Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint

Author(s): Kerala J. Snyder

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
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STUDIES AND REPORTS
-
Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned
Counterpoint
BY
KERALA
J.
SNYDER
WE
KNOW NOTHING about Dietrich Buxtehude's musical education. Pre-
sumably
he received his first instruction from his
father,
Johann
Buxte-
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
Jo-
hann Mattheson's Critica musica that
Johann
Theile
(1646-i724)
had been an
instructor to Buxtehude in
Liibeck.
Theile had
corresponded
with Matthe-
son
previously,1
so he had
probably
himself made this
claim,
which Matthe-
son included in his
obituary:
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 north-
ern
Germany.
For this
reason,
Mattheson's statement has often been dis-
counted.3
Buxtehude was interested in learned
counterpoint,
Theile's
1
Mattheson
published
two letters from
Theile,
written in
Naumburg
in
1718,
in
Critica
musica, 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
informator
ward."
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,Jobann
Sebastian
Bach,
transl. Clara Bell and
J.
A. Ful-
ler-Maitland
(New York,
1951),
I,
p. 257,
n.
95;
Bruno
Grusnick, Dietrich
Buxtehude:
Sein Leben und Werk
(Kassel,
1935), p.
8;
Friedrich
Blume, "Buxtehude," MGG, II
(1953), col. 555-
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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 nine-
teenth
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 al-
bum 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 Bux-
tehude'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 com-
poser 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 ele-
4
Georg
Karstadt,
Thematisch-systematisches
Verzeichnis
der Werke von
Dietrich Buxte-
hude
(Wiesbaden,
1974)-
s
Wilhelm
Stahl,
Franz Tunder und
Dietrich
Buxtehude (Leipzig, 1926), p. 36;
Stahl,
Dietrich
Buxtehude
(Kassel,
1937),
Abb.
Io;
MGG, II, cols.
553-4-
6 Bruno
Grusnick,
"Die
Dobensammlung:
Ein
Versuch ihrer
chronologischen
Ordnung,"
Svensk
tidskriftfiir musikforskning,
XLVIII
(1966), pp. 177-86.
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
Johann
Valentin
Meders,"
Vierteljahresschrift fir Musikwissenschaft,
VIII
(1892), pp.
499-506),
which was at the time in
private possession.
He also
gave
a
transcription
of
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 Altertums-
kunde 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 Bibli-
othbque
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
KnOpfer
for
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
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546
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example
1
Buxtehude,
Canon
(MuxWV 124),
solution
Di
- ver
-
ti
-
sons nous
Di
-
ver
-
ti- sons nous 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
a la san -
te,
san-
vons a la san
-
t6,
san-
te,
a la san
-
t6 de mon a-
vons
a
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
en-
abled me to
go
to Paris to examine Pirro's
literary
estate.
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STUDIES AND
REPORTS
547
Lit*
t
A
..........
. ....
.
. . .. ...
Figure i
Buxtehude,
Canon
duplex
(BuxWV
23),
from a
photograph
made
by
An-
drd 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 solu-
tion
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 "canon
duplex"
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
prescribed
four 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-part
invertible
counterpoint, together
with a
hymn
of
lamentation,
all of
9 "Symb:
Non hominibus sed DEO. Canon
duplex per Augmentationem, qua-
tuor 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 Buxte-
hude,
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 liter-
ature 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 Buxte-
hude,
organist
in the eminent
temple
of
Mary.)
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548
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
Example
2
Buxtehude,
Canon
duplex
(BuxWV
123),
solution
.............................
$
2
_
rrr-
Prr
-
4 s-
---
o
I P
which had been
performed
at the funeral of his father on
January 29,
1674.10
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.
Contrapunctus
I and its Evolutio are in
simple
invertible
counterpoint
at the
octave;
the
parts
of Evolutio H move in
contrary
motion as well. The four
stanzas of the
complete
text of the chorale
(Luther's
paraphrase
of the Nunc
dimittis)
are
printed consecutively
under the cantus firmus. The
parts
are in
10
BuxWV
76:
Fried- und Freudenreicbe
Hinfarth I
Des alten
grossgliubigen
Simeons
/bey
seeligen
ableiben / Des ... Herrn
Jobannis
Buxtebhuden
(Lubeck,
1674;
facsimile,
ed. Max
Seiffert, Lubeck,
1937);
facsimile
of title
page
and modern edition in
Dietrich
Buxte-
bhude:
Werke,
ed.
Glaubensgemeinde Ugrino
(8 vols.,
Hamburg, 1925-58; rprt.
New
York,
1977), II, pp. 85-8.
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STUDIES AND REPORTS
549
open
score with no indication of the medium
by
which
they
are to be
per-
formed. The
Klag-Lied
is 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
antico
setting
of the
Kyrie
and Gloria for five voices with a basso
seguente
con-
tinuo.
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 Ru-
din13 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
particular
interest to
Theile. He left several treatises on invertible
counterpoint,15
and his "Musi-
kalisches 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
1690,17
Friedrich Rie-
del has credited Theile with
inspiring
not
only
Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und
11
Martin Geck has
questioned
the
authenticity
of this work
("Quellenkritische
Bemerkungen
zu Dietrich Buxtehudes Missa
brevis,"
Die
Musikforschung,
XIII
(i96o),
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.
12
Grusnick,
"Diibensammlung," p.
i63-
13 Jan Olof
Rud6n,
"Vattenmirken
och
Musikforskning:
Presentation
och
TillAmpning
av en
Dateringsmetod
pl
musikalier i handskrift i
Uppsala Universi-
tetsbibliotekets
Dibensamling" (Licentiatavhandling
i
musikforskning, Uppsala Uni-
versity, 1968), I,
p.
i64.
14
Johann Theile,
Pars
prima
Missarum
4.
et
5.
vocum a
pleno
choro
cum et sine basso
continuo
juxta
veterum
contrapuncti 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 Ge-
brauch,"
Mus.
ms.
theor.
913;
"Curieuser
Unterricht
von denen
doppelten
Con-
trapuncten;"
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
norddeutscher Musik,
I
(Kassel,
1965), PP- 3-I1.
17
"Contrapuncts-Praecepta"
bears the date
169o,
but since it was
copied by Jo-
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-
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550
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
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 contrib-
uted 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
be-
tween
167o
and
1674.
There
are, however,
other models for both the
duplex
canon and the
invertible
counterpoint.
The
composition
treatise attributed to
Jan
Pieters-
zon 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 "Musi-
kalisches Kunstbuch"
canon,
the voice in
augmentation
enters at the octave
and the
parallel
thirds are above both voices. Buxtehude's
doubling
is dif-
ferent because his
augmentation
voice is at the lower fifth. Later in the trea-
tise 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
Chris-
toph
Bernhard's "Tractatus
compositionis augmentatus"
also has a
chapter
on
making
a
Quatour
out of a
Bicinio
by adding parallel
thirds,22
also non-
canonic,
which Dahlhaus sees as a source for Theile's work.23
There was of course
nothing
new about an
augmentation
canon,
but dou-
bling
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
slightly
earlier. See Harald
Kimmerling, Katalog
der
Sammlung Bokemeyer
(Kassel,
1970), p.
II.
18
Quellenkundliche
Beitrdige
zur Geschichte der Musik
fir
Tasteninstrumente in der zwei-
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,
unser Heiland: Koralvariatio-
ner
for 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
"Composition Regeln
Herrn M.
Johan
Peterssen
Sweeling,"
ed. Hermann
Gehrmann,
Werken van
Jan
Pieterszn.
Sweelinck,
X
(The
Hague, I9oi), p. 87.
21
Sweelinck, Werken, X,
p. 97.
22
Joseph Miller-Blattau, ed.,
Die
Kompositionslebre Heinrich
Schiitzens
in der
Fassung
seines
Schiilers Christoph
Bernhard (Kassel,
1926;
2nd
ed.,
1963), pp. 127-8;
transl. Wal-
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.
1786-
7).
23
"Einleitung" to Theile, Musikalisches Kunstbuch, p. viii.
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STUDIES AND REPORTS
551
Example 3
Canon
Duplex
a 4
per augmentationem
(Sweelinck, Werken,
vol.
X,
p. 87)
Subject
-
.
I-
kV7
AkFF
An
i'
,,
-
!"
_
F r
_r
I
.
-
J
.
..
t
i u
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552
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
composed
in
1520,
where both the cantus firmus and an
accompanying
non-
canonic voice are doubled at the third and sixth24 and in Zarlino's Le istitu-
tioni
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 Harmo-
nologia
musica
(i
702),
which reduces the arts of
writing
both double counter-
point
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 com-
posed
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 Buxte-
hude 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
Schlick, Hommage
4
l'empereur Charles-Quint:
Dix versets
pour orgue,
ed.
M. S. Kastner and M.
Querol
Gavaldd
(Barcelona,
1954);
cf. Wilibald
Gurlitt,
"Can-
on 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, MEAOLIOIIA
sive melodiae condendae
ratio,
quam vulgo
musicam
poeticam vocant,
ex
verisfundamentis
extructa et
explicata (Magdeburg, 1630), fol. 17 (orig-
inally published Erfurt,
I592).
27
Sweelinck, Werken, X,
pp. 63, 65.
28
Samuel
Scheidt, Werke, VI/i, ed. Christhard Mahrenholz (Hamburg, 1953),
pp. 115-16.
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
Contrapuncto."
Andreas
Werckmeister,
Harmonologia
musica
(Frankfurt
and
Leipzig,
1702), p.
102.
I
do not mean to
imply
that this
technique
was not also
developed
in
Italy;
two sets of
parallel
thirds
making
four voices can be found as
early
as Silverio
Picerli,
Specchio
secondo di musica
(Naples, 163 ),
pp. 79
ff. But
they
are
non-canonic,
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,"
Monatsheftefiir
Musikgeschichte,
XXV
(1893),
p.
35-
31
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 /
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STUDIES AND REPORTS
553
and the cantus firmus for Bernhard's
work.32
It consists of four
major
sec-
tions;
the first two are in four
parts
with the cantus firmus in the
soprano,
and
in each case the
published
Revolutio which follows shows the same voice ex-
changes
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 fu-
neral 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 Revo-
lutio. There are some tonal differences: Bernhard
transposed
his cantus firm-
us 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
/
elaborata
/
a
/
Christophoro
Bernhardi
/
Musices
apud
Hamburgenses
/
directore
(Hamburg, 1669).
Bruno Grusnick first
suggested
the con-
nection between these two works in his article
"Christoph
Bernhard"
(MGG, I,
col.
1789).
This
print
does not
appear
in
RISM,
and I am indebted to Dr. Grusnick for
helping
me locate it at the Staatsarchiv in
Hamburg.
32 Text in
Philipp Wackernagel,
Das
deutsche Kirchenlied
(5
vols.;
Leipzig, 1864-77),
I,
p. 40; melody
in
Johannes
Zahn,
Die Melodien der
deutschen
evangelischen
Kirchenlieder
(6 vols.;
Giitersloh,
1888-93, rprt.
Hildesheim,
1963),
no.
1454a.
"
The
necessary
baritone clef at the end is
misprinted
as a bass clef. The tenor
clef for the first
system
of
Counterpoint
II also
appears incorrectly
on the fifth line.
34 See
Wolfgang
Reich, ed., Threnodiae
sacrae:
Beerdigungskompositionen ausgedruck-
ten
Leichenpredigten
des. z6. und
17. Jahrhunderts,
Das Erbe deutscher
Musik,
79
(Wiesbaden,
1975).
35
To do so would have
required
a B
key signature
in the second
Revolutio; also,
the
pitch
E of the
counterpoint
is answered
by
both F and
F#
in the Revolutio. Buxte-
hude adds an F#~to the
key signature
of the second Evolutio to retain the same inter-
vals in
contrary
motion,
and
quite consistently
answers the accidental B~ with C#. It
is
interesting
that in each case this is the note which
pushes
the
composition
from
modality
to
tonality:
from D dorian to D minor in
Contrapunctus
II and from D mix-
olydian
to D
major
in its Evolutio. Buxtehude
occasionally departed
from
rigid
adher-
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Ixanplic 4
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Bcrnhard, Prudentia Prudentiana, sections I. II
4
10 i i
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558
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL-
SOCIETY
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
(January
26,
1669).
It is a
four-page
folio,
presently
bound in a
large
volume of
Capell
memorabilia be-
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's
offering, though
musical,
falls into this
category.
One
might
wonder how much consolation such
highly
intellectual art could
pro-
vide,
but when one considers that
Capell
translated all of the familiar Ger-
man Christmas chorales into
Greek37
it seems more
appropriate.
It is
highly
unlikely
that Prudentia was
performed
at either
funeral;
the title
page
states
only
that Bernhard "elaborated" this
piece.
It was conceived as abstract coun-
terpoint,
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 Revolutio and 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 com-
posed
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
Buxte-
hude.39
But how were
they performed,
and how can
they
best be
performed
today?
This work has most often been
published,
described,
catalogued
and re-
corded 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
identity
for a
good
musical
reason,
such as the A
# introduced in
Evolutio
II,
m.
Io;
there are also modifications at the final cadence.
36
"Capelli Scripta
et
Programmata," Hamburg,
Staatsarchiv A
710o/802.
37 Hamburg,
Staatsarchiv A
710o/802, pp. 119-22.
38
"Simeons Abschied . .
.
zu
Bezeugung schuldigen Wohlmeinung
/
gesetzet
/
und in zween
Contrapunctis
/
abgesungen
/ von / Dieterico Buxtehude"
(Carmina
lugubria quibus
obitum D. Menonis Hannekenni
(Liibeck,
n.d.),
[p. 64].)
39
"Dem
Seelig-verstorbenen
/ als seinem hertzlich
geliebten
Vater zu schul- /
digen
Ehren und Christlichen nachruhme in 2.
Contrapuncten abgesungen
/ von /
Dieterico Buxtehuden."
(Fried-
undfreudenreiche Hinfarth,
title
page.)
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STUDIES AND REPORTS 559
setting
lacks the continuo
figures
which are
provided
for the
Klag-Lied,
and
instrumental
parts
for the
Klag-Lied
alone have been found in
Uppsala.40
Fi-
nally, Johann
Gottfried Walther considered "Mit Fried und Freud" to be
keyboard
music and the
Klag-Lied
a
separate piece.41
Indeed,
the chorale mel-
ody
in
contrary
motion works better as the
pedal part
of an
organ setting-
especially
if it is
registered
as a bass line rather than a cantus firmus -than as
a vocal line. Buxtehude's text
underlay
is often
thought
to
argue against
or-
gan performance,
but with Bernhard's Prudentia in mind this does not
pre-
sent so
great
a
problem.
It
provided
a model not
just
in
compositional
technique
but also in
printing
format,
including
a text under the cantus firm-
us. 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 re-
cently
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,
"Tractatus
composition-
is
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-part
invertible coun-
terpoint.43
This is divided into three
types, corresponding
to the first three
movements of
Prudentia,
(i)
"plain,"
(2)
"in
contrary
motion" and
(3)
"in ret-
rograde
motion,"
including
both
simple retrograde
and
retrograde
in con-
trary
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's and Buxtehude's
compositions,
the con-
trary
motion in all four voices
departs
from the same
note,
so that the inter-
vallic
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
40
Braccia 2 and basso continuo: S
Uu,
Vokal musik i handskrift
164:9.
To be
sure,
there is a
manuscript copy
of the two
counterpoints
with added continuo
figures
(D-brd B,
mus.
ms.
2680, i)
in the hand of
Bokemeyer,
but this cannot
compete
for
authority
with Buxtehude's own
print.
Dietrich Kilian in fact
argues
that the
print
was the
exemplar
for
Bokemeyer's
MS
("Das Vokalwerk
Dietrich Buxtehudes:
Quel-
lenstudien zu seiner
Uberlieferung
und
Verwendung"
(Ph.D. diss.,
Freie
Universitit
Berlin,
1956), p. 85)-
41
"Von
seinen
vielen und
kiinstlichen Clavier-Stficken ist ausser
dem,
auf seines
Vaters
Tod,
nebst einem
Klag-Liede gesetzten
Choral Mit Fried
und
Freud
ich
fahr
dahin,
etc. meines Wissens sonsten nichts im Druck
publicirt
worden."
Musikalisches
Lexikon,
p. 23.
42
Dietrich
Buxtehude,
Sdmtliche Orgelwerke,
ed. Klaus Beckmann
(2 vols.;
Wiesbaden,
1971-2),
II, pp.
77-80.
Beckmann has included the
Klag-Lied
as well
(p.
81); I
hope
that he does not mean to
suggest
that this too is
organ
music.
43
Mfiller-Blattau, pp. 128-31;
Hilse
translation,
pp. 176-9.
44
Marco
Scacchi's motet "Si Deus
pro
nobis" is
composed
in the same
way.
Al-
though
it was
only published posthumously
in
1687 (Angelo
Berardi,
Documenti armo-
nici
(Bologna, 1687; rprt. Bologna, 1970), pp. 64-70),
it is conceivable that Bernhard
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560
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
part
is
transposed differently, producing
a different set of intervals in the
Revolutio. It is clear that Buxtehude followed Bernhard's music rather than
his treatise.
The Sweelinck treatise
may
have
provided
a model for Bernhard in this
respect;
it
gives examples
of double
counterpoint
at the octave in four
ways:
plain, retrograde, contrary
motion and
retrograde contrary
motion,4s
as well
as
four-part
invertible
counterpoint, although
not in
retrograde
or
contrary
motion.46
It is even
more
clearly
the model for the final canonic section of
Bernhard's Prudentia in two double-canon
settings
of the chorale "Wenn wir
in
h6chsten N6hten
seyn,"
or more
accurately
its Geneva-Psalter
predeces-
sor,47
the first
presumably by
Sweelinck,
the second
by John
Bull with its
canons in
contrary
motion.48
This
composition
treatise thus
appears
to have been consulted
by
both
Bernhard and Buxtehude and warrants a closer look. It consists of two
parts,
the first
heavily
indebted to Zarlino's Le istitutioni
harmonicbe,
the second
go-
ing
well
beyond
Zarlino and
dealing exclusively
with double
counterpoint.
The Sweelinck and Bull canons
just
mentioned are at the end of the first
part;
the
augmentation
canon with
parallel
thirds and the
four-part
invertible
counterpoint
are in the second
part,
which bears the
heading
"Kurtze doch
deutliche
Regulen
von denen
doppelten Contrapuncten."49
Two manu-
scripts
of this work survived at the
Staats-
und
Universitiitsbibliothek
in
Hamburg
until their destruction in World War
II,
both of them once owned
by Jan
Adam
Reincken,
organist
at the
Catharinenkirche
in
Hamburg
and
successor to his teacher Heinrich
Scheidemann,
a Sweelinck student. One
manuscript (5384)
was
copied by
Reincken himself in
1670
and was an
ampli-
fied version of Part I
only;
the other
(5383)
was
copied
earlier,
perhaps by
Scheidemann,
and contained both
parts.
This latter
manuscript may
also
have been owned at one time
by
Matthias
Weckmann,so
who had succeeded
his teacher
Jacob
Praetorius,
also a Sweelinck
student,
and was a close friend
of
Christoph
Bernhard. A third
manuscript, containing only
Part
I,
still ex-
might
have seen it in
manuscript;
Scacchi had
corresponded
with
Schfitz
just prior
to
Bernhard's arrival in Dresden in
1649,
and Bernhard owned a
copy
of Scacchi's Cri-
brum musicum: cf. Hans
Joachim Moser, Heinrich
Schiitz:
His
Life
and
Work, transl.
Carl
F. Pfatteicher
(St. Louis,
'959), p. 179-
45
Sweelinck, Werken, X, pp. 94-5-
46
Sweelinck, Werken, X,
pp. 99-1oi.
The second set of
examples
consists of two
sets of ornamented
parallel
thirds.
47
"Leve le
cueur,
ouvre
l'aureille,"
the metrical version of the Ten Command-
ments,
first
published 1545.
See Pierre
Pidoux,
Le
psautier huguenot
du
XVIe
sidcle
(2
vols.; Basel,
1962), II,
p.
201.
48
Sweelinck, Werken, X, pp. 83, 84.
49
Sweelinck, Werken, X,
p.
86.
50
There was a note
signed
"M.W." on
p. 43 (Gehrmann,
"Einleitung"
to
Sweelinck, Werken, X,
p.
ii).
Gehrmann considered Weckmann to be the
copyist
of
the
MS,
but this was based on the mistaken
assumption
that he was also the
copyist
of
Luneburg,
Ratsbucherei,
MS KN 206
(cf.
Birbel
Roth,
"Zur
Echtheitsfrage
der
Matthias Weckmann
zugeschriebenen
Klavierwerke ohne Cantus
firmus,"
Acta musi-
cologica,
XXXVI
(1964), pp. 34-5)-
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STUDIES AND
REPORTS
561
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
sug-
gested
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
exer-
cise. That he was not able to
compete
with Buxtehude in a
contrapuntal
chorale
setting
is evident from the Missa brevis IV
super
Nun komm der
Heyden
Heyland
for four voices. The Christe and
Kyrie
II
are in
two-part
invertible
counterpoint;
the cantus firmus moves from alto to bass while the counter-
melody
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 de
force;
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 trea-
tise,
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 Mu-
seum
fir
Hamburgische
Geschichte.54
It is
a
group
scene,
and the central
51
Bds,
mus.
ms.
theor.
865;
the cover of the MS is
stamped
"Burchardus Gram-
man Anno
I657."
Gehrmann's edition is a conflation of these three MSS.
52
Minoritenkonvent, Klosterbibliothek
und
Archiv,
codex
714;
cf. Friedrich W.
Riedel,
Das
Musikarchiv
im Minoritenkonvent
(Kassel,
1963), p. 72.
s3
Werner
Braun,
"Zwei
Quellen
ffir Christoph
Bernhards und
Johann
Theiles
Satzlehren,"
Die
Musikforschung,
XXI
(1968),
pp. 460-2.
The MSS in
question
are Bds
mus.
ms.
theor.
913:
"Theilens Unterricht von
einigen gedoppelten Contrapuncten
und deren Gebrauch"
(hand
of Heinrich
Bokemeyer)
and mus.
ms.
theor.
917, part
2,
"Joh.
Theilens ...
Contrapuncts-Praecepta 1690"
(hand
of
Johann
Gottfried Wal-
ther).
There is
yet
another MS for Part
II,
under the title "Kurtze doch deutliche
Reguln
von den
doppelten Contrapuncten."
It is transmitted
anonymously
in a vol-
ume which also contains
Johann
Kuhnau's Fundamenta
compositionis
(Bds
mus.
ms.
autogr.
Kuhnau,
Johann:
Fundamenta
Compositionis).
54
Wolff's
article is
forthcoming,
and I am
grateful
to him for
having
shared his
work with me before its
publication.
The
painting
has been
reproduced
in
part
(color)
in
3oo
Jabre Oper
in
Hamburg,
ed.
Hamburg Staatsoper,
Museum
fdir
Hamburgische
Geschichte und Verein- und Westbank
(Hamburg, 1977),
p.
43,
and in its
entirety
(black
and
white)
in
Beitrdge
zur
deutschen Volks-
und
Altertumskunde, XVII
(1978), plate
23,
accompanying
a discussion of the
painting by
Gisela
Jaacks,
"
'Hiusliche
Musik-
szene' von
Johannes
Voorhout: Zu einem neu erworberen
Gemilde
im Museum
fUir
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562
JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
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
per-
forming
it,
because it is scored for
eight sopranos,
so it must be in the
paint-
ing
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
Bernhard could not have been in this
painting;
Weckmann had died in Febru-
ary, 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.
Although
Theile would later be called the "father of the
contrapuntists"56
he
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 Rein-
cken and Weckmann had
family
ties in
Libeck,ss58
and Buxtehude later com-
posed
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 Ham-
burg
churches. Buxtehude was familiar with Bernhard's Prudentia within a
Hamburgischen
Geschichte,"
pp. 56-9.
It also
appears
on the cover of The Musical
Times of
June, 1979, illustrating my
article "Buxtehude's
Organ
Music: Drama With-
out
Words,"
The Musical
Times,
CXX
('979), PP- 517-21.
ss
"Ferner
ware
noch
bey
unserm Theile zu
merken,
dass er sich auf der hohen
Schule zu
Leipzig, eigen handigem
Berichte
nach,
mit der Viol da Gamba und mit
dem
Singen, bey
Vornehmen vom Adel sehr beliebt
gemacht,
und dadurch
seinen
Unterhalt reichlich hat haben
konnen."
Johann
Mattheson,
Grundlage
einer
Ehrenpforte
(Hamburg, 1740; rprt.
ed. Max
Schneider, Berlin,
x9xo),
p. 369.
56
Jacob Adlung, Anleitung
zu der musikalischen
Gelahrtheit (Erfurt,
1758;
facsimile
ed. Hans
Joachim
Moser, Kassel,
1953), P. 184.
s7
See
Mackey, pp. 299-309,
for facsimiles and translations of the
prefatory
mate-
rial.
58
Weckmann had married
Regina
Beute of Lubeck in
1648;
Reincken's
daughter
Margarethe
later married her
nephew,
Andreas Kniller
(cf.
Johann
Hennings
and
Wilhelm
Stahl,
Musikgeschichte Liibecks,
Band
I: Weltliche
Musik
(2 vols., Kassel,
195
1-
2),
pp.
81-2).
His brother Gottfried Kniller
painted
Reincken's
portrait
before
leaving
for
England
in
1675;
this
painting
is also at the Museum
for Hamburgische
Ge-
schichte,
and was the one used to
identify
Reincken in the Voorhout
painting
(cf.
Jaacks, p. 58).
59 Liselotte
Kruger,
Die
hamburgische Musikorganisation
im
XVII.
Jahrhundert
(Strassburg, 1933), P.
164,
n.
539.
The music was at D-brd Hs but was
destroyed
in
'945.
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STUDIES AND REPORTS
563
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
counter-
point during
the
years
that Buxtehude was
composing
these works.
Bernhard
composed
Prudentia in
1669, composed
funeral music in stile antico for
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
counter-
point, although
not to Buxtehude. Reincken rewrote the first
part
of the
Sweelinck treatise in
1670
and
composed
the canon in the
painting.
Weck-
mann
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 Bernhard led the
Collegium
musicum,
Reincken was a founder of the Ham-
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 Buxte-
hude,
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 inter-
ested in the
flamboyant virtuosity
of their
organ playing
and the
large
in-
struments 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 Boke-
meyer
and thence to
Johann
Gottfried
Walther,
Bach's cousin. These rela-
tionships
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 aroused considerable interest
among
musicians;
more
than
60
years
later Walther wrote of it: "Sein teutsches
Manuscript
von der
Composition
besitzet der
jetzige
Hochffirstl.
Sachsen-Gothische
Capell-Meister,
Herr Gottfried
Heinrich
Stilzel
im
Original;
die
Copien
aber davon sind in vieler
Hinden"
(Musi-
kalisches Lexikon,
pp. 88-9).
61
Mattheson,
Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte, p. 323.
62
Gerhard
Ilgner, Matthias
Weckmann
(Wolfenbiittel-Berlin, 1939),
p. 58.
63
His chorale variations on
"O
lux beata trinitas" and "Es ist das Heil uns kom-
men her" include several close canons
against
the cantus
firmus;
see Matthias Weck-
mann,
Gesammelte
Werke,
ed. Gerhard
Ilgner,
Das Erbe deutscher
Musik;
Zweite
Reihe:
Schleswig-Holstein
und
Hansestidte,
4
(Leipzig, 1942), Pp. 89, 91, o101, 105,
1o7-
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564 JOURNAL
OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
his studies in learned
counterpoint
can be found in much of his
music;
al-
though
canon was not an
important
element of his
style,
invertible counter-
point
was,
and he often extended the number of voices in a
contrapuntal
fabric
by
the addition of
parallel
thirds,
sixths or tenths. But he
incorporated
these
techniques
into a musical
language
which was
thoroughly
stile moderno.
Yale
University
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