The Chorale Melodies of Bach's 'St.

Matthew' Passion (Continued)

Author(s): Archibald W. Wilson
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 57, No. 880 (Jun. 1, 1916), pp. 275-276
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/911122
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 THE MUSICAL I, I916.
TIMES.--JNE 275
have never been clearlyshown. These providethe SOPRANO PART OF ISAAK'S SETTING (from the 1549 edition of
essentials,
naturally,ofall modulations, and modulation Forster's collection of Four-part Songs, firstpublished in 1539).
is the sum and substance of movement,the vital -- -
consideration in music. --_=
- -_ _-= _ _ .=
when the student has - t---
Further, grasped and Ins - bruck,ich muss dich las - sen, &c.
assimilatedhis materialhe should be shown the
innumerabletricksof his trade, particularlyin the
treatment of thetatteredcliche's of his art. There are --a--
many ways,purelytechnical,that enable a new and
happy light to be thrownon passages conceived
possiblyin a commonplacevein,conferring on them
a surprisingdistinctionand character. Everything
should be done to assist the student'simagination.
He should not be expectedto workas othershave
worked,but to workas his willand his individuality
directhim; and the methodof helpinghimto attain Wo ich in E - - - lend bin.
this desideratum, by an expositionof thepossibilities (4.) ' O LammGottesunschuldig'(' O Lamb ofGod
ofthetechnicaltoolsin his workshop, is anything
but moststainless,'No. I). There was in Bach's timein
as elaborate and complexas theexistenttext-booksSt. Thomas'sChurch, at Leipsic,a smallgalleryunder
insinuate. Not 'What has been or may be,' but the chancel arch. Here, it is thought,* wereplaced
'What can be' should control its contents and the boys to whomit was allottedto singthechorale
revelations! 'against the multitudinous polyphony'of the two
(Concluded.) full choirs,stationedin the great organ loftat the
westend. The textofthechoraleis a versionof the
THE CHORALE MELODIES OF BACH'S AgnusDei, written by Nicolaus Decius,t Evangelical
Preacher at Stettin. It first appeared in Sliiter's
'ST. MATTHEW ' PASSION. Gesangbuchof 1531. The melodywas firstprintedin
BY ARCHIBALD W. WILSON. Spangenberg's Gesangbuch of I545.1 Its origin is
doubtful. It may well be that Decius himself
(Continued from May number,fp. 242.)
composedit,or,as was the case withthemelodyto
(3.) 'O Weltichmussdichlassen' (' O world,I must his GermanGloria,'AlleinGottin der Hbh' sei Ehr','
leave thee,'Nos. 16 and 46). The earliestrecordof foundedit uponphrasesfromplain-song.
this melody dates from the last quarter of the (5.) 'Was mein
15thcentury, whenit appearedas thesopranopart of God's will alwaysGott willdas g'scheh'allzeit' (' May
be done,' No. 31). The German
HeinrichIsaak's four-part settingof the Wanderlied, Reformation folk-songintoreligion. Luther
'Insbruck ich muss dich lassen.' According to himselfchosebrought themelodyof a popularriddle-song for
Bahme, it is probablyan old folk-melody.':'Otto his Christmashymn,'Vom Himmel hochda komm'
Kade, on the other hand, has maintainedthat if ich her.'? These folk-tunes are not all indigenous.
Isaak had been makinga contrapuntal settingof a Amongthemare some fromFrance and Italy. 'Any
melody he would have given it, according to the foreignmelody' says Schweitzer,'that had charm
prevailingcustom,to the tenor voice. In a paper and beauty was stopped at the frontier and pressed
publishedin 1873he statedhis opinionthat the tenor intotheserviceof the EvangelicalChurch.' In 1529
part of Isaak's musicis the old and principalmelody, Pierre Attaignant,a celebrated music-engraverat
and that the melodyin questionis one of the added Paris, published a collection of songs, 'Trente et
parts. B6hme,however, declaredthatthisviewcould quatrechansonsmusicales.' In it appeared thewords
notbe accepteduntilthe tenorpart could be traced and four-part musicofthelove-song,' II me souffit de
and shownto have had an independent origin. The toutmes maulx.'
choralemelodyis firstfoundallied to a sacredtextin A fewyears later the melodyof thislittleFrench
1505. In a Munich codex of thatdate mentionis song was incorporatedin a hymn-bookof the
made of 'a littlesong to SS. Anna and Joachimin Reformed Church of the Netherlands, entitled
the tone,Inspruckich muss dich lassen.' In 1555 'Souterliedekens' ('Psalm-songs'), in which it is
Hesse wrotehis funeralhymn'O Welt ich mussdich set to the I28th Psalm. It is next foundin Rhaw's
lassen'-a 'sacred parody'oftheoriginalWanderlied. Gesangbuchof 1544,set to the chorale,'Was mein
Text and melody appeared togetherin a separate Gottwilldas g'scheh' allzeit.'
printon twoleaves. In 1598 theywere incorporated FRENCH FOLK-TUNE (1529), 'I1 me souffitde tout mes maulx.'
in the Eisleben Gesangbuch. About the year 1663 (See B6hme's 'Altdeutches Liederbuch,' No. 640.)
Gerhardtwrotein thesame metrehis eveninghymn
'Nun ruhenalle Wiilder' ('Now all the woods are
resting'). The melodyis still associated withboth a- ____
thesehymns.f ---- _ _-_- ___

The conclusionof B6hme's historicalaccount may

be thus summarised:'So has the simple folk-tune
lived its life; sung, first upon the high road by
workmensad to leave theirnativetown,then in the
churchand in thehome on occasionsbothof joy and __ . . -
sorrow; later,as a sacredAbendlied,playedfromthe
church-tower by cometand tower-horn and still sung
in everyLutheranchurch.'
* See '
* Spitta's Life of Bach,' vol. ii., p. 564. The present organist
See 'Das Altdeutches Liederbuch,' No. 254. of St. Thomas's Church is of the same opinion.
t Towards the end of the I7th century this melody, like most others, t His real name was Hovesch or Von Hofe.
lost its original, varied rhythmand acquired the more equal motion that According to Zahn another formof the melody
' appeared in 1542.
characterizes the modern hymn-tune. The question has lately arisen as ?+ As, however, the melody still continued to haunt every tavern and
to whether we should restore to the chorale melodies their old dancing-booth' it had to be rejected, and was replaced by the fineone,
rhythmicvariety or retain them, as we have received them from Bach, probably Luther's own, which has ever since been associated with the
subject to the principle of uniformityof note-values. hymn.

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276 THE MUSICAL TIMES.--JNE I, 1916.

(6.) ' O Mensch bewein' dein' Sunde gross' THE MELODIC POVERTY OF MODERN
('O man, thy heavy sin lament,' No. 35). This
movement,'almost incrediblyenriched by every MUSIC.
knownresourceof art to intensify expression,' * is in
the formof an organ chorale-fantasia, and stood BY HUGH ARTHUR SCOTT.
originally at the beginning of the 'St. John ' Passion.
The choralemelodyfirstappeared in the Strassburg By melodic povertyI mean not only the lack of
'Deutschen Kirchenamt'('German church-office') melodyproper,butof thematicinterestin general.
of 1525. There it is set to a on the As regardsthelack of actualmelodythe complaint
hymn
is as old no doubtas music-or thereabouts.Probably
119th Psalm, writtenby Greiter,monk and choir- if we knewthe truththere were
singerof StrassburgCathedral. In the same year it grumblingson this
was set to the Passion hymnfromwhichit took its pointeven among the Cave-dwellers, and prehistoric
name. The melodysoon won great popularity. In progressives doubtlesshad to defendthemselves, even
the 'Heidelberg Gesangbuch' of 1573 it is assigned as Schinbergand Stravinsky to-day,againstthegibes
to no less thanthirty-two of theirless enlightenedcontemporaries.And from
hymns. thattimeto this the charge,as we maywellbelieve,
(7.) 'In dich hab' ich gehoffet, Herr' ('In Thee, has never been
lacking. In recent times certainly
Lord, have I hoped,' No. 38). The text of the it has beencommonenough. Nothingis morefamiliar
choraleis a versionof the 3Ist Psalm, writtenabout than the
the year 1533 by Adam Reussner. Bach here has amateurthat cryof the unfcultivated, or semi-cultivated,
thereis no melodyin classicalmusic,and
introducedthe fifthverse, the firstline of whichis
'Mir hat die Welt oft zugericht.'I The melodywas in nine cases out of ten,it maybe agreed,it means
nothingmorethan on thepartof theobjector
composed by Seth Calvisius.4 It firstappeared in to appreciate the inability less obvious melodyof the great
Sunderreiter's 'Davids HimlischeHarpffen'of 1581 ; mastersand the of the musical
then in Calvisius's'Hymnisacri Latiniet Germanici' illiteratefor primitive preference
square-cuttunesofthecheaperkind.
of I594. In Schein's 'Cantional' of 1627 it had But as therearemelodiesand melodies,so also there
assumed a formdiffering but littlefromthat which and I am concerned
Bach has used. Reussner'shymnis also associated are different kindsoftunelessness,
to rag-timeor
withanothermelody,an organarrangement of which just now,notwithBach's indifference
the inferiority of Beethoven'stunesto those of, say,
occursin Bach's 'Orgel-biichlein': Mr. Nat D. Ayer or Mr. Leslie Stuart,but withthe
(See Zahn's'Die Melodien,&c.,' No. 246Ta.) neglect of melodyof the rightsort and the really
legitimatekind by modern composersof the more
SETH CALVISIUS, 1581.

seriousorder. For no one willbe disposed to deny

thatwhileseriousmusicis oftenindependent ofmelody
in themoreobvioussense,yetevenin themostserious
music there is-to put it moderately-a legitimate
place for it, as countless examples fromthe great
masters attest. From Bach onwards all the most
eminentcomposersdown to comparativelyrecent
times have been great melodistsin the popular as
~--~?-~~-~---- - well as in whatmaybe called the classical sense-
-- -.= t.....i . . .. - - I . ..
thatis to say,have been inventors of finetunesof the
square-cut,symmetrical kind, which even the least
cultivatedhearercan recogniseand enjoyas such.
Bach did notputtunesof thiskind intohis fugues,
certainly,or intootherworksinwhichtheywouldhave
been out of place,but he could always providethem
whenhe wishedto-instance such thingsas theslow
(8.) ' Werde munter,meinGemiithe' (' Be joyful,movementof the Violin Double Concerto,the'Mein great
my soul,' No. 49). Both words and melodyof the Airforthe G string(so-called),the lovelysong
chorale-the former written by JohannRist,the latter gliubigesHerz,'and numerousotherexamples which
composedbyJohannSchop-appeared in 1642. Bach could be quoted. What a melodist,in the more
herehas used thefourth verse,'Bin ich gleichvon dir restrictedas well as the widersense, Handel was
gewichen' (' AlthoughI have forsakenThee '). no one needs telling,while it is equallyunnecessary
In thepreparation of thetextof the 'St. Matthew' to labour the point in the case of the creator of
Passion Bach had the co-operationof a poet who, 'Le Nozze' and 'Don Giovanni.' Haydn again is
thoughhe lackeddeep feeling,was yet a skilledand full of tune of the most shameless kind, and
sympathetic writerof sacredverse. How muchof the Beethoven'spowersunderthishead are knownto all.
textis due to Bach and howmuchto Picandercannot At the same time Beethovendemonstrated more
be exactlystated. The originalversesare theworkof powerfully perhapsthananyothercomposerwho has
Picander. The fact that he several times published everlived,puttingaside Bach, how entirely indepen-
thesealone suggeststhathe had no particularinterestdent of tune in the popular sense is the greatest
in the rest of the text. Bach certainlychose the music-how the verynoblestmusic may be written
chorales. 'It is just in theinsertion of these chorale fromwhich tune or melody of this obvious, four-square
strophes,'says Schweitzer,'that the full depth of kind maybe absolutelylacking. Countlessexamples
Bach's poeticnatureis revealed. It wouldbe impos- could be given-in fact the greater number of
sible to find,in thewholeofthehymnsofthe German Beethoven's noblest inspirationsfall within this
Church,a versebetterfittedto its particularpurpose category,beginning with the immortal opening
thantheone Bach has selected.' subjectof the C minor Symphonyitself,whichnot
onlyhas no pretensionsto be considereda tune,but
* See
Parry's 'Life of Bach,' p. 270. could not even be reckoneda melodicfragment.
tThe versemay be literallytranslatedthus: 'The worldhas oft Indeed the thematicresourcesof the classical com-
made havoc of me withwickednet of falsehoodand deceitand with and exhibitedin
secretsnare. Verily,Lord, take holdof me in dangerand protectme posers as developed by Beethoven
againsttreacherous malice.' his worksmightbe classifiedroughlyunder three
See Dr. C. SanfordTerry's' Bach'sChorals,'p. i6. heads.

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