Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint Author(s): Kerala J.

Snyder Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 544-564 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831305 . Accessed: 23/01/2012 19:18
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. STUDIES AND REPORTS Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint

BY KERALA J. SNYDER

WE

about Dietrich Buxtehude's musical education. Prehe received his first instruction from his father, Johann Buxtesumably hude, who was also an organist, and learned singing and basic theory in the Latin school in Elsinore, but beyond that there is only the statement in Johann Mattheson's Critica musica that Johann Theile (1646-i724) had been an instructor to Buxtehude in Liibeck. Theile had corresponded with Mattheson previously,1 so he had probably himself made this claim, which Mattheson included in his obituary:
KNOW NOTHING

Next he went to Stettin, and there he instructed organists and musicians; he also did this in Liibeck, and was an informator of the well-known Buxtehude, of the organist Hasse, and of the city musician Zachau, among others.2 Theile was definitely in Liibeck in 1673 and perhaps a few years before that; in that year he was twenty-seven years old and left Liibeck to assume his first official position, that of kapellmeister to the court of Schleswig-Holstein in Gottorf. Buxtehude, on the other hand, was thirty-four and organist at the Marienkirche in Liibeck, one of the most prestigious musical posts of northern Germany. For this reason, Mattheson's statement has often been discounted.3 Buxtehude was interested in learned counterpoint, Theile's
1 Mattheson published two letters from Theile, written in Naumburg in 1718, in Criticamusica,II (Hamburg, 1725; rprt. Amsterdam, 1964), pp. 282-5. Facsimile and English translation in Elizabeth Jocelyn Mackey, "The Sacred Music of Johann Theile" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, I968), pp. 265-72. 2 "Hiernechst begab sich der letzt-benannte nach Stettin / und unterrichtete daselbst Organisten und Musicos; desgleichen er auch zu Ltibeck vornahm / und unter andern des bekannten Buxtehuden / des Organistens Hasse / des Raths Musici Zachauens / und andrer informatorward." Mattheson, II, p. 57; translation mine; facsimile and translation of complete article in Mackey, pp. 261-4. Johann Gottfried Walther repeats this account verbatim in his Musikalisches Lexikon (Leipzig, 1732; rprt. Kassel, 1953), pp. 602-3. Note also the words "eigen handigem Berichte nach" in the quotation in n. 55 below. 3 See, e.g., Philipp Spitta,JobannSebastian Bach, transl. Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller-Maitland (New York, 1951), I, p. 257, n. 95; Bruno Grusnick, DietrichBuxtehude: Sein Lebenund Werk (Kassel, 1935), p. 8; Friedrich Blume, "Buxtehude," MGG, II (1953), col. 555-

STUDIES AND REPORTS

545

specialty, at precisely this time; during the early i67os he composed two canons, an intricate piece of invertible counterpoint and a mass in stile antico. Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that he derived his inspiration for these studies from Christoph Bernhard and Jan Adam Reincken rather than Theile. Buxtehude wrote the two canons in autograph books, a practice which was common among baroque composers and extended well into the nineteenth century. On May 12, 1670 he entered the first one, "Divertisons nous aujourd'hui"(BuxWV 124),4 into the album of Meno Hannekin, a theological student and the son of the superintendent of the Libeck churches. The album was lost during World War II, but the canon has been published several times in facsimile,5 and Bruno Grusnick has used it in his studies of the Diiben collection at Uppsala as an important key to the identification of Buxtehude's hand,6 since it was Buxtehude's only known autograph in musical notation rather than German organ tablature. Both the text-a drinking song-and the inscription are in French, Buxtehude's only recorded use of that language. The solution is quite simple once one realizes that he seems to have made a mistake in the directions. It reads "Canon a 3 in Epidiapente et Epidiapason," i.e., the upper fifth and upper octave, but it will work only if the second voice enters at the upper octave and the third at the lower fifth (Hypodiapente) (Ex. I).7 Buxtehude entered another canon (BuxWV 123) in the album of the composer Johann Valentin Meder, and it appears here in facsimile for the first time (Fig. 1).8 This canon, dated Libeck, June 25, 1674, is both more ele4 Georg Karstadt, Thematisch-systematisches der Werkevon DietrichBuxteVerzeichnis hude(Wiesbaden, 1974)undDietrichBuxtehude s Wilhelm Stahl, Franz Tunder (Leipzig, 1926), p. 36; Stahl, DietrichBuxtehude (Kassel, 1937), Abb. Io; MGG, II, cols. 553-46 Bruno Grusnick, "Die Dobensammlung: Ein Versuch ihrer chronologischen XLVIII (1966), pp. 177-86. Ordnung," Svensktidskriftfiirmusikforskning, 7 James Boeringer's published solution, with the text "While shepherds watched their flocks by night" (Dietrich Buxtehude, A Christmas Canon, ed. James Boeringer (St. Louis, 1965)), is incorrect; he brings both the second and third voices in at the upper fourth and covers the resulting fourths with an added bass line "in the style of the composer's continuo parts." 8 Johannes Bolte described the contents of part of this album ("Das Stammbuch VIII (1892), pp. Johann Valentin Meders," Vierteljahresschrift fir Musikwissenschaft, 499-506), which was at the time in private possession. He also gave a transcriptionof Buxtehude's canon, omitting the fermata. Following the owner's death in I9OI these pages came into the possession of the Gesellschaft fUr Geschichte und Altertumskunde in Riga, where they joined the rest of the album. It has since disappeared, but photographs of its musical entries obtained by Andrd Pirro in I9Io are at the Bibliothbque nationale in Paris (Fonds Pirro, Boite 60). In addition to Buxtehude's canon there is a circle canon by Johann Petzold, a perpetual canon by Sebastian KnOpferfor nine voices, of which six are in augmentation at the lower fifth, and a four-voice fugue in E minor by Martin Radeck in organ tablature, 73 measures long. Less interesting canons are entered by Michael Zachaeus and Meder's brother Maternus, the latter noting that he was adding it "not so much out of a liking for this type of art as out of

546

SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL

Example1 Canon(MuxWV124),solution Buxtehude,

Di - ver - ti - sonsnous

Di - ver- ti- sonsnous au - jour-d'hui, bou-vons,bou-vons, bou-

au-jour-d'hui,bou-vons,bou-vons, bou-vons ~

la

san-to de mon a -

vons a

la

san-t6

de mon

a - mi,bou - vons,

bou-vons, bou-

Di - ver - ti - sons nous

au-jour-d'hui,bou-vons,bou-vons,bou-

mi, bou-vons,

bou-vons, bou-vons

la

san - te,

san-

vons

la

san - t6,

san- te,

la san - t6 de mon

a-

vons

la

san-t6

de mon

a- mi, bou-vons,

bou-vons, bou-

td, a

la san-td de mon a - mi.

mi.

VOns

Ia la san-te,

sail

- t,

ia

la san-td

de mon

a - mi.

brotherhood." A Griswold Faculty Research Fellowship from Yale University enabled me to go to Paris to examine Pirro's literary estate.

STUDIES AND REPORTS

547

Lit*

..........
... ..... ...

Figure i Buxtehude, Canon duplex (BuxWV 23), from a photograph made by Andrd Pirro in I910 (Paris, Bibliotheque nationale, Fonds Pirro, Boite 60o) gantly written and more complex than its predecessor and is appropriately inscribed in Latin.9 Buxtehude does not give enough clues to make the solution simple, but they are all correct this time. The second voice is found by augmentation at the lower fifth, beginning simultaneously with the given voice. But whereas for Bach a "canonduplex" consists in treating each of two voices canonically, for Buxtehude the duplex nature is shown in doubling each of these voices at the third, in this case below the top voice and above the bottom voice, to arrive at the prescribedfour voices which are sung at the same time (Ex. 2). Also in 1674 Buxtehude published a much more extensive contrapuntal essay, two settings of the chorale "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin" in four-partinvertible counterpoint, together with a hymn of lamentation, all of

9 "Symb: Non hominibus sed DEO. Canon duplex per Augmentationem, quatuor voces simul cantantur. Viro praestantissimo/ Dno: Joh. Valentino Medero / cui cum literis raro exemplo Musica semper in deliciis fuit, Fautori suo honoratissimo Canonem hunc benivolae recordationis ergo huc apponere voluit Dietericus Buxtehude, in Templo primario Mariano organista." (Symbol: Not to men but to God. Duplex canon by augmentation, four voices are sung at the same time. To a most outstanding man, Mr. Joh. Valentin Meder, who has always enjoyed music and literature of an uncommon character, [the undersigned] wished to place this canon here for his most honored patron, for the sake of a kind remembrance. Dietrich Buxtehude, organist in the eminent temple of Mary.)

548
Example 2

SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL

Buxtehude, Canon duplex (BuxWV 123), solution

.............................

2 rrr- Prr - 4 _
I P

s-

--o

The two chorale settings, entitled Contrapunctus I and Contrapunctus II, place the unornamented cantus firmus in the soprano voice. The three lower voices proceed in faster note values, loosely imitative but unrelated to the chorale melody. An Evolutio is published after each; in both cases the soprano and bass exchange parts, as do the alto and tenor, transposed down a fourth. I and its Evolutio are in simple invertible counterpoint at the Contrapunctus octave; the parts of Evolutio H move in contrary motion as well. The four stanzas of the complete text of the chorale (Luther's paraphraseof the Nunc dimittis) are printed consecutively under the cantus firmus. The parts are in
10 BuxWV Simeons 76: Fried- undFreudenreicbe HinfarthIDes altengrossgliubigen /bey ableiben ed. Max / Des ... HerrnJobannis (Lubeck, facsimile, 1674; seeligen Buxtebhuden Seiffert, Lubeck, 1937); facsimile of title page and modern edition in DietrichBuxteWerke,ed. Glaubensgemeinde Ugrino (8 vols., Hamburg, 1925-58; rprt. New bhude: York, 1977), II, pp. 85-8.

which had been performed at the funeral of his father on January 29, 1674.10

STUDIES AND REPORTS

549

open score with no indication of the medium by which they are to be performed. The Klag-Liedis also in open score; the clefs are the same and the first of seven stanzas of text is printed under the soprano line, but the alto and tenor lines are marked "Tremulo" and the bass line is provided with figures, indicating a performance by soprano voice, continuo and two instruments, probably viols. It has a more strongly contrapuntal texture than Buxtehude normally used to set a strophic song text, but it does not appear to employ any contrapuntal tricks and is unrelated to the chorale settings except by the occasion on which they were all performed. Finally there is the Missa brevis(BuxWV 14), a strongly imitative stile anticosetting of the Kyrie and Gloria for five voices with a basso seguentecontinuo.11 It contains numerous examples of all these contrapuntal techniques: canon, invertible counterpoint and even two simultaneous sets of parallel thirds, although not canonic (Kyrie, mm. 82-4). Both Grusnick12 and Rudin13 have dated the copying of its manuscript at about I675, which could well place its composition in the early I670s. Buxtehude could thus have been inspired to compose it by Theile, who published a collection of stile antico masses in 1673.14 Canons and invertible counterpoint were subjects of particularinterest to Theile. He left several treatises on invertible counterpoint,15 and his "Musikalisches Kunstbuch" opens with an augmentation canon which is extended to four voices by the addition of parallel thirds. 16 In spite of the fact that the manuscripts for these treatises cannot be dated before 1690,17Friedrich Riedel has credited Theile with inspiring not only Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und 11Martin Geck has questioned the authenticity of this work ("Quellenkritische XIII (i96o), Bemerkungen zu Dietrich Buxtehudes Missa brevis,"Die Musikforschung, pp. 47-9). I have examined the manuscript and consider it an authentic work, but since it is beyond the scope of this essay to prove its authenticity, it will not figure significantly in the following discussion. 12Grusnick, "Diibensammlung," p. i6313Jan Olof Rud6n, "Vattenmirken och Musikforskning: Presentation och TillAmpning av en Dateringsmetod pl musikalier i handskrift i Uppsala Universitetsbibliotekets Dibensamling" (Licentiatavhandling i musikforskning, Uppsala University, 1968), I, p. i64. 14Johann Theile, Parsprima Missarum 4. et 5. vocuma pleno chorocum et sine basso continuo juxta veterumcontrapuncti stylum (Wissmar, 1673). is They are all in MS at D-ddr Bds: "Von dem dreyfachen Contrapunct," Mus. ms. theor. 91o; "Unterricht von einigen gedoppelten Contrapuncten und deren Gebrauch," Mus. ms. theor. 913; "Curieuser Unterricht von denen doppelten Contrapuncten;" Mus. ms. theor. 916; "Griindlicher Unterricht von den gedoppelten Contrapuncten"and "Contrapuncts-Praecepta,"Mus. ms. theor. 917. (Library sigla are those of the R6pertoire internationale des sources musicales.) 16 Bds Mus. ms. theor. 913; ed. Carl Dahlhaus, Denkmiler Musik, I norddeutscher (Kassel, 1965), PP- 3-I1. bears the date 169o, but since it was copied by Jo17 "Contrapuncts-Praecepta" hann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748) the date must have come from his exemplar. The other MSS were copied by Georg Osterreich (1664-1735) and Heinrich Bokemeyer (1679-175 i). Most of Osterreich's copies date from the 169os, but he studied compo-

550

SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL

Freud" but a series of related works by other North German composers, including invertible-counterpoint chorale settings by Johann Philipp F6rtsch
(168o), Martin Radeck and Christian Flor (1692). 18 The friendship between

Buxtehude and Theile is evidenced by the fact that Buxtehude was one of the financial backers of the publication of Theile's masses in I673 and contributed a dedicatory poem to Theile's other publication of the same year, his St. Matthew Passion.19 There does appear to be some justification for Theile's claim; certainly Buxtehude's canon writing became more sophisticated between 167o and 1674.

There are, however, other models for both the duplex canon and the invertible counterpoint. The composition treatise attributed to Jan Pieterszon Sweelinck contains a "Canon duplex a 4 per augmentationem"made up of two voices with their parallel thirds (Ex. 3)*20 As in Theile's "Musikalisches Kunstbuch" canon, the voice in augmentation enters at the octave and the parallel thirds are above both voices. Buxtehude's doubling is different because his augmentation voice is at the lower fifth. Later in the treatise there is an example of this type of parallel-third doubling, below the upper voice and above the lower voice, although it is not a canon.21 Christoph Bernhard's "Tractatus compositionis augmentatus" also has a chapter on making a Quatour out of a Bicinio by adding parallel thirds,22 also noncanonic, which Dahlhaus sees as a source for Theile's work.23 There was of course nothing new about an augmentation canon, but doubling both of the voices at the third seems to have been cultivated mainly in Germany, and although Theile participated in this practice he was certainly not its originator. Its roots can be found in Arnolt Schlick's versets for organ, sition with Theile at Braunschweig from i686 until 1689, so these MSS may be

(Kassel, slightly earlier. See Harald Kimmerling, Katalog der SammlungBokemeyer 1970), p. II. 18 Quellenkundliche zur Geschichte derMusik in derzweiBeitrdige fir Tasteninstrumente ten Hlfte des 17.Jabrhunderts (Kassel, i960), p. 182. Flor's work is lost. Both F6rtsch and Radeck's settings are found in D-brd B Mus. ms. 6473, dating from c. 168o; Radeck's has been edited by Bo Lundgren (Jesus Christus,unserHeiland:Koralvariationerfor orgel (Copenhagen, 1957)). Both are in four-part invertible counterpoint with several different inversions, though none in contrary motion. 19 Theile dedicated the masses to the 24 men, including Buxtehude, Jan Adam Reincken and the young Meno Hannekin, who employed the publisher and advanced the printing costs. Buxtehude's poem appears in Denkmdler deutscher Tonkunst,XVII (Leipzig, 19o4), p. I09. See Mackey, pp. 299-318 for facsimiles and translations.
20

van Jan Pieterszn.Sweelinck,X (The Hague, I9oi), p. 87. Gehrmann, Werken 21 Sweelinck, Werken,X, p. 97. 22Joseph Miller-Blattau, ed., Die in derFassung HeinrichSchiitzens Kompositionslebre seines Bernhard (Kassel, 1926; 2nd ed., 1963), pp. 127-8; transl. WalChristoph Schiilers ter Hilse in The Music Forum, III (1973), pp. 175-6. Most scholars now agree that Bernhard is the author of the treatise, not Schutz (cf. Grusnick, MGG, I, cols. 17867). 23 "Einleitung" to Theile, Musikalisches Kunstbuch, p. viii.

"Composition Regeln Herrn M. Johan Peterssen Sweeling,"ed. Hermann

STUDIES AND REPORTS

551

Example 3 Canon Duplex a 4 per augmentationem (Sweelinck, Werken, vol. X, p. 87)

Subject

I-

An
kV7

i'

,,

F r !" _
t

_r I

. J ..

AkFF
i u

552

MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY JOURNALOF THE AMERICAN

composed in 1520, where both the cantus firmus and an accompanying noncanonic voice are doubled at the third and sixth24 and in Zarlino's Le istitutioni harmoniche(1558)25 as transmitted to Germany by Seth Calvisius26 and Sweelinck's students.27 Samuel Scheidt included in his Tabulatura nova (1624) two canons "sine Pausis" which double a counterpoint to a cantus firmus at the tenth. 28 But none of these are canonic in the conventional sense of the term, and Zarlino's and Scheidt's examples double only one voice, not two. This technique finds its culmination in Andreas Werckmeister's Harmonologia musica (i 702), which reduces the arts of writing both double counterpoint and canons to manipulations with two sets of parallel thirds.29 Buxtehude wrote a congratulatory poem for this treatise. A much closer model exists for Buxtehude's two settings of "Mit Fried und Freud." Although they were published in 1674, Buxtehude had composed them in 167 1 for the funeral of Meno Hannekin, superintendent of the Liibeck churches and the father of the young man in whose album Buxtehude had entered his canon the previous year.30 Two years earlier Christoph Bernhard had published a similar work, Prudentia prudentiana.31 The title refers to Aurelius Prudentius, the fourth-century author of the text "Jam moesta quiesce querela," a hymn customarily sung at funerals in Hamburg
24 Arnolt Dix versets Schlick, Hommage4 l'empereur Charles-Quint: pour orgue, ed. M. S. Kastner and M. Querol Gavaldd (Barcelona, 1954); cf. Wilibald Gurlitt, "Canon sine pausis," Musikgeschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Wiesbaden, 1966), I, pp. 105-10o. 2s "Double counterpoints may be sung in three voices, with the extra voice a tenth above the lower voice of the principal and a seventeenth below the inverted upper part." (Part III, chap. 56; translated by Guy A. Marco and Claude V. Palisca (New Haven, 1968), p. i62). 26 Seth Calvisius, condendae MEAOLIOIIAsive melodiae ratio, quamvulgo musicam extructa et explicata vocant,ex verisfundamentis poeticam (Magdeburg, 1630), fol. 17 (originally published Erfurt, I592). 27 Sweelinck, Werken, X, pp. 63, 65. 28 Samuel Scheidt, Werke, VI/i, ed. Christhard Mahrenholz (Hamburg, 1953),
29 "Also dass unten lauter Tertien / und oben lauter Tertien bleiben das ist also / der Schliissel zu allerhand Arten von den Canonibus und gedoppelten 3. und 4. fachen Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologia musica(Frankfurt and Leipzig, Contrapuncto." 1702), p. 102. I do not meanto imply that this techniquewas not also developedin Italy; two sets of parallel thirds making four voices can be found as early as Silverio di musica(Naples, 163 ), pp. 79 ff. But they are non-canonic, secondo Picerli, Specchio and they do not receive the emphasis that they do in the German sources, perhaps because the German treatises tend to be more practical in nature. 30 Carl Stiehl in "Mitteilungen," XXV (1893), p. Musikgeschichte, Monatsheftefiir 3531 Prudentia Prudentiana / Maxime reverendo Doctori et clarissimo / Professori / Domino / Rudolfo Capello / Hamburgensi / matrem laudatissimam/ honestissimam et ornatissimam matronam / Christinam Capellam / natam Losiam / quae A. MDCLXVIII D. VI. Aprilis suaviter exspiravit / et uxorem optimam I nobilissimam et praestantissimam / foeminam / Annam Capellam / natam Bernbergiam / A.C. MDCLXIX D. XXVI Januarii pie mortuam lugenti / solatio / tribus contrapunctis /

pp. 115-16.

STUDIES ANDREPORTS

553

and the cantus firmus for Bernhard's work.32 It consists of four major sections; the first two are in four parts with the cantus firmus in the soprano, and in each case the published Revolutiowhich follows shows the same voice exchanges and transpositions as in Buxtehude's work, invertible counterpoint at the octave for the first and in contrary motion for the second (Ex. 4). In the third setting the cantus firmus is in the bass and it can also be performed in retrograde inversion by turning the page upside down and reading from the clefs at the end.33 The fourth section contains four written parts with the cantus firmus in the tenor and indications for canonic voices to follow the alto at the lower fifth after a semibreve and the bass at the upper fifth after three semibreves. The resolution is not published and is not entirely satisfactory; either through printing or compositional errors it contains several parallel octaves and fifths and an impossible final cadence. The similarity between Bernhard's first two sections and Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und Freud" is so striking that there cannot be any doubt that Buxtehude modelled his work on that of Bernhard. Both works are unique among their composers' output, and they are totally atypical of German funeral music of the period.34 The external differences between the two pieces are slight, apart from the fact that Buxtehude chose not to set the chorale with retrograde inversion or canon in the manner of Bernhard's two final sections. Although Bernhard printed all ten stanzas of the hymn on the title page, he underlaid only the first four in the music, one stanza to each major section; in the first two, there is no text under the cantus firmus of the Revolutio. There are some tonal differences: Bernhard transposed his cantus firmus from F major in the first section to G major in the second, and he did not retain the intervallic identity in contrary motion to the extent that Buxtehude
did.35

convertibilibus et auctario Bernhardi / elaborata / a / Christophoro / Musicesapud directore Bruno Grusnick firstsuggested the con/ 1669). Hamburgenses (Hamburg, nectionbetweenthese two worksin his article"Christoph Bernhard" I, col. (MGG, 1789).This printdoes not appearin RISM, and I am indebtedto Dr. Grusnickfor in Hamburg. helpingme locateit at the Staatsarchiv

32 Text in Philipp Wackernagel,Das deutsche Kirchenlied (5 vols.; Leipzig, 1864-77), derdeutschen Kirchenlieder I, p. 40; melody in Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien evangelischen (6 vols.; Giitersloh, 1888-93, rprt. Hildesheim, 1963), no. 1454a.

34 See Wolfgang Reich, ed., Threnodiae sacrae: Beerdigungskompositionen ausgedruckten Leichenpredigten des. z6. und 17. Jahrhunderts,Das Erbe deutscher Musik, 79 (Wiesbaden, 1975). a B key signature in the secondRevolutio; 35 To do so wouldhaverequired also,

baritoneclef at the end is misprinted as a bass clef. The tenor " The necessary clefforthe firstsystemof Counterpoint II alsoappears on the fifthline. incorrectly

the pitchE of the counterpoint is answered Buxteby bothF andF# in theRevolutio. hude adds anF#~tothe key signature of the secondEvolutio to retainthe sameintervals in contrary answersthe accidental B~ with C#. It motion,and quite consistently is interestingthat in each case this is the note which pushes the compositionfrom II and from D mixmodalityto tonality:from D dorianto D minorin Contrapunctus in its Evolutio. Buxtehude fromrigidadherolydianto D major occasionally departed

Ixanplic 4 Christoph Bcrnhard, Prudentia Prudentiana, sections I. II Ma Jam me sta qu es tres,

'

410 ii '

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S que re -

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a, :La -0cry -

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no ma
,

hacpig -

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te hae

, re

!" :;..'

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RIE'OLUTIO

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, am

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,,,

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?

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,

.I,

AF
xa ca va ta, :Quid

i
F,

J -

pul pul

:chra

chra vo vo

lunt

unt

?mo

mo --u nu

tu
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J
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:

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REVOLUTLO

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In spite of their similarities, there appears to be a considerable difference in the purposes for which the two works were composed. Bernhard's was intended as a consolation (solatio)to his colleague, Rudolf Capell, a professor of rhetoric and Greek at the Johanneum in Hamburg, upon the deaths of his mother Christina (April 6, 1668) and his wife Anna (January26, 1669). It is a befour-page folio, presently bound in a large volume of Capell memorabilia tween two prints of similar format, the first containing poems concerning Anna's death (pp. 553-6), the second for Christina's (pp. 56I-4).36 Such poems, printed by friends to console the bereaved, were very common at the time, and Bernhard'soffering, though musical, falls into this category. One might wonder how much consolation such highly intellectual art could provide, but when one considers that Capell translated all of the familiar German Christmas chorales into Greek37it seems more appropriate. It is highly unlikely that Prudentiawas performed at either funeral; the title page states only that Bernhard"elaborated"this piece. It was conceived as abstract counterpoint, not sounding music, which explains the lack of any indications as to manner of performance. If it was performed later, in an informal setting, the cantus firmus would probably have been played on an instrument; the text does not appear in either Revolutioand could not possibly have been sung in the retrograde inversion of the third section. Buxtehude's music, on the other hand, was performed at two funerals, and this shift from the abstract to the concrete is reflected in its musical quality, which far surpasses its model. The notice of its performance on the occasion of Meno Hannekin's death appears at the end of a sixty-four-page quarto print containing many poems of condolence. It looks like a title page, although the music is not there, and it states that the work was both composed and performed by Buxtehude.38 The title page of his father's funeral music says nothing about composition, this having been accomplished three years earlier, only that the two counterpoints were performed by Buxtehude.39 But how were they performed, and how can they best be performed today? This work has most often been published, described, catalogued and recorded as a vocal work, a cantata consisting of a chorale setting and an aria, even though it is known that the two parts were composed at different times and lack the tonal unity of Buxtehude's other cantatas. Also, the chorale ence to intervallic in identityfor a good musicalreason,such as the A # introduced Evolutio at the finalcadence. II, m. Io; thereare also modifications 36 "Capelli A 710o/802. Scriptaet Programmata," Hamburg,Staatsarchiv Staatsarchiv A 710o/802, 37Hamburg, pp. 119-22. Abschied . . . zu BezeugungschuldigenWohlmeinung 38 "Simeons / gesetzet/ und in zween Contrapunctis / abgesungen / von / DietericoBuxtehude" (Carmina obitum D. Menonis Hannekenni lugubria quibus (Liibeck,n.d.), [p. 64].) / als seinem hertzlichgeliebtenVater zu schul- / 39 "Dem Seelig-verstorbenen nachruhme in 2. Contrapuncten / von / digen Ehrenund Christlichen abgesungen DietericoBuxtehuden." title page.) (Friedundfreudenreiche Hinfarth,

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setting lacks the continuo figures which are provided for the Klag-Lied,and instrumental parts for the Klag-Liedalone have been found in Uppsala.40 Finally, Johann Gottfried Walther considered "Mit Fried und Freud" to be a separate piece.41 Indeed, the chorale melkeyboard music and the Klag-Lied in motion works better as the pedal part of an organ settingody contrary if it is as line a bass rather than a cantus firmus-than as especially registered a vocal line. Buxtehude's text underlay is often thought to argue against organ performance, but with Bernhard'sPrudentiain mind this does not present so great a problem. It provided a model not just in compositional technique but also in printing format, including a text under the cantus firmus. Since Buxtehude's chorale had four stanzas but he chose to compose only two sections, it must have appeared natural to print the second and fourth stanzas with the alternate versions. I think it most likely that Buxtehude originally performed the counterpoints on the organ, as they have most recently been published.42 Returning to Prudentia, one does not have to look far to find Bernhard's model. First there is his own treatise in its full form, "Tractatuscompositionis augmentatus," and abbreviated, "Ausffihrlicher Bericht vom Gebrauche der Con- und Dissonantien." To each of these is appended a section on double counterpoint, which ends with a chapter on four-partinvertible counterpoint.43 This is divided into three types, corresponding to the first three movements of Prudentia,(i) "plain," (2) "in contrary motion" and (3) "in retrograde motion," including both simple retrograde and retrograde in contrary motion. Bernhard does not follow his own directions throughout; while his first and third movements correspond to examples in the treatise, the second does not. In both Bernhard'sand Buxtehude's compositions, the contrary motion in all four voices departs from the same note, so that the intervallic relationship between the voices remains the same in contrary motion with the parts exchanged as it was in the beginning.44 In the treatise the alto Braccia2 and basso continuo:S Uu, Vokal musiki handskrift164:9. To be with addedcontinuofigures sure,thereis a manuscript copy of the two counterpoints but this cannotcompetefor (D-brdB, mus. ms. 2680, i) in the handof Bokemeyer, own print. DietrichKilianin fact arguesthat the print authoritywith Buxtehude's was the exemplar forBokemeyer's MS ("DasVokalwerk DietrichBuxtehudes: Quellenstudienzu seinerUberlieferung und Verwendung" (Ph.D. diss., FreieUniversitit
41 "Von seinenvielenund kiinstlichen Clavier-Stficken ist ausserdem, auf seines Vaters Tod, nebst einem Klag-LiedegesetztenChoralMit FriedundFreudichfahr Musikalisches dahin,etc. meinesWissenssonstennichtsim Druckpublicirtworden."
40

Berlin, 1956), p. 85)-

Lexikon,p. 23. 42 Dietrich Buxtehude, Sdmtliche Orgelwerke,ed. Klaus Beckmann(2 vols.; as well (p. Wiesbaden, 1971-2), II, pp. 77-80. Beckmann has included the Klag-Lied

81);I hope that he does not meanto suggestthat this too is organmusic.
43 Mfiller-Blattau, pp. 128-31;

nici (Bologna, 1687; rprt. Bologna, 1970), pp. 64-70), it is conceivable that Bernhard

44MarcoScacchi's motet "Si Deus pro nobis"is composedin the same way. Alin 1687(AngeloBerardi, Documenti armothoughit was only published posthumously

Hilse translation, pp. 176-9.

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part is transposeddifferently,producinga differentset of intervalsin the It is clear that Buxtehudefollowed Bernhard's Revolutio. music ratherthan his treatise. The Sweelincktreatisemay have provideda modelfor Bernhard in this it of in double at the octave four respect; gives examples counterpoint ways: plain, retrograde, contrarymotionand retrograde contrary motion,4sas well as four-partinvertiblecounterpoint,althoughnot in retrograde or contrary motion.46 It is even more clearlythe model for the finalcanonicsection of Bernhard's Prudentia in two double-canon settingsof the chorale"Wennwir in h6chstenN6hten seyn," or moreaccurately its Geneva-Psalter predecessor,47the first presumablyby Sweelinck,the secondby John Bull with its canonsin contrarymotion.48 This compositiontreatisethus appearsto have been consultedby both Bernhard andBuxtehudeandwarrants a closerlook.It consistsof two parts, the firstheavilyindebtedto Zarlino's Leistitutioni the secondgoharmonicbe, well Zarlino and with double beyond ing dealingexclusively counterpoint. The Sweelinckand Bull canonsjustmentioned areat the end of the firstpart; the augmentation canon with parallelthirds and the four-partinvertible are in the secondpart, which bearsthe heading"Kurtze doch counterpoint deutliche Regulen von denen doppelten Contrapuncten."49 Two manuin scripts of this work survivedat the Staats- und Universitiitsbibliothek until their in destruction World War of both them once owned II, Hamburg in Hamburgand by Jan Adam Reincken, organistat the Catharinenkirche successorto his teacherHeinrichScheidemann, a Sweelinckstudent. One himselfin 1670andwas an ampli(5384)was copiedby Reincken manuscript fied versionof Part I only; the other (5383)was copied earlier,perhapsby Scheidemann,and containedboth parts. This latter manuscriptmay also have been owned at one time by MatthiasWeckmann,so who had succeeded his teacher alsoa Sweelinckstudent,and was a closefriend JacobPraetorius, of Christoph A thirdmanuscript, Bernhard. containing only PartI, still exbrummusicum: cf. Hans Joachim Moser, Heinrich Schiitz:His Lifeand Work,transl. Carl F. Pfatteicher (St. Louis, '959), p. 17945 Sweelinck, Werken,X, pp. 94-546 Sweelinck, Werken, X, pp. 99-1oi. The second set of examples consists of two du XVIe sidcle(2 ments, first published 1545. See Pierre Pidoux, Le psautierhuguenot vols.; Basel, 1962), II, p. 201. 48 Sweelinck,Werken, X, pp. 83, 84.

Scacchihadcorresponded with Schfitzjustpriorto mighthaveseen it in manuscript; Bernhard's arrival in Dresdenin 1649,and Bernhard owned a copy of Scacchi's Cri-

sets of ornamented thirds. parallel 47 "Levele cueur, ouvre l'aureille," the metricalversionof the Ten Command-

cologica,XXXVI (1964), pp. 34-5)-

49 Sweelinck,Werken, X, p. 86. 50 There was a note to signed "M.W." on p. 43 (Gehrmann,"Einleitung" considered Weckmann to be the copyist of Sweelinck,Werken, X, p. ii). Gehrmann the MS, but this was basedon the mistaken thathe wasalsothe copyistof assumption MS KN 206 (cf. Birbel Roth, "Zur Echtheitsfrage der Luneburg,Ratsbucherei, MatthiasWeckmann Klavierwerke ohne Cantusfirmus," Actamusizugeschriebenen

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ists in Berlin,51 and a fourth, in Vienna, has thus far been inaccessible to me.52 Werner Braun has noted that two of Johann Theile's treatises on double counterpoint are nearly identical to Part II of the Sweelinck treatise and suggested that Theile was in fact the author of this part.3" While Sweelinck's authorship on Part II must indeed be questioned-the manuscript tradition leaves no doubt that it is an independent treatise-I do not believe that Theile was capable of writing it at this early date. He himself provides the best evidence in his masses, published in I673. While they make extensive use of invertible counterpoint in two and three parts, there is none in four parts, and the music often has the character of a student's contrapuntal exercise. That he was not able to compete with Buxtehude in a contrapuntal chorale setting is evident from the MissabrevisIV superNun kommderHeyden Heylandfor four voices. The Christe and Kyrie II are in two-part invertible counterpoint; the cantus firmus moves from alto to bass while the countermelody moves from bass to soprano. But the other parts are different, and hence much easier to compose. Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und Freud," on the other hand, is not just a contrapuntal tour deforce; it is a highly successful work of art. Theile had nothing to teach Buxtehude about counterpoint in i673, and the claim that he did so must be laid to rest. As for the "Sweelinck" composition treatise, Theile was probably studying it himself at this time, later to use the second part as a textbook for the lessons which he gave. Thus Bernhard, Buxtehude and Theile all seem to have consulted the same treatise, very likely the one owned by Reincken and possibly Weckmann. This hypothetical relationship among these musicians has recently been substantiated by Christoph Wolff's identification of Reincken and Buxtehude in a painting by Johannes Voorhout, dated Hamburg, I674, now at the Museum fir Hamburgische Geschichte.54 It is a group scene, and the central
51 GramBds, mus. ms. theor. 865;the coverof the MS is stamped"Burchardus man Anno I657."Gehrmann's editionis a conflation of these threeMSS.

mus. ms. theor. 913: "TheilensUnterricht von einigengedoppelten Contrapuncten und derenGebrauch" andmus. ms. theor.917, part2, (handof HeinrichBokemeyer) ther). There is yet anotherMS for PartII, underthe title "Kurtze doch deutliche It is transmitted in a volRegulnvon den doppeltenContrapuncten." anonymously ume which also containsJohannKuhnau's Fundamenta (Bds mus. ms. compositionis Fundamenta autogr.Kuhnau,Johann: Compositionis). 54 Wolff'sarticleis forthcoming, and I am gratefulto him for havingsharedhis workwith me beforeits publication. The painting has beenreproduced in part(color) in 3ooJabreOper in Hamburg, ed. HamburgStaatsoper, MuseumfdirHamburgische Geschichteund Verein-und Westbank (Hamburg,1977),p. 43, and in its entirety a discussionof the paintingby GiselaJaacks," 'Hiusliche Musik23, accompanying szene'von JohannesVoorhout:Zu einemneu erworberen Gemilde im MuseumfUir
"Joh. Theilens ... Contrapuncts-Praecepta 1690" (hand of Johann Gottfried Wal-

52 Minoritenkonvent, Klosterbibliothek und Archiv, codex 714; cf. Friedrich W. im Minoritenkonvent Riedel, Das Musikarchiv (Kassel, 1963), p. 72. Bernhards und JohannTheiles s3 WernerBraun,"Zwei Quellenffir Christoph XXI (1968), pp. 460-2. The MSS in question are Bds Satzlehren," Die Musikforschung,

zur deutschen undAltertumskunde, (black and white) in Beitrdge VolksXVII (1978), plate

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figure, a man in an elegant brocade dressing gown seated at the harpsichord, is easily identifiable as Reincken by comparison with an existing portrait. To his right is a younger man who is holding a canon with the inscription "In hon: dit: Buxtehude: et Joh: Adam Reink: fratres" and a Latin text from Psalm i33: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" No one is looking at the canon, and they cannot be performing it, because it is scored for eight sopranos, so it must be in the painting for the purpose of identification, and the man holding it must be Buxtehude. Wolff assumes Reincken to be the composer of the canon on the basis of his peculiar way of writing the C clef. To Reincken's left is a gamba player whom Wolff suggests to be Theile; he had earned his living by singing and gamba playing during his student days in Leipzig.5s Weckmann and Bernhardcould not have been in this painting; Weckmann had died in February, 1674, and soon afterwards Bernhard had returned to Dresden. Thus there appears to have been a coterie of musicians active in Hamburg and Libeck during the early I670s who delighted in contrapuntal games, including Bernhard, Reincken, Buxtehude, Theile and probably Weckmann. he Although Theile would later be called the "fatherof the contrapuntists"56 was actually the youngest member of the group. They were all related to one another in a variety of ways. Buxtehude and Reincken helped finance the publication of Theile's masses, and Bernhard wrote the foreword.57 Reincken and Weckmann had family ties in Libeck,ss58 and Buxtehude later composed the music on the occasion of Reincken's second marriage in 1685.59 Weckmann, Bernhard and Theile were all students of Schitz; Weckmann and Reincken were both students of Sweelinck pupils and organists in Hamburg churches. Buxtehude was familiar with Bernhard'sPrudentia within a Geschichte," Hamburgischen pp. 56-9. It also appearson the cover of TheMusical of June, 1979,illustrating Times my article"Buxtehude's OrganMusic:DramaWithout Words," TheMusicalTimes, CXX ('979), PP- 517-21.

(Hamburg, 1740; rprt. ed. Max Schneider, Berlin, x9xo), p. 369. 56 Gelahrtheit (Erfurt, 1758; facsimile Jacob Adlung, Anleitungzu dermusikalischen ed. Hans Joachim Moser, Kassel, 1953), P. 184. andtranslations of the prefatory mates7 See Mackey,pp. 299-309, for facsimiles

warenoch bey unsermTheile zu merken,dass er sich auf der hohen ss "Ferner Schule zu Leipzig,eigen handigemBerichtenach, mit der Viol da Gambaund mit dem Singen, bey Vornehmenvom Adel sehr beliebtgemacht,und dadurchseinen Unterhaltreichlich hat habenkonnen." einer JohannMattheson, Grundlage Ehrenpforte

rial.

for Englandin 1675; this paintingis also at the Museumfor Hamburgische Geschichte,and was the one used to identify Reinckenin the Voorhoutpainting(cf. Jaacks,p. 58).
'945.

Wilhelm Stahl, Musikgeschichte Band I: Weltliche Musik (2 vols., Kassel, 1951Liibecks, GottfriedKnillerpaintedReincken's beforeleaving 2), pp. 81-2). His brother portrait

58 Weckmann had married ReginaBeuteof Lubeckin 1648;Reincken's daughter later marriedher nephew, AndreasKniller(cf. JohannHennings and Margarethe

(Strassburg, 1933),P. 164, n. 539. The musicwas at D-brdHs but was destroyedin

59 Liselotte Kruger, Die hamburgische im XVII. Jahrhundert Musikorganisation

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short time of its publication.60 Reincken and Theile collaborated in the founding of the Hamburg opera. All five of these men were involved in some way with learned counterpoint during the years that Buxtehude was composing these works. Bernhard composed Prudentiain 1669, composed funeral music in stile anticofor Schitz at his request in I67061 and in 1673 praised Theile's masses for their old style. Theile was composing those masses and perhaps also teaching counterpoint, although not to Buxtehude. Reincken rewrote the first part of the Sweelinck treatise in 1670 and composed the canon in the painting. Weckmann appears to have been in poor health during these years,62 but he may have been the owner of Hamburg 5383 at this time and his organ pieces show a great interest in canon.63 But perhaps the most important fact about this group of composers interested in esoteric counterpoint is that they were at the same time the leaders of new music in northern Germany. Weckmann and Bernhardled the Collegium Reincken was a founder of the Hammusicum, burg opera, Theile composed the first opera for it, and Buxtehude changed the Libeck Abendmusiken to a much more dramatic format, all in the i670s. All of them composed primarily in the modern style. By the time J. S. Bach was old enough to choose his musical mentors, Weckmann and Bernhard were dead, but he sought out Reincken and Buxtehude, Reincken on short visits when he was a student in nearby Lineburg (1700-2) and Buxtehude in 1705 by means of a long journey and an extended leave from his first job in Arnstadt. It would be tempting to suggest that Bach derived his interest in esoteric counterpoint from these contacts, but that is very likely not the case; as a young musician he was probably far more interested in the flamboyant virtuosity of their organ playing and the large instruments at their disposal. The speculations of the Hamburg coterie did eventually reach Bach, however, through a circuitous route which led from Theile and F6rtsch through their pupil Georg Osterreich to Heinrich Bokemeyer and thence to Johann Gottfried Walther, Bach's cousin. These relationships all need to be explored further. As for Buxtehude, there is no evidence that he composed any works in learned counterpoint after 1674, the year Weckmann died and Bernhard left Hamburg. One organ piece, "Ich dank dir schon durch deinen Sohn" (BuxWV 195) bears strong suggestions of stile antico and may have been composed at about this time. The imprint of 60 This work must have arousedconsiderable interest amongmusicians;more than60 yearslaterWalther wroteof it: "Seinteutsches von derComposition Manuscript besitzet der jetzigeHochffirstl.Sachsen-Gothische Herr Gottfried Capell-Meister, Heinrich Stilzel im Original; die Copien aber davon sind in vieler Hinden" (Musikalisches Lexikon,pp. 88-9). 61 Mattheson, Grundlage einerEhrenpforte, p. 323. 62 Gerhard Ilgner, Matthias Weckmann (Wolfenbiittel-Berlin, 1939), p. 58. 63

Reihe: Schleswig-Holstein und Hansestidte, 4 (Leipzig, 1942), Pp. 89, 91, o101, 105, 1o7-

His choralevariations on "O lux beatatrinitas" and "Esist das Heil uns kommen her"includeseveralclose canonsagainstthe cantusfirmus; see MatthiasWecked. GerhardIlgner, Das Erbe deutscherMusik;Zweite mann, Gesammelte Werke,

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his studies in learnedcounterpoint can be found in much of his music;alcanon not an was elementof his style, invertiblecounterimportant though he and often extended the numberof voices in a contrapuntal point was, fabricby the additionof parallel sixths or tenths. But he incorporated thirds, thesetechniques into a musicallanguage whichwas thoroughly stilemoderno. Yale University