible counterpoint, etc.).
Unlike later north German composers Scheidemann did not use echo effects or highly embellished cantus firmi, preferring the more traditional and objective forms of Scheidt and Praetorius. Scheidemann’s three-voice organ variations do occasionally colour the chorale melody but in an altogether new way, for the coloration does not take the form of instrumentally conceived displays of keyboard virtuosity (scales or sequential patterns) but rather, for the first time, features vocally inspired ‘affective’ decorations such as passing notes, suspensions and trills. The resulting style constitutes a basically new genre: the ‘monodic’ organ chorale (see the second verse of his Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott). It was to be further developed by Buxtehude and later by J.S. Bach.
As cycles, Scheidemann’s variation sets occupy an intermediate position between those of Sweelinck and Scheidt. A few of Scheidemann’s sets, like Sweelinck’s, include transitional passages between the verses and are organized according to the increase in the number of voices; but most of them, consisting as a rule of only two or three verses, are closer to Scheidt’s separable verses and a design based on systematic contrast, beginning, for example, with a strict four-voice setting of a plain cantus firmus, followed by a middle monodic chorale, and finally a verse in keyboard style for two or three voices. During a church service the opening variation possibly functioned as a prelude to the congregational singing, and the second and third as alternatim strophes.
Scheidemann also contributed one fantasia on a Lutheran chorale, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (no.16 in the complete edition). It is his longest work – a free, multi-sectional piece and almost a rhapsodic composite of elements taken from the ricercare, bicinium and free toccata, in which the cantus firmus appears several times in each section, either plain or embellished. This is the first fully formed example of the north German chorale fantasia type that was to be cultivated soon afterwards by Tunder, Weckmann, Buxtehude, Bruhns and Lübeck. The liturgical role of such a piece is unclear.
Scheidemann continued, then, to contribute compositions to the dominant genre of the early 17th century, the chorale variation set, with its preference for the unadorned, plain cantus firmus, but he was also a considerable innovator with respect to form, virtually creating both the monodic chorale and the free chorale fantasia. Since both new forms embodied significant stylistic features of the mid-17th-century Baroque aesthetic – the monodic chorale representing an instrumental equivalent of the aria or arioso with basso continuo, and the chorale fantasia sharing with the concerto style the emphatic combination of two or three contrasting timbres – it is not surprising that, generally speaking, north German composers of the next generation were attracted to them at the same time that they lost interest in plain cantus firmus settings.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
The north German repertory of the mid-17th century is transmitted for the most part in the so-called Lüneburg tablatures (in D-Lr), whose five principal manuscripts contain the works of composers active between about 1640 and 1660, including Matthias Weckmann, Delphin Strungk and Franz Tunder, along with many of the older generation represented in the Lynar B manuscripts (see above). In both collections the two principal types of chorale settings are the chorale variations and the chorale fantasia – both the strict imitative type (designated here as ‘chorale ricercare’) cultivated by Scheidt and Michael Praetorius and modelled on the motet, and the free toccata-like hybrid form first perfected by Scheidemann.
The chorale fantasia was extensively cultivated by Tunder, organist of the Marienkirche in Lübeck from 1641 until his death. Six of his nine surviving organ chorales are chorale fantasias. As he perfected the genre and transmitted it to later organists, the chorale fantasia became an imposing showpiece, an example of the so-called north German ‘Prunkstil’ (ornate style), and presumably intended for performance not in the service but in the famous Lübeck Abendmusik. Its basic structural plan is to present each chorale line twice, once ornamented in the soprano, and once unadorned in the bass. Systematic use of pre-imitation and points of imitation in the chorale lines are rare; the governing compositional principle is fragmentation: motifs derived from the first and last few notes of a chorale line are treated imitatively, in echo style, or are passed between the voices in complementary rhythmic patterns; quotations of the cantus firmus are freely embellished either with old-fashioned virtuoso passage-work or with Scheidemann’s more restrained but affective ornamentation. In contrast to Tunder, his younger contemporary, Matthias Weckmann, organist at the Jacobikirche in Hamburg, was a conservative. His seven surviving organ chorales are all cast as chorale variations consisting of three or four verses in the style of Sweelinck and Scheidt. Apparently he did not even compose motet-inspired chorale ricercares as had his teacher, Jacob Praetorius. The two surviving chorale settings of J.A. Reincken, organist of St Katharinen in Hamburg and a Scheidemann pupil, are both large-scale chorale fantasias. They too use the keyboard and stylistic resources of the north German style including echoes, passage-work, imitative polyphony, fragmentation techniques, ornamented cantus firmus and, Reincken’s hallmark, frequent hand-crossing.
There are over 40 surviving organ chorales by Buxtehude, Tunder’s successor at Lübeck, and they constitute the most important contributions to the genre in the 17th century. His settings include chorale variations, chorale ricercares, chorale fantasias and chorale preludes. Buxtehude’s chorale variations are mostly conservative, cast in the forms of bicinia and tricinia. The cantus firmus in these settings, however, is usually not presented in the traditional long notes but in normal rhythms, and the counter-voices are not mechanically patterned but rather freely spun out in the manner of Scheidemann. Buxtehude’s variation ‘suite’ on Auf meinen lieben Gott, in which the individual verses or variations are set respectively in the forms of allemande and double, sarabande, courante and gigue, is unique in the history of the organ chorale (indeed, the keyboard style and the absence of an independent pedal part strongly suggest that the work was intended for the harpsichord). His chorale ricercares, too, are basically conservative, while his chorale fantasias use the fragmentation techniques and keyboard style established by Tunder. An elaborate chorale fantasia on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland – the single surviving organ chorale by Buxtehude’s pupil Nicolaus Bruhns – is a remarkable combination of the obbligato part-writing of the older chorale ricercare with the free, multi-sectional chorale fantasia, incorporating the idiomatic passage-work characteristic of the north German genre.
Buxtehude’s principal contributions to the organ chorale are his 30 short chorale preludes, which consist of a single presentation of the chorale melody. The chorale prelude can be best understood as a single chorale variation whose function in the church service was to introduce the hymn tune to be sung by the congregation (increasingly to an organ accompaniment), the congregational rendition of the chorale strophes constituting in effect the remaining variations. Just as Tunder had perfected Scheidemann’s chorale fantasia, Buxtehude, in his chorale preludes, appropriated Scheidemann’s monodic chorale, liberally ornamenting the soprano cantus firmus with expressive ‘vocal’ embellishments to a reserved accompaniment in the lower parts in which pre-imitation and other anticipations of the next chorale line are only occasionally used. Buxtehude’s most successful compositions in this genre (e.g. Durch Adams Fall) convey the general ‘affect’ of the chorale text quite in the manner of a 19th-century character-piece for piano or, more to the point, in the manner of the contemporaneous devotional song. The six chorale preludes of Buxtehude’s Hamburg contemporary, J.N. Hanff, his only surviving instrumental works, are almost all of the Buxtehude type, although Hanff’s use of pre-imitation in the lower voices (a central German trait: see below) is more extensive.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
While the north German group of Sweelinck disciples, beginning with Scheidemann and passing on mainly to the great Lübeck masters Tunder and Buxtehude, cultivated an approach to the organ chorale increasingly characterized by a flexible manipulation of its structure and dimensions, by the expressive embellishment of the cantus firmus and the general exploitation of an idiomatic keyboard style, the central German line, descended from Scheidt, continued to develop the stricter polyphonic genres based on imitative treatment of the cantus firmus or its presentation as an unadorned, long-note cantus planus; in either case its structural and melodic integrity remained substantially intact. The first significant source of organ music containing any chorale settings to appear in central Germany after the Ammerbach and Nörmiger tablatures of the late 16th century was the Harmonia organica (Nuremberg, 1645) by J.E. Kindermann. The organ chorales in the collection are already cast in one of the two characteristic central German genres of the mid-17th century: the chorale fugue, a short composition in which the first and second lines of the chorale (or the first line alone) are treated as a subject for fugal imitation (later chorale fugues typically treated only the first line).
Except for Kindermann’s early and tentative experiments with the chorale fugue, the main exponents of the form in the later 17th century were the organists and church music directors of Saxony and Thuringia. The Mühlhausen organist J.R. Ahle, although best known for his sacred arias and concertos, also composed organ works including over 20 (surviving) organ chorales. More conservative than his contemporaries, he continued to compose chorale variations and polyphonic arrangements which, although designated ‘chorale fugues’, are unlike the prevailing central German chorale fugue, since not only the first line but the complete chorale melody is set in the manner of a chorale ricercare. The cantus firmus is not presented in long notes, but rather in the modern crotchet values. Ahle’s settings, then, can be considered generically, if not chronologically, as a transitional stage between the chorale ricercare of Scheidt and the typical central German chorale fugue as cultivated, along with others, by the early members of the Bach family, notably by Johann Christoph Bach (1642–1703). A substantial manuscript collection of 44 short chorale preludes by Johann Christoph Bach survives, most of which are polyphonic settings in imitative style of the first line only (i.e. chorale fugues), although others set the second line or even the entire chorale. While the latter settings are close to the style of Ahle, the former clearly approach that of the leading master of the central German organ chorale, Pachelbel, who occupied significant positions in several central German centres, including Eisenach, Erfurt and Nuremberg. Among his nearly 80 surviving organ chorales are 12 short chorale fugues as well as seven sets of chorale partitas (the term is derived from the Italian partite: ‘variations’). The chorale partita, along with the chorale fugue, was the most significant central German contribution to the organ chorale in the second half of the 17th century. It takes as its point of departure the formal principle of the 17th-century secular variations descended from Scheidt and Froberger. In contrast to the older variations each variation now retains the harmonic and structural properties as well as the original proportions – and even the original rhythmic values – of the pre-existent melody, so that there is virtually no rhythmic differentiation between the cantus firmus and the other parts. Moreover, the keyboard patterns and figurations of the accompanying parts are decorative rather than contrapuntal. Most of Pachelbel’s organ chorales, however, are strict cantus firmus settings cast in a form often referred to as the ‘Pachelbel type’. The complete chorale melody, typically unadorned, is presented in minims in the soprano or bass, each phrase prepared by an introductory pre-imitation usually derived from the cantus firmus. While it is sounding, the chorale cantus firmus is embellished as a rule either by two rapid counter-voices proceeding in semiquavers or by three accompanying parts in prevailing quaver motion. The non-motivic character of Pachelbel’s accompanying counterpoint distinguishes his cantus firmus settings from those of Scheidt, in which the accompanying parts are based generally on chorale-generated motifs.
Pachelbel was also the creator of a two-part combination form in which the first part consists of a chorale fugue on the first line and the second part, connected to the first by a transitional passage, is a three- or four-voice cantus firmus setting of the entire chorale. The composition as a whole in effect resembles the first two sections of a variation set by Scheidt: the opening chorale ricercare (here reduced to a chorale fugue) is followed by the first cantus firmus variation.
The influence of Pachelbel’s organ chorales can be observed in the compositions of his pupil J.H. Buttstett of Erfurt and those of F.W. Zachow of Halle, both of whom cultivated the chorale fugue as well as cantus planus settings. The central German tradition is also reflected in the Musicalische Kirch- und Hauss-Ergötzlichkeit (Leipzig, 1709–13), by the Leipzig organist Daniel Vetter; it is a collection of well-known chorale melodies presented in two contrasting settings, simple four-part harmonization intended for the organ, and an embellished version in the style of the chorale partita.
The central German approach to the inherited organ chorale genres in the second half of the 17th century was, to a remarkable extent, just the opposite of that of north Germany. The north Germans created the chorale prelude by reducing the early 17th-century chorale variation form to a single variation, and they derived the chorale fantasia by incorporating elements of the secular toccata into the old chorale ricercare. Conversely, the chorale fugue was created in central Germany by reducing the early 17th-century chorale ricercare to the opening point of imitation, while the chorale partita represents the incorporation of the principles of the secular keyboard variation forms into the traditional chorale variations genre. Moreover, both abbreviated forms, the north German chorale prelude and the central German chorale fugue, evidently had the same liturgical function, serving as an introduction to the congregational singing of the chorale.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
Although the characteristic north and central German genres and techniques that had developed mainly during the second half of the 17th century were never totally isolated from one another, at the beginning of the 18th century they began to exert a particularly strong mutual influence. The tendency, already observed in the chorale preludes of Hanff, is quite noticeable in the compositions of the north German Georg Böhm, organist of the Johanniskirche in Lüneburg. Of Böhm’s 18 surviving organ chorales, eight are chorale preludes of the Buxtehude type with the cantus firmus embellishments now more elaborate and extensive than before. But the accompanimental parts, reflecting central German tradition, make more consistent use of pre-imitation than is normally the case in Buxtehude’s chorale preludes.
The central German influence on Böhm is most evident, however, in the fact that he was one of the principal exponents of the chorale partita and contributed five works to the genre. He also continued to write chorale variations of the older type in which, however, the cantus firmus, reflecting general stylistic developments of the late Baroque period, was internally expanded with spun-out sequential extensions or heavily ornamented in the north German manner. Finally, stylistic elements of the late Baroque vocal forms, particularly the continuo-like accompanimental patterns and motto devices of the contemporary aria, left their imprints on Böhm’s organ chorales.
The synthesis of styles, traditions and genres reached its culmination in the organ works, as it had also in the vocal music, of Bach, more than half (about 155) of whose organ compositions are chorales based on a total of 75 different tunes. These compositions draw on all the principal organ chorale forms of the 17th and early 18th centuries, as well as upon vocal genres of the time, adopting them either directly or, more often, modifying or combining them into essentially new genres. Consequently, Bach’s organ chorales have been variously classified according to the manner in which the chorale tune is used (e.g. cantus firmus chorale, chorale motet, chorale canon, melody chorale, ornamental chorale, bound or free), the treatment of the accompanying parts, the principles of formal design, or according to the historical or geographical traditions to which they evidently belong.
It is helpful to divide Bach’s organ chorales into long or short forms, basing the distinction on the complete or incomplete presentation of the chorale melody; the presence or absence of interludes between the individual chorale phrases; and/or the setting of one or more verses of the chorale. There are, however, not only individual works but even genres of organ chorales by Bach that cannot be unambiguously classified even according to such broad criteria.
The most celebrated of Bach’s short organ chorales are the great majority of settings included in the Orgel-Büchlein (bwv599–644), a collection of 45 chorale preludes mostly composed in Weimar between 1713 and 1716. They are usually quite short, often between ten and 20 bars; the chorale is normally presented as a continuous melody, essentially in its original rhythmic and melodic shape (melody chorale), to a contrapuntal accompaniment in the lower parts whose constant and unified motivic material, although almost always unrelated to the melodic substance of the chorale, is suggested by the emotional content or theological symbolism of the text. In effect, the chorale text, silent but implied by the traditional melody, is presented simultaneously with its exegesis by the counter-voices. No exact precedent is known for the typical chorale prelude of the Orgel-Büchlein. Antecedents can be found in the late 17th-century chorale partita, particularly as cultivated by Böhm, and in the chorale preludes of Buxtehude. Their influence is most prominent in those chorale preludes of the Orgel-Büchlein in which the cantus firmus is highly embellished (ornamental chorale) as in Das alte Jahr vergangen ist (bwv614), O Mensch, bewein' dein' Sünde gross (bwv622) and Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein (bwv641).
Two different principles of organization underlie Bach’s large organ chorales. According to the first, several different settings of a single complete chorale (each in essence a short chorale) are presented in succession as a cycle. This is the additive principle of the chorale variations and chorale partita. Bach contributed to both genres, although he was not consistent in his terminology or practice. Early in his career (presumably c1700–07) he composed three cycles called ‘Partite’ (bwv766–8) in which both variations and ‘partite’ are included within each set. His greatest contribution to the chorale variation principle, Einige canonische Veränderungen über das Weynacht-Lied Vom Himmel hoch (Nuremberg, 1748), dates from the end of his life and is the most significant composition in the history of the genre. Chorale canons appear elsewhere in his work, including the Orgel-Büchlein (In dulci jubilo bwv608; O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig bwv618).
Bach more commonly created organ chorales of large dimension by using the principle of internal expansion, treating the chorale either as a subject extended by polyphonic imitation or as a cantus firmus framed by related or unrelated introductory and concluding material that also appears between the individual chorale lines as a recurring interlude. For the most part Bach neglected the typical north German chorale fantasia with its sectional organization and highly differentiated mixture of techniques and styles. The clearest example among his organ chorales is a setting of Christ lag in Todes Banden (bwv718), which combines north German coloration, echo effects and gigue rhythms with contrapuntal techniques ultimately derived from Scheidt. Bach preferred the more unified forms of the central German tradition and continued to cultivate the ‘Pachelbel type’ of organ chorale in which each line of the chorale is systematically presented in imitation, usually with one voice presenting the melody as a true cantus firmus in long notes. Both the so-called large and small catechism chorales on Aus tiefer Not (bwv686, and 687), from the third part of the Clavier-Übung (Leipzig, 1739), belong to this category. The central German chorale fugue, setting only the first line or two of the chorale in imitative or fugal style, is represented in its simplest form by the fughetta on Christum wir sollen loben schon (bwv696) and, among the catechism chorales, in more elaborate fashion, by the fugue on Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (bwv689) and the fughetta on Wir glauben all' an einen Gott (bwv681). In the latter the heavily ornamented cantus firmus subject reflects the infiltration of north German style into the central German genre.
Bach had already enriched the chorale fugue in his earliest works, in many cases by adding obbligato countersubjects that provide both variety and a tension of systematic contrast not found in the chorale fugues of Pachelbel or his other predecessors. Examples are the settings of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland and Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott (bwv699 and 704). Bach’s chorale fugues reach their culmination, however, in the large concertante fugues on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (bwv664) and Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend (bwv655), both from the ‘18 [actually 17] Great Chorales’ revised in the composer’s late Leipzig period. Here Bach combined the traditional fugue with elements of the trio sonata and the large format of the chorale fantasia. The imitation of the literal chorale subject is replaced with an ornamented version, still treated imitatively, to which are added strongly contrasting obbligato countersubjects and harmonically active interludes. But unlike the north German fantasia, unity is ensured here by textural and motivic consistency.
Bach’s organ chorales on the largest scale are the extended cantus firmus settings among the ‘18’ and the large catechism chorales. The complete chorale tune is presented as a long-note cantus firmus whose individual lines are separated by rests while the remaining parts present interludes, a framing introduction and coda to the composition, and accompany the cantus firmus. The most important achievement of these compositions is the imaginative and highly unified organization of the accompanying parts. They characteristically treat one thematic idea throughout and are themselves cast in the form of an almost autonomous composition, usually retaining the basic texture of imitative polyphony: a fugue (e.g. Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland bwv661); a trio sonata (Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam bwv684); a three-part invention (Komm, Heiliger Geist bwv651); or a fugue cast in the rhythm of a sarabande (Komm, Heiliger Geist bwv652).
The ‘Schübler’ chorales, published in Zella about 1748–9, are all arrangements of movements from earlier cantatas. In several of these Bach created cantus firmus settings in which the accompaniments are based on the basso ostinato principle of periodic repetition applied either relatively strictly, as in Meine Seele erhebt den Herrn (bwv648), or modified and expanded to resemble a songlike accompanied melody that is repeated several times in the course of the piece, in virtually total independence from the chorale cantus firmus. The settings of Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ (bwv649) and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (bwv645) present this new monodic type in its clearest form. The lyric style, combined with the periodic structure of the basso ostinato, served as a model for the next generation.
Bach’s contemporaries, notably Telemann, J.G. Walther and G.F. Kauffmann, generally cultivated the same genres and styles as Bach, but their works are considerably reduced in scale and simplified in texture. The contrapuntal style, however, especially in many of Walther’s surviving organ chorales, occasionally makes them practically indistinguishable from Bach’s. Most notable are the organ chorales published in Kauffmann’s Harmonische Seelenlust (1733–6), a collection of 98 chorale preludes and simple figured bass harmonizations for almost all of the same melodies; like the collections of Bach, or even Scheidt’s Tabulatura nova, it was evidently an attempt to survey the variety of organ chorale types available at the time. Telemann’s 48 chorale preludes (Hamburg, 1735) also contain twofold settings of each chorale: a three-part chorale ricercare with long-note cantus firmus, then a bicinium for unadorned cantus firmus and a freely patterned, running counter-voice.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
The generation of organ composers after Bach who were active in central Germany (J.L. Krebs, G.A. Homilius and J.P. Kellner – all Bach pupils) occasionally composed organ chorales reminiscent of Bach’s style, as did his pupils and others at Berlin, including J.P. Kirnberger, F.W. Marpurg and J.F. Agricola. But in general the contrapuntal genres were almost entirely abandoned after 1750. Indeed, the composition of organ chorales in the later 18th century was increasingly conceived in terms of mood-setting accompaniments of congregational singing. The emphasis on creating a generalized atmosphere also prevailed in the chorale preludes of the period, which in fact only rarely contained any reference to the chorale melody except the occasional quotation of an isolated motif. Homilius and his pupil C.G. Tag wrote a number of melody-dominated chorale preludes modelled after the lyric type in Bach’s ‘Schübler’ chorales, as well as ostinato-accompanied chorales inspired by the same collection.
During the first half of the 19th century organ music for the church service was produced in enormous quantities, but with few exceptions it represented the qualitative nadir of its history. A deliberately neutral and totally utilitarian church style was cultivated, characterized by chordal texture, moderate tempos and stereotyped cadences, modulations and rhythms. Chorale preludes, too, whether based on the cantus firmus tune or not, were generally composed in this style throughout much of the century. The ‘Bach Renaissance’, however, begun in the 1820s and pursued vigorously after the middle of the century, exerted an increasing influence on the genre. It is evident, for example, in the 11 chorale preludes for organ composed by Brahms (1896, published posthumously as op.122); these are reminiscent at times of Bach’s large-scale cantus firmus chorales but are mostly cast in the miniature forms of the Orgel-Büchlein, which are quite compatible with the Romantic keyboard tradition of the character-piece or song without words.
Mendelssohn’s Six Sonatas op.65 (composed 1844–5), perhaps the most significant organ works from the first half of the 19th century, represent a more original assimilation of Bach’s influence; three of them (nos.1, 3 and 6), which like all ambitious 19th-century organ music were concert pieces and not intended for the church service, use chorale melodies and are therefore often described as ‘chorale sonatas’, although they are not written in the Classical sonata allegro form. Sonata no.6 indeed is in the form of the Baroque chorale partita, a form that had been sporadically cultivated throughout the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The variations (on Vater unser im Himmelreich) begin with a simple chordal setting followed by a series of cantus firmus variations culminating in a chorale fugue on the first line of the tune. The lyrical final section, a character-piece, is not related in any obvious way to the chorale. Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas inspired numerous imitations that formed important links with Reger’s chorale fantasias of 1898–1900; two of Reger’s three fantasias op.52 (on Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme and Halleluja! Gott zu loben) achieved a synthesis of the modern and backward-looking tendencies of the 19th century. They combine the principles of chorale variation with those of the symphonic poem, using all the technical and tonal resources of the Romantic style and the Romantic organ. But Reger, like Brahms and other late 19th-century composers, also composed in the smaller organ forms, particularly chorale preludes which, unlike the large-scale chorale fantasias, were conceived for the church service. In general, however, Reger’s organ works were intended for concert performance, so his influence on the renewal of a genuinely liturgical organ repertory in the 20th century was only indirect.
That renewal resulted rather from the broad restoration of the traditional Lutheran liturgical and musical heritage that had been increasingly pursued throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More immediately, it was the inevitable consequence of the Orgelbewegung (seeOrgan, §VII), which itself grew from the restoration movement. The Orgelbewegung called both for the authentic reconstruction of historical instruments and for the revival of the sound-ideal of the Baroque organ. These developments, together with the general revival of composers’ interest in polyphony in the 1920s, led to the extensive composition of new, serious organ music, which quite prominently included the intensive cultivation of the organ chorale. The influential toccata Wie schön leucht’ uns der Morgenstern (1923) by Heinrich Kaminski, which makes systematic use of Baroque-style terraced dynamics, along with Kaminski’s Chorale Sonata of 1926 and his Three Chorale Preludes of 1928, are characteristic of the decade. So too are Günter Raphael’s Five Chorale Preludes op.1 (1922) and his Chorale Partita op.22 on Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein.
The desire to provide organ music for the church service resulted by the 1930s in an even greater concentration on the traditional chorale genres, particularly the chorale prelude, understood at this time as a composition of either small or large dimensions in which the cantus firmus is subject to strict or free treatment, and the so-called organ chorale, now the term for a specific genre, namely, simple settings of the complete melody intended for alternatim performance. But the preference was at first for the multi-sectional chorale partita, a form not intended for the service. Its cultivation testified to the same artistic interest in creating large-scale and varied polyphonic forms that had motivated the cultivation at the same time of the chorale mass among the vocal genres (see §I, 6 above).
The leading composers of chorale settings for organ after the 1930s were J.N. David, Hugo Distler and Ernst Pepping. David’s multi-volume Choralwerk, begun in 1932, includes the forms of chorale partita, chorale fantasia and chorale prelude, and in the later volumes is marked by a technique related to serial procedures, the entire texture being permeated by the substance of the chorale melody. Distler’s chorale partitas of 1933, with their undecorated cantus firmi and ornate contrapuntal elaborations, on the other hand, are retrospective, reflecting the influence of Scheidt. Distler’s 1938 collection of Kleine Orgelchoralbearbeitungen op.8 no.3 are more modest settings designed for the service.
The most prolific modern contributor of organ chorales for church use was Pepping. His three-part Grosses Orgelbuch (1939) consists of 40 settings of chorales arranged according to the church year. 27 are cast as chorale preludes and 13 as organ chorales in the sense just described. In 1940 he published a less difficult collection of 18 chorale preludes and organ chorales in his Kleines Orgelbuch. In 1953, after a gap of 12 years in the production of chorale-based organ music, he returned to the genre with the publication of three partitas on Sterbechoräle (chorales on death). This was followed in 1958 by 12 simple chorale preludes and in 1960 by 25 organ chorales on settings for the Spandauer Chorbuch (see §I, 6 above). The chorale partitas in Helmut Bornefeld’s multi-volume Choralwerk (composed 1948–59), his chorale preludes (1958–60) and his three Choralkonzerte (1946–8), as well as the 30 chorale preludes (1945–6) of Siegfried Reda, are all notable for their emphasis on colour, a neo-romantic gloss on general neo-Baroque tendencies.
Other composers of organ chorale settings around the middle of the century include Armin Knab, Max Drischner, H.W. Zimmermann and Wolfgang Wiemer; among those active somewhat later were Günter Neubert, K.U. Ludwig, Herbert Beuerle and Rolf Schweizer. J.O. Bender, a pupil of Distler’s who spent some time in the USA (1960–76, 1979–82), was a significant factor in the encouragement of American Lutherans to compose chorale-based organ works, among them Paul Bunjes, D.A. Busarow, Ludwig Lenel, Paul Manz and C.F. Schalk.
An important subgroup of the chorale prelude is the chorale intonation, a short introduction to the congregational singing of a chorale, consisting of two- to four-part imitative counterpoint based on the opening of the chorale melody. Although essentially an improvised tradition, many examples of these diminutive organ preludes are found in such published anthologies of chorale harmonizations as M.G. Fischer’s Choral-Melodien der Evangelischen Kirchen-Gemeinde (Gotha, 1820–21), A.F. Hess’s Rheinisch westphalisch Choral-buch (Elberfeld, 1840), H.M. Poppen, P. Reich and A. Strube’s Orgelvorspiele zum Evangelischen Gesangbuch (Berlin, 1953), W. Opp and D. Schuberth’s Singe, Christenheit (Munich, 1981) and the newer collections designed for use with the Evangelisches Gesangbuch.
Chorale settings, §II: Organ chorales
BlumeEK
WinterfeldEK
P. Spitta: Johann Sebastian Bach (Leipzig, 1873–80, 5/1962; Eng. trans., 1884, 2/1899/R)
S. Kümmerle: Encyklopädie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik (Gütersloh, 1888–95/R)
A. Schweitzer: J.S. Bach, le musicien-poète (Leipzig, 1905; Ger. trans., enlarged, 1908; Eng. trans., 1911/R)
R. Wustmann: Musikgeschichte Leipzigs, i: Bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig and Berlin, 1909/R)
C. Mahrenholz: Samuel Scheidt (Leipzig, 1924/R)
J. Schuberth: Das Wechselverhältnis von Choral und Orgelchoral im sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Kassel, 1931)
H.J. Moser: Heinrich Schütz (Kassel, 1936, 2/1954; Eng. trans., 1959)
M. Bukofzer: Music in the Baroque Era (New York, 1947)
H.J. Moser: Die evangelische Kirchenmusik in Deutschland (Berlin, 1954)
M. Blindow: Die Choralbegleitung des 18. Jahrhunderts in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands (Regensburg, 1957)
A. Forchert: Das Spätwerk des Michael Praetorius: italienische und deutsche Stilbegegnung (Berlin, 1959)
L.U. Abraham: ‘ Über Trivialität in protestantischen Kirchenmelodien des 19. Jahrhunderts’, Studien zur Trivialmusik des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. C. Dahlhaus (Regensburg, 1967), 83–95
W. Blankenburg: ‘Die Geschichte der evangelischen Kirchenmusik’, Die evangelische Kirchenmusik: Handbuch für Studium und Praxis, ed. E. Valentin and F. Hofmann (Regensburg, 1967), 38–106
C.V. Palisca: Baroque Music (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1968, 3/1991)
C. Wolff: ‘Die Originaldrucke Johann Sebastian Bachs’, Die Nürnberger Musikverleger und die Familie Bach, ed. W. Wörthmüller (Nuremberg and Zirndorf, 1973), 15–20
F. Krummacher: Die Choralbearbeitung in der protestantischen Figuralmusik zwischen Praetorius und Bach (Kassel, 1978)
I. Fellinger: ‘ Zur Situation geistlicher Musik in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts’, HJbMw, viii (1985), 223–36
R.A. Leaver: ‘ The Lutheran Reformation’, Man & Music: the Renaissance, ed. I. Fenlon (London, 1989), 263–85
W. Blankenburg: Johann Walter, ed. F. Brusniak (Tutzing, 1991)
F. Blume: Das monodische Prinzip in der protestantischen Kirchenmusik (Leipzig, 1925/R)
H. Sirp: ‘Die Thematik der Kirchenkantaten J.S. Bachs in ihren Beziehungen zum protestantischen Kirchenlied’, BJb 1931, 1–50; Bjb 1932, 51–118
A. Schmitz: Die Bildlichkeit der wortgebundenen Musik Johann Sebastian Bachs (Mainz, 1950/R)
E. Platen: Untersuchungen zur Struktur der chorischen Choralbearbeitung Johann Sebastian Bachs (Bonn,1959)
W. Blankenburg: ‘Der mehrstimmige Gesang und die konzertierende Musik im evangelischen Gottesdienst’, Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes, iv, ed. K.F. Müller and W. Blankenburg (Kassel, 1961), 661–718
E. Gessner: Samuel Scheidts geistliche Konzerte: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Gattung (Berlin, 1961)
W. Reckziegel: Das Cantional von Johann Hermann Schein: seine geschichtlichen Grundlagen (Berlin, 1963)
F. Krummacher: Die Überlieferung der Choralbearbeitungen in der frühen evangelischen Kantate (Berlin, 1965)
V.H. Mattfeld: Georg Rhaw’s Publications for Vespers (Brooklyn, NY, 1966)
A. Dürr: ‘ Bach's Chorale Cantatas’, Cantors at the Crossroads: Essays on Church Music in Honor of Walter E. Buszin, ed. J. Riedel (St Louis, 1967), 111–20
A. Dürr: ‘ Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Bachschen Choralkantaten-Jahrgangs’, Bach-Interpretationen, ed. M. Geck (Göttingen, 1969), 7–11, 207–8
J. Grimm: Das Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch des Gottfried Vopelius (Leipzig 1682): Untersuchungen zur Klärung seiner geschichtlichen Stellung (Berlin, 1969)
F. Krummacher: ‘Die Tradition in Bachs vokalen Choralbearbeitungen’, Bach-Interpretationen, ed. M. Geck (Göttingen, 1969), 29–56, 210–12
A. Dürr: Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach (Kassel, 1971, 6/1995)
G. Schuhmacher: ‘Aspekte der Choralbearbeitung in der Geschichte des Liedes Vater unser im Himmelreich’, Sagittarius, iv (1973), 111–36
B.W. Pritchard: ‘Mendelssohn's Chorale Cantatas: an Appraisal’, MQ, lxii (1976), 1–24
G. Adams: ‘The Chorale Cantatas of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow’, Choral Journal, xxi/1 (1981), 10–13
S. Gissel: Untersuchungen zur mehrstimmigen protestantischen Hymnenkomposition in Deutschland um 1600 (Kassel, 1983)
F. Messmer: Altdeutsche Liedkomposition: der Kantionalsatz und die Tradition der Einheit von Singen und Dichten (Tutzing, 1984)
U. Asper: Aspekte zum Werden der deutschen Liedsätze in Johann Walters ‘Geistlichem Gesangbüchlein’ (1524–1551) (Baden-Baden, 1985)
W.K. Kreysig: ‘ Samuel Scheidt’s Choralquodlibet “Dreierlei Choral ineinander componieret”: in Quest of Renaissance Equal-Voice Polyphony’, Dietrich Buxtehude and Samuel Scheidt: Saskatoon, SK, 1987, 129–53
M.A. Boudreaux: Michael Praetorius’s Polyhymnia caduceatrix et panegyrica (1619): an Annotated Translation (DMA diss., U. of Colorado, 1989)
Johann Sebastian Bachs Choralkantaten als Choral-Bearbeitungen: Leipzig 1990
R. Steiger, ed.: Johann Sebastian Bachs Choralkantaten als Choral-Bearbeitungen (Heidelberg, 1991)
D.P. and P. Walker: German Sacred Polyphonic Vocal Music between Schütz and Bach: Sources and Critical Editions (Warren, MI,1992)
F. Krummacher: Bachs Zyklus der Choralkantaten: Aufgaben und Lösungen (Göttingen, 1995)
U. Wüster: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys Choralkantaten Gestalt und Idee: Versuch einer historisch-kritischen Interpretation (Frankfurt, 1996)
ApelGOK
FrotscherG
J.C. Kittel: Der angehende praktische Organist (Erfurt, 1801–8/R)
G. Rietschel: Die Aufgabe der Orgel im Gottesdienste bis in das 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1893/R)
H. Luedtke: ‘ Sebastian Bachs Choralvorspiele’, BJb 1918, 1–96
F. Dietrich: ‘ J.S. Bachs Orgelchoral und seine geschichtlichen Wurzeln’, BJb 1929, 1–89
F. Dietrich: Geschichte des deutschen Orgelchorals im 17. Jahrhundert (Kassel, 1932)
R.L. Tusler: The Style of J.S. Bach’s Chorale Preludes (Berkeley, 1956)
F.W. Riedel: Quellenkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der Musik für Tasteninstrumente in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (vornehmlich in Deutschland) (Kassel, 1960)
H. Klotz: ‘Die kirchliche Orgelkunst’, Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes, iv, ed. K.F. Müller and W. Blankenburg (Kassel, 1961), 759–804
L. Schierning: Die Überlieferung der deutschen Orgel- und Klaviermusik aus der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts (Kassel, 1961)
G. von Dadelsen: ‘Zur Entstehung des Bachschen Orgelbüchleins’, Festschrift Friedrich Blume, ed. A.A. Abert and W. Pfannkuch (Kassel, 1963), 74–9
K. von Fischer: ‘Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Orgelchoralvariation’, ibid., 137–45
F. Krummacher: ‘Zur Sammlung Jacobi der ehemaligen Fürstenschule Grimma’, Mf, xvi (1963), 324–47
W. Breig: Die Orgelwerke von Heinrich Scheidemann (Wiesbaden, 1967)
A. Curtis: Sweelinck’s Keyboard Music (Leiden and London, 1969, 3/1987)
J.S. Edson: Organ-Preludes: an Index to Compositions on Hymn Tunes, Chorales, Plainsong Melodies, Gregorian Tunes and Carols (Metuchen, NJ, 1970, suppl. 1974)
C. Wolff: ‘Publikationen liturgischer Orgelmusik vom 16. bis ins 18. Jahrhundert: eine bibliographische Studie’, Kerygma und Melos: Christhard Mahrenholz 70 Jahre, ed. W. Blankenburg and others (Kassel and Berlin, 1970), 258–86
U. Meyer: ‘Zur Frage der inneren Einheit von Bachs Siebzehn Chorälen (bwv651–667)’, BJb 1972, 61–75
S. Vogelsänger: ‘Zur Herkunft der kontrapunktischen Motive in J.S. Bachs “Orgelbüchlein” (bwv599–644)’, BJb 1972, 118–31
H.D. McConnel: The Lutheran Chorale in the Sixteenth-Century German Keyboard Tablatures (diss., U. of Colorado, 1974)
U. Meyer: ‘Zur Einordnung von J.S. Bachs einzeln überlieferten Orgelchorälen’, BJb 1974, 75–89
R.A. Leaver: ‘ Bach's “Clavierübung III”: Some Historical and Theological Considerations’, Organ Yearbook, vi (1975), 17–32
H.D. McConnel: ‘The Sixteenth-Century German Keyboard Chorale’, Church Music, lxxv 1 (1975), 14–22
P. Williams: The Organ Music of J.S. Bach (Cambridge, 1980–84)
Bachs ‘Orgelbüchlein’ in nieuw perspectief: Groningen 1985
R.A. Leaver: ‘ Bach and Hymnody: the Evidence of the Orgelbüchlein’, EMc, xiii (1985), 227–36
W. Breig: ‘The “Great Eighteen” Chorales: Bach's Revisional Process and the Genesis of the Work’, J.S. Bach as Organist: his Instruments, Music and Performance Practices, ed. G. Stauffer and E. May (Bloomington, IN, and London, 1986), 102–20
E. May: ‘The Types, Uses, and Historical Position of Bach's Organ Chorales’, ibid., 81–101
U. Meyer: ‘Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Orgelchoralkunst’, Theologische Bach-Studien, i, ed. W. Blankenburg and R. Steiger (Stuttgart, 1987), 7–46
J. Dahlberg: ‘ Das Görlitzer Tabulaturbuch 1650 von Samuel Scheidt und das Allgemeine Choral-Melodienbuch 1793 von Johann Adam Hiller’, Musik und Kirche, lviii (1988), 22–8
A. Edler: ‘Fantasie and Choralfantasie: on the Problematic Nature of a Genre of Seventeenth-Century Organ Music’, Organ Yearbook, xix (1988), 53–66
H. Musch: ‘Gelobet seist du, Jesus Christ in Orgel-Choralbearbeitungen nord- und mittel-deutscher Meister des 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhunderts’, Musica sacra [Regensburg], cviii (1988), 466–81
A. Clement: O Jesu, du edle Gabe: Studien zum Verhältnis von Text und Musik in den Choralpartiten und den kanonischen Veränderungen von Johann Sebastian Bach (diss., U. of Utrecht, 1989)
L. Archibald: ‘ Towards a Critical Understanding of Buxtehude's Expressive Chorale Preludes’, Church, Stage and Studio: Music and its Contexts in Seventeenth-Century Germany, ed. P. Walker (Ann Arbor, 1990), 87–106
M. Bighley: ‘ The Schübler Chorales as Cycle: a Liturgical and Theological Perspective’, Organ Yearbook, xxii (1991), 97–118
A. Clement: ‘ Die lutherische Tradition der Musica sub communione und J.S. Bachs Choralpartitenschaffen’, Musik und Gottesdienst, xlv (1991), 61–70
M. Belotti: ‘ Die Choralfantasien Heinrich Scheidemanns in den Pelpliner Orgeltabulaturen’, Schütz-Jb 1992, 90–107
R. Stinson: ‘ The Compositional History of Bach's “Orgelbüchlein” Reconsidered’, Bach Perspectives, i, ed. R. Stinson (Lincoln, NE, 1995), 43–78
R. Stinson: Bach: the Orgelbüchlein (New York, 1996)