Program Notes
The Lutheran North German vespers service from the late 16th century onward varied widely in content. Traditionally it had been a daily service held in the late afternoon or early evening, with occasional congregational participation with most of the liturgy occurring up front in the choir, and with chanted psalms and Magnificat in Latin providing the principal devotional emphasis. But adoption of the vespers service by Luther and his followers did not ensure complete adherence to tradition by the many congregations that converted from Roman Catholicism. Inclusion of several psalms and the Magnificat canticle, the antiphons surrounding these, invocation of the holy spirit at the outset of the service and the singing of the Benedicamus at the conclusion of the service, Biblical readings, prayers -- none of these elements were considered sacrosanct by congregations and rectors across the region.
As documented by Frederick Gable, the Magnificat had been replaced by the creed and a sermon in Hamburg in the service order for 1699, and antiphons replaced by German chorales and organ preludes, creating a service much like Sunday matins (without communion). Nearby in Lüneburg, vespers congregations had the choice of singing the Magnificat and hymns in Latin or German, and the service included both a sermon and the Magnificat, with chorales. Further north in Lübeck’s Marienkirche, where Dieterich Buxtehude (c. 1637-1707) spent most of his remarkable career, Kerala Snyder writes that the Saturday vespers included a reading from the epistle, the singing of the Magnificat in Latin or German, and a sermon that lasted an hour, with elaborate music surrounding the sermon on feast days. Given the length of the sermon, vespers started at 2 pm and lasted for roughly three hours!
More traditional orders for the services were circulated in the schools, where Latin was the basis for the curriculum. Boys were expected to sing vespers daily in Latin. Franz Eler’s Cantica Sacra of 1588 contains orders for vespers, the main Sunday service and principal feast days based on the old Roman Catholic chants, almost completely in Latin; the last third of his book contains German chorales, however, and occasionally a recommendation for a specific chorale appears in the first section. So, for example, the feast of St. John the Baptist (“Die Natali Iohannis Baptistae,” a portion of which is shown here) calls for the following Latin chants: antiphons “Descendit Angelus Domini,” “Ingresso Zacharia templum Domini,” “Prius quam te formarem,” “Elisabeth Zachariae,” and “Puer qui natus est,” the responsory “Inter natos mulierum,” the sequence “Psallite regi nostro,” the hymn “Aeterno gratias Patri,” and the “Benedictus Summum,” much of which appears on today’s program. Eler also recommends the German chorale “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam,” found in the back of the Cantica Sacra.
We follow Eler’s practice today, with inclusion of the epistle for the day and gospel reading, preceded by the sequence for the nativity of St. John the Baptist. A sequence follows the normal service proper, the gradual and Alleluia, sung after the reading or chanting of the epistle and prepares the congregation for the reading (or chanting) of the gospel. Here in Boston one can hear the sequence sung at its appointed time on Easter Day, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi at the Church of the Advent. The structure of a sequence is unique in church propers, consisting of (mostly) paired lines of text and music with no repetitions other than the couplets: A BB CC DD EE FF GG HH, and so forth, ending with a couplet or a single line. Perhaps owing to their length, the Council of Trent in the 1500s halted the use of most sequences in the Roman liturgy, with only those for Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and All Souls retained for use. Although Luther disapproved of many sequences, several remained in use beyond those allowed in the Roman church. “Lauda Sion Salvatorem” was given a new life as the dancelike communion chorale “Gott sey gelobet und gebenedeiet.” Eler’s Cantica Sacra contains nine sequences of varying length, each specific to feasts held between Christmas and St. Mary Magdalene’s Day (July 22), including the Annunciation, the Ascension, Trinity Sunday, and the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.
The feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, like the feast of St. Michael at the end of September, marked the end of a fiscal quarter in much of Germany, and enterprising church music directors could reserve funds to supply more elaborate music for those feasts, bringing in professional singers and instrumentalists to augment the regular choral and organ music in the churches and cathedrals. Thus the long Trinity season, lasting from June to the end of November, could be distinguished by two festal dates, or three if St. Mary Magdalene was celebrated. The inventory of the church music library of St. Mary’s in Lübeck shows a large number of motets in use for the feast in addition to the chorales that would have been sung by the congregation; many are by Italian composers but three are by Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629), highly-esteemed composer and organist in Hamburg, whose “Puer qui natus est” is being heard in advance of its publication by Frederick Gable, in today’s audience. We also include two substantial works by Michael Praetorius (c. 1571-1621), the Roman hymn for St. John the Baptist, “Aeterno gratias patri,” and the German chorale “Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam” for three choirs surrounding the congregation, which is meant to sing the tune only. For those in today’s audience accustomed to Praetorius’ Christmas works, these settings may come as a surprise, and demonstrate his mastery of old forms, including triple canon at the octave, and determination to introduce antiphonal music to a wide spectrum of the German public. An additional hymn for St. John the Baptist, “Ut queant laxis,” was no longer in use in north Germany when Eler’s Cantica Sacra appeared. As each line of text begins on a successively higher pitch, the beginning syllable of each was utilized by an Italian monk named Guido d'Arezzo (990-1050) for his solmization system: ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la and “si” for “Sancte Iohannes.” While the hymn “Ut queant laxis” might have been considered extraneous or even sneered at by generations of Hamburg-area students, its importance can be heard in the dramatic finish of Hieronymus Praetorius’ “Puer qui natus.”
We also celebrate the 350th anniversary of the death of Heinrich Scheidemann (c. 1595-1663), highly regarded organist of the St. Catherine's in Hamburg and former student of Sweelinck whose compositions for the organ chorale introduced an expressive, virtuosic ornamentation style embraced by his followers across northern Germany. Our service will open and conclude with organ works by Scheidemann, including his masterful intabulation of Hieronymus Praetorius’ motet “Benedicam Domino” for the feast of St. John the Baptist.
Cheryl K. Ryder