831305 - Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint

7/27/2019 831305 - Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint

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Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned CounterpointAuthor(s): Kerala J. SnyderReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp.544-564Published by: University of California Presson behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831305.

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.STUDIES AND REPORTS -

Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in LearnedCounterpointBY 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 theLatin 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 aninstructor 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 didthis in Liibeck, and was an informator f the well-known Buxtehude, of the organistHasse, and of the city musician Zachau, among others.2Theile 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 firstofficial position, that of kapellmeister to the court of Schleswig-Holstein inGottorf. Buxtehude, on the other hand, was thirty-four and organist at theMarienkirche 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, inCriticamusica, I (Hamburg, 1725;rprt. Amsterdam, 1964),pp. 282-5. Facsimile andEnglish translation in Elizabeth Jocelyn Mackey, "The Sacred Music of JohannTheile" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, I968), pp. 265-72.2 "Hiernechst begab sich der letzt-benannte nach Stettin / und unterrichtetedaselbst Organisten und Musicos; desgleichen er auch zu Ltibeck vornahm / undunter andern des bekannten Buxtehuden / des Organistens Hasse / des Raths MusiciZachauens / und andrer informatorward." Mattheson, II, p. 57; translation mine;facsimile and translation of complete article in Mackey, pp. 261-4. Johann GottfriedWaltherrepeatsthis account verbatim in his Musikalischesexikon(Leipzig, 1732; rprt.Kassel, 1953), pp. 602-3. Note also the words "eigenhandigem Berichte nach" in thequotation in n. 55 below.

3 See, e.g., Philipp Spitta,JobannSebastianBach, transl. Clara Bell and J. A. Ful-ler-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-


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STUDIES AND REPORTS 545specialty, at precisely this time; during the early i67os he composed twocanons, an intricatepiece of invertible counterpoint and a mass in stileantico.Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that he derived his inspiration forthese studies from Christoph Bernhardand Jan Adam Reincken rather thanTheile.Buxtehude wrote the two canons in autograph books, a practice whichwas common among baroque composers and extended well into the nine-teenth century. On May 12, 1670 he entered the first one, "Divertisons nousaujourd'hui" BuxWV 124),4 into the album of Meno Hannekin, a theologicalstudent 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 severaltimes in facsimile,5 and Bruno Grusnick has used it in his studies of theDiiben 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 musicalnotation rather than German organ tablature. Both the text-a drinkingsong-and the inscription are in French, Buxtehude's only recorded use ofthat language. The solution is quite simple once one realizes that he seems tohave made a mistake in the directions. It reads "Canona 3 in Epidiapente etEpidiapason,"i.e., the upper fifth and upper octave, but it will work only ifthe second voice enters at the upper octave and the third at the lower fifth(Hypodiapente) (Ex. I).7Buxtehude entered another canon(BuxWV 123)in the album of the com-poser Johann Valentin Meder, and it appears here in facsimile for the firsttime (Fig. 1).8 This canon, dated Libeck, June 25, 1674, is both more ele-

4 Georg Karstadt, Thematisch-systematischeserzeichniser WerkevonDietrichBuxte-hude(Wiesbaden, 1974)-s Wilhelm Stahl, Franz TunderundDietrichBuxtehudeLeipzig, 1926), p. 36;Stahl,DietrichBuxtehudeKassel, 1937), Abb. Io; MGG, II, cols. 553-4-6 Bruno Grusnick, "Die Dobensammlung: Ein Versuch ihrer chronologischenOrdnung," Svensktidskriftfiirmusikforskning, LVIII (1966), pp. 177-86.7James Boeringer's published solution, with the text "While shepherds watchedtheir flocks by night" (Dietrich Buxtehude, A ChristmasCanon,ed. James Boeringer(St. Louis, 1965)), is incorrect; he brings both the second and third voices in at theupper fourth and covers the resulting fourths with an added bass line "in the style ofthe composer's continuo parts."8 Johannes Bolte described the contents of part of this album ("Das StammbuchJohann Valentin Meders," Vierteljahresschriftir Musikwissenschaft, III (1892), pp.499-506), which was at the time in private possession. He also gave a transcriptionofBuxtehude's canon, omitting the fermata. Following the owner's death in I9OIthesepages 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,butphotographs 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 canonthere is a circle canon by JohannPetzold, a perpetual canonby Sebastian KnOpfer ornine voices, of which six are in augmentationat the lower fifth, and a four-voice fuguein E minor by Martin Radeck in organ tablature, 73 measures long. Less interestingcanons are entered by Michael Zachaeus and Meder's brother Maternus, the latternoting 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 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYExample1Buxtehude,Canon MuxWV124),solution

Di - ver - ti - sonsnous

Di - ver- ti- sons nous au - jour-d'hui,ou-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

L i t

A ........... ......

Figure iBuxtehude, 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 appropriatelyinscribed 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 byaugmentation at the lower fifth, beginning simultaneously with the givenvoice. But whereasfor Bach a "canonduplex"consists in treatingeach of twovoices canonically, for Buxtehude the duplex nature is shown in doublingeach of these voices at the third, in this case below the top voice and abovethe bottom voice, to arrive at the prescribedfour voices which aresung at thesame time (Ex. 2).Also in 1674 Buxtehude published a much more extensive contrapuntalessay, two settings of the chorale "Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin" infour-partinvertiblecounterpoint, togetherwith 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 / cuicum literis raro exemplo Musica semper in deliciis fuit, Fautori suo honoratissimoCanonem hunc benivolae recordationisergo huc apponere voluit Dietericus Buxte-hude, in Templo primario Marianoorganista." (Symbol: Not to men but to God.Duplex canon by augmentation, four voices are sung at the same time. To a mostoutstandingman, Mr. Joh. Valentin Meder, who has always enjoyed music and liter-ature of an uncommon character, [the undersigned] wished to place this canon herefor 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 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYExample 2Buxtehude, Canon duplex (BuxWV 123), solution

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

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I P

which had been performed at the funeral of his father on January 29, 1674.10The two chorale settings, entitled Contrapunctus and ContrapunctusI, placethe unornamentedcantus firmus in the sopranovoice. The three lower voicesproceed in faster note values, loosely imitative but unrelated to the choralemelody. An Evolutio is published after each; in both cases the soprano andbass exchange parts, as do the alto and tenor, transposed down a fourth.Contrapunctus and its Evolutio are in simple invertible counterpoint at theoctave; the parts of EvolutioH move in contrary motion as well. The fourstanzas of the complete text of the chorale (Luther's paraphraseof the Nuncdimittis) are printed consecutively under the cantus firmus. The parts are in

10 BuxWV 76:Fried-undFreudenreicbeHinfarthIDes altengrossgliubigen imeons/beyseeligen bleiben Des ... HerrnJobannisBuxtebhudenLubeck, 1674; facsimile, ed. MaxSeiffert, Lubeck, 1937); facsimile of title page and modern edition in DietrichBuxte-bhude:Werke,ed. Glaubensgemeinde Ugrino (8 vols., Hamburg, 1925-58; rprt. NewYork, 1977), II, pp. 85-8.


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STUDIES AND REPORTS 549open score with no indication of the medium by which they are to be per-formed. The Klag-Lied s also in open score; the clefs are the same and thefirst of seven stanzasof text is printed under the sopranoline, but the alto andtenor 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 Buxtehudenormally used to set a strophic song text, but it does not appear to employany contrapuntal tricks and is unrelated to the chorale settings except by theoccasion on which they were all performed.Finally there is the Missabrevis(BuxWV 14), a strongly imitative stileanticosetting of the Kyrie and Gloria for five voices with a bassoseguente on-tinuo.11 It contains numerous examples of all these contrapuntaltechniques:canon, invertible counterpoint and even two simultaneous sets of parallelthirds, although not canonic (Kyrie, mm. 82-4). Both Grusnick12and Ru-din13 have dated the copying of its manuscript at about I675, which couldwell place its composition in the early I670s. Buxtehude could thus havebeen inspired to compose it by Theile, who published a collection of stileanticomasses in 1673.14Canons and invertible counterpoint were subjects of particular nterest toTheile. He left several treatises on invertible counterpoint,15and his "Musi-kalisches Kunstbuch"opens with an augmentation canon which is extendedto four voices by the addition of parallelthirds.16 In spite of the fact that themanuscripts for these treatises cannot be dated before 1690,17Friedrich Rie-del has credited Theile with inspiring not only Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und

11Martin Geck has questioned the authenticity of this work ("QuellenkritischeBemerkungen zu Dietrich Buxtehudes Missabrevis,"Die Musikforschung, III (i96o),pp. 47-9). I have examined the manuscript and consider it an authentic work, butsince it is beyond the scope of this essay to prove its authenticity, it will not figuresignificantly in the following discussion.12Grusnick, "Diibensammlung," p. i63-13Jan Olof Rud6n, "Vattenmirken och Musikforskning: Presentation ochTillAmpning av en Dateringsmetod pl musikalier i handskrift i Uppsala Universi-tetsbibliotekets Dibensamling" (Licentiatavhandlingi musikforskning,Uppsala Uni-versity, 1968), I, p. i64.14Johann Theile, ParsprimaMissarum . et 5. vocuma plenochoro um et sinebassocontinuojuxta veterumcontrapunctitylum(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 gedoppeltenContrapuncten"and "Contrapuncts-Praecepta,"Mus. ms. theor. 917. (Library siglaare those of the R6pertoire internationale des sources musicales.)16Bds Mus. ms. theor. 913; ed. Carl Dahlhaus, Denkmilernorddeutscher usik, 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. Theother 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 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYFreud" but a series of related works by other North German composers,including invertible-counterpointchorale settings by Johann Philipp F6rtsch(168o), Martin Radeck and Christian Flor (1692). 18 The friendship betweenBuxtehude and Theile is evidenced by the fact that Buxtehude was one of thefinancial 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 justificationfor Theile'sclaim; certainly Buxtehude's canon writing became more sophisticated be-tween 167o and 1674.There are, however, other models for both the duplex canon and theinvertible counterpoint. The composition treatise attributed to Jan Pieters-zon Sweelinck contains a "Canon duplex a 4 per augmentationem"made upof two voices with their parallel thirds (Ex. 3)*20 As in Theile's "Musi-kalisches Kunstbuch"canon, the voice in augmentation enters at the octaveand 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 theupper voice and above the lower voice, although it is not a canon.21 Chris-toph Bernhard's"Tractatus compositionis augmentatus"also has a chapteron making a Quatourout of a Bicinioby adding parallel thirds,22 also non-canonic, which Dahlhaus sees as a source for Theile's work.23There was of course nothing new about an augmentationcanon, but dou-bling both of the voices at the third seems to have been cultivated mainly inGermany, and although Theile participatedin this practicehe was certainlynot its originator. Its roots can be found in Arnolt Schlick's versets for organ,

sition with Theile at Braunschweigrom i686 until 1689,so these MSS may beslightly earlier. See Harald Kimmerling, Katalogder SammlungBokemeyerKassel,1970), p. II.18Quellenkundlicheeitrdigeur GeschichteerMusikfir Tasteninstrumenten derzwei-tenHlfte des17. JabrhundertsKassel, i960), p. 182. Flor's work is lost. Both F6rtschand Radeck's settings are found in D-brd B Mus. ms. 6473, dating from c. 168o;Radeck's has been edited by Bo Lundgren (JesusChristus,unserHeiland:Koralvariatio-nerfor orgel(Copenhagen, 1957)). Both are in four-part invertible counterpoint withseveral different inversions, though none in contrary motion.19 Theile dedicated the masses to the 24 men, including Buxtehude, Jan AdamReincken and the young Meno Hannekin, who employed the publisher and advancedthe printing costs. Buxtehude's poem appears in Denkmdler eutscher onkunst,XVII(Leipzig, 19o4), p. I09. See Mackey, pp. 299-318 for facsimiles and translations.

20 "CompositionRegeln Herrn M. JohanPeterssenSweeling,"ed. HermannGehrmann, Werken anJan Pieterszn.Sweelinck,X (The Hague, I9oi), p. 87.21 Sweelinck, Werken,X, p. 97.22Joseph Miller-Blattau, ed., Die KompositionslebreeinrichSchiitzensn derFassungseinesSchiilersChristoph ernhardKassel, 1926; 2nd ed., 1963), pp. 127-8; transl. Wal-ter Hilse in TheMusicForum, III (1973), pp. 175-6. Most scholars now agree thatBernhard is the author of the treatise, not Schutz (cf. Grusnick, MGG, I, cols. 1786-7). 23 "Einleitung" to Theile, Musikalisches unstbuch,p. viii.


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STUDIES AND REPORTS 551Example 3Canon Duplex a 4 per augmentationem(Sweelinck, Werken, ol. X, p. 87)

Subject

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552 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICALOCIETYcomposed 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 andSweelinck's students.27 Samuel Scheidt included in his Tabulatura nova(1624) two canons "sine Pausis" which double a counterpoint to a cantusfirmus at the tenth. 28 But none of these are canonic in the conventional senseof the term, and Zarlino's and Scheidt's examples double only one voice, nottwo. 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.29Buxtehude wrote a congratulatory poem for this treatise.A much closer model exists for Buxtehude's two settings of "Mit Friedund Freud." Although they were published in 1674, Buxtehude had com-posed them in 1671 for the funeral of Meno Hannekin, superintendent of theLiibeck churches and the father of the young man in whose album Buxte-hude had entered his canon the previous year.30 Two years earlier ChristophBernhard had published a similar work, Prudentia prudentiana.31 The titlerefers to Aurelius Prudentius, the fourth-century author of the text "Jammoesta quiesce querela," a hymn customarily sung at funerals in Hamburg

24 Arnolt Schlick, Hommage4 l'empereur harles-Quint: ix versetspour orgue, ed.M. S. Kastner and M. Querol Gavaldd(Barcelona, 1954);cf. Wilibald Gurlitt, "Can-on sine pausis," Musikgeschichtend Gegenwart, ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht(Wiesbaden, 1966), I, pp. 105-10o.2s "Double counterpoints may be sung in three voices, with the extravoice a tenthabove the lower voice of the principal and a seventeenth below the inverted upperpart." (Part III, chap. 56; translated by Guy A. Marco and Claude V. Palisca (NewHaven, 1968), p. i62).26 Seth Calvisius, MEAOLIOIIA ive melodiae ondendaeatio, quamvulgo musicampoeticam ocant,exverisfundamentisxtructa t explicataMagdeburg, 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 alsoder Schliissel zu allerhandArten von den Canonibus nd gedoppelten 3. und 4. fachenContrapuncto."Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologiamusica(Frankfurtand Leipzig,1702), p. 102. I do not meanto implythatthistechniquewasnotalsodeveloped nItaly; two sets of parallelthirds making four voices can be found as early as SilverioPicerli, Specchioecondo i 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.30Carl Stiehl in "Mitteilungen," MonatsheftefiirMusikgeschichte,XV (1893), p.35- 31 Prudentia Prudentiana/ Maxime reverendo Doctori et clarissimo / Professori /Domino / Rudolfo Capello / Hamburgensi / matremlaudatissimam/ honestissimam etornatissimam matronam / Christinam Capellam / natam Losiam / quae A.MDCLXVIII D. VI. Aprilis suaviter exspiravit/ et uxorem optimamI nobilissimamet praestantissimam / foeminam / Annam Capellam / natam Bernbergiam / A.C.MDCLXIX D. XXVI Januariipie mortuamlugenti / solatio / tribus contrapunctis /


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STUDIESNDREPORTS 553and the cantus firmus for Bernhard'swork.32 It consists of four major sec-tions; the first two are in four partswith the cantus firmusin the soprano, andin each case the published Revolutiowhich follows shows the same voice ex-changes and transpositions as in Buxtehude's work, invertible counterpointat the octave for the first and in contrarymotion for the second (Ex. 4). In thethird setting the cantus firmus is in the bass and it can also be performed inretrogradeinversion by turning the page upside down and reading from theclefs at the end.33 The fourth section contains four written parts with thecantus firmusin the tenor and indications for canonic voices to follow the altoat the lower fifth after a semibreve and the bass at the upper fifth after threesemibreves. The resolution is not published and is not entirely satisfactory;either through printing or compositional errors it contains several paralleloctaves 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 thatBuxtehude modelled his work on that of Bernhard. Both works are uniqueamong their composers' output, and they are totally atypical of German fu-neral music of the period.34The external differences between the two piecesare slight, apart from the fact that Buxtehude chose not to set the choralewith retrograde inversion or canon in the manner of Bernhard's two finalsections. Although Bernhardprinted all ten stanzas of the hymn on the titlepage, he underlaidonly the first four in the music, one stanza to each majorsection; in the first two, there is no text under the cantus firmus of the Revo-lutio. There are some tonal differences: Bernhardtransposedhis cantus firm-us from F majorin the first section to G majorin the second, and he did notretainthe intervallicidentity in contrarymotion to the extent that Buxtehudedid.35

convertibilibus t auctario elaborata a / ChristophoroBernhardi MusicesapudHamburgensesdirectore(Hamburg,1669).BrunoGrusnick irstsuggested he con-nectionbetweenthesetwo works n his article"ChristophBernhard"MGG, , col.1789).This printdoesnot appearn RISM,andI amindebted o Dr. Grusnick orhelpingme locate t at the Staatsarchivn Hamburg.32Text in Philipp Wackernagel,Dasdeutsche irchenlied5 vols.; Leipzig, 1864-77),I, p. 40; melody in Johannes Zahn, Die Melodien erdeutschenvangelischenirchenlieder(6 vols.; Giitersloh, 1888-93, rprt. Hildesheim, 1963), no. 1454a." The necessarybaritone lef atthe end is misprinted s a bassclef. The tenorclef for the firstsystemofCounterpointIalsoappearsncorrectly nthefifth ine.34See Wolfgang Reich, ed., Threnodiaeacrae:Beerdigungskompositionenusgedruck-ten Leichenpredigtenes. z6. und 17. Jahrhunderts,Das Erbe deutscher Musik, 79(Wiesbaden, 1975).35To do so wouldhaverequired B key signaturen thesecondRevolutio;lso,thepitchE of thecounterpoints answeredby bothF andF# in theRevolutio. uxte-hude adds anF#~to he key signature f thesecondEvolutioo retain he sameinter-valsin contrarymotion,andquiteconsistently nswers heaccidental ~ withC#. Itis interesting hat in each case this is the note whichpushesthe composition rommodality o tonality: romD dorian o D minor n ContrapunctusI andfromD mix-olydian o D majorn itsEvolutio.Buxtehude ccasionally epartedromrigidadher-


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Ixanplic 4Christoph Bcrnhard, PrudentiaPrudentiana,sections I. II

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" . .P'I J J


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558 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL-OCIETYIn spite of their similarities, there appearsto be a considerabledifferencein the purposes for which the two works were composed. Bernhard's wasintended as a consolation (solatio) o his colleague, Rudolf Capell, a professorof rhetoric and Greek at the Johanneum in Hamburg, upon the deaths of hismother Christina(April 6, 1668)and his wife Anna (January26, 1669). It is afour-page folio, presently bound in a large volume of Capell memorabilia e-tween two prints of similar format, the first containing poems concerningAnna's death (pp. 553-6), the second for Christina's (pp. 56I-4).36 Suchpoems, printed by friends to console the bereaved, were very common at thetime, and Bernhard'soffering, though musical, falls into this category. Onemight 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 t seems more appropriate.It is highlyunlikely that Prudentiawas performed at either funeral;the title page statesonly that Bernhard"elaborated" his piece. It was conceived as abstract coun-terpoint, not sounding music, which explains the lack of any indications as tomanner of performance. If it was performed later, in an informalsetting, thecantus firmus would probably have been played on an instrument; the textdoes not appearin either Revolutioand could not possibly have been sung inthe retrogradeinversion 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 performanceon theoccasion of Meno Hannekin's death appears at the end of a sixty-four-pagequarto 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 funeralmusic says nothing about composition, this having been accomplished threeyears earlier, only that the two counterpoints were performed by Buxte-hude.39 But how were they performed, and how can they best be performedtoday?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 timesand lack the tonal unity of Buxtehude's other cantatas. Also, the chorale

enceto intervallicidentityfor a goodmusicalreason,suchas the A # introduced nEvolutioI, m. Io;therearealsomodificationst the finalcadence.36 "CapelliScriptaet Programmata,"amburg,Staatsarchiv 710o/802.37Hamburg, taatsarchiv710o/802,p. 119-22.38 "SimeonsAbschied . . zu Bezeugung chuldigenWohlmeinung gesetzetund in zween Contrapunctis abgesungen von / DietericoBuxtehude"Carminalugubria uibusbitumD. Menonis annekenni(Liibeck,n.d.), [p. 64].)39 "Dem Seelig-verstorbenenals seinemhertzlichgeliebtenVaterzu schul- /digenEhrenund Christlichennachruhme n 2. Contrapunctenbgesungen von /DietericoBuxtehuden."Fried- ndfreudenreicheinfarth, itlepage.)


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STUDIES AND REPORTS 559setting lacks the continuo figures which are provided for the Klag-Lied,andinstrumental parts for the Klag-Liedalone have been found in Uppsala.40Fi-nally, Johann Gottfried Walther considered "Mit Fried und Freud" to bekeyboardmusic and the Klag-Lied separatepiece.41 Indeed, the chorale mel-ody in contrary motion works better as the pedal partof an organ setting-especially if it is registered as a bass line rather than a cantus firmus-than asa vocal line. Buxtehude's text underlay is often thought to argue against or-gan performance, but with Bernhard'sPrudentia n mind this does not pre-sent so great a problem. It provided a model not just in compositionaltechnique 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 onlytwo sections, it must have appeared natural to print the second and fourthstanzas with the alternate versions. I think it most likely that Buxtehudeoriginally performed the counterpoints on the organ, as they have most re-cently been published.42Returning to Prudentia,one does not have to look far to find Bernhard'smodel. First there is his own treatise in its full form, "Tractatuscomposition-is augmentatus," and abbreviated, "Ausffihrlicher Bericht vom Gebraucheder Con- und Dissonantien." To each of these is appended a section ondouble counterpoint, which ends with a chapteron four-part nvertible coun-terpoint.43This is divided into three types, corresponding to the first threemovements of Prudentia,(i) "plain,"(2) "in contrary motion"and (3) "in ret-rograde motion," including both simple retrograde and retrograde in con-trarymotion. Bernharddoes not follow his own directions throughout; whilehis first and third movements correspond to examples in the treatise, thesecond does not. In both Bernhard'sand Buxtehude'scompositions, 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 motionwith the partsexchanged as it was in the beginning.44In the treatise the alto

40 Braccia and basso continuo:S Uu, Vokalmusiki handskrift 64:9. To besure,there s amanuscriptopyofthetwocounterpoints ithaddedcontinuofigures(D-brdB, mus.ms. 2680, i) in the handof Bokemeyer,butthiscannotcompete orauthoritywith Buxtehude's wn print.DietrichKilian in factargues hatthe printwasthe exemplarorBokemeyer'sMS("DasVokalwerkDietrichBuxtehudes:Quel-lenstudien u seinerUberlieferung ndVerwendung"Ph.D. diss., FreieUniversititBerlin, 1956), p. 85)-41 "VonseinenvielenundkiinstlichenClavier-Stfickenst ausserdem,aufseinesVatersTod, nebsteinemKlag-LiedegesetztenChoralMit FriedundFreudch ahrdahin,etc. meinesWissenssonstennichts m Druckpublicirtworden."MusikalischesLexikon,p. 23.42 Dietrich Buxtehude,SdmtlicheOrgelwerke,ed. Klaus Beckmann 2 vols.;Wiesbaden, 1971-2), II, pp. 77-80. Beckmannhas included the Klag-Lied s well (p.81);I hopethathe doesnot meanto suggest hatthis too is organmusic.43 Mfiller-Blattau, pp. 128-31; Hilse translation, pp. 176-9.44MarcoScacchi'smotet"Si Deuspronobis" s composedn the sameway. Al-though t wasonlypublishedposthumouslyn 1687 AngeloBerardi,Documentirmo-nici (Bologna, 1687;rprt. Bologna, 1970), pp. 64-70), it is conceivable that Bernhard


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560 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYpartis transposeddifferently,producinga differentset of intervals n theRevolutio.t is clear that Buxtehude ollowedBernhard'smusic rather hanhis treatise.

The Sweelinck reatisemayhaveprovideda modelforBernhardn thisrespect; t gives examplesof doublecounterpoint t the octave n fourways:plain,retrograde,ontrarymotionandretrogradeontrarymotion,4sas wellas four-partnvertiblecounterpoint,althoughnot in retrograder contrarymotion.46 t is even moreclearlythe modelfor the final canonicsectionofBernhard's rudentian two double-canonsettingsof the chorale"Wennwirin h6chstenN6hten seyn,"or moreaccuratelyts Geneva-Psalterredeces-sor,47 he firstpresumablyby Sweelinck, he secondby JohnBull with itscanons n contrarymotion.48This composition reatise hus appears o havebeen consultedby bothBernhard nd Buxtehudeandwarrants closer ook.It consistsof twoparts,the firstheavily ndebted o Zarlino'sLe istitutioniharmonicbe,he secondgo-ing well beyondZarlinoanddealingexclusivelywith doublecounterpoint.The SweelinckandBullcanons ustmentioned reat theendof thefirstpart;the augmentation anon with parallelthirds and the four-part nvertiblecounterpoint rein the secondpart,whichbears he heading"Kurtzedochdeutliche Regulen von denen doppeltenContrapuncten."49wo manu-scriptsof this work survivedat the Staats-und UniversitiitsbibliotheknHamburguntiltheirdestructionn WorldWarII, bothof themonceownedby Jan Adam Reincken,organistat the Catharinenkirchen Hamburgandsuccessor o his teacherHeinrichScheidemann,a Sweelinckstudent. Onemanuscript5384)wascopiedby Reinckenhimself n 1670and was anampli-fied versionof PartI only;the other(5383)was copiedearlier,perhapsbyScheidemann,and containedboth parts. This lattermanuscriptmay alsohave beenowned at onetimeby MatthiasWeckmann,so ho hadsucceededhis teacher acobPraetorius, lso a Sweelinck tudent,and was a close friendof ChristophBernhard.A thirdmanuscript, ontaining nly PartI, still ex-mighthaveseenit in manuscript;cacchihadcorresponded ithSchfitz ustprior oBernhard's rrival n Dresden n 1649,andBernhard wned a copyof Scacchi'sCri-brummusicum: f. Hans Joachim Moser,Heinrich chiitz:His LifeandWork, ransl. CarlF. 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 twosets of ornamented arallel hirds.47 "Leve e cueur,ouvrel'aureille,"he metricalversionof the Ten Command-ments, first published 1545. See Pierre Pidoux, Lepsautierhuguenot u XVIe sidcle 2vols.; Basel, 1962), II, p. 201.48 Sweelinck,Werken,X, pp. 83, 84.49Sweelinck,Werken, , p. 86.50 There was a note signed "M.W."on p. 43 (Gehrmann,"Einleitung"oSweelinck,Werken, , p. ii). Gehrmann onsideredWeckmanno be the copyistoftheMS, butthiswas basedonthemistakenassumptionhathe wasalso hecopyistofLuneburg,Ratsbucherei,MS KN 206 (cf. Birbel Roth, "ZurEchtheitsfrage erMatthiasWeckmannzugeschriebenen lavierwerkehneCantus irmus,"Actamusi-cologica,XXXVI (1964), pp. 34-5)-


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STUDIESAND REPORTS 561ists in Berlin,51 and a fourth, in Vienna, has thus far been inaccessible tome.52Werner Braun has noted that two of Johann Theile's treatises on doublecounterpoint 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'sauthorship on Part II must indeed be questioned-the manuscript traditionleaves no doubt that it is an independent treatise-I do not believe thatTheile was capable of writing it at this early date. He himself provides thebest evidence in his masses, published in I673. While they make extensiveuse of invertible counterpoint in two and three parts, there is none in fourparts, and the music often has the characterof a student's contrapuntalexer-cise. That he was not able to compete with Buxtehude in a contrapuntalchorale setting is evident from the Missabrevis V superNun kommderHeydenHeylandfor four voices. The Christe and Kyrie II are in two-part invertiblecounterpoint; the cantus firmus moves from alto to bass while the counter-melody moves from bass to soprano. But the other parts are different, andhence much easier to compose. Buxtehude's "Mit Fried und Freud," on theother hand, is not just a contrapuntal tourdeforce; it is a highly successfulwork of art. Theile had nothing to teach Buxtehude about counterpoint ini673, 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. ThusBernhard, 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 beensubstantiatedby Christoph Wolff'sidentification of Reincken and Buxtehudein 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;thecoverof the MS is stamped"Burchardus ram-manAnno I657."Gehrmann'sdition s a conflation f thesethreeMSS.52 Minoritenkonvent, Klosterbibliothek und Archiv, codex 714; cf. Friedrich W.Riedel, Das Musikarchivm MinoritenkonventKassel, 1963), p. 72.s3 WernerBraun,"ZweiQuellenffirChristophBernhards ndJohannTheilesSatzlehren,"DieMusikforschung,XI (1968), pp. 460-2. The MSS in question areBdsmus. ms. theor.913:"TheilensUnterricht on einigengedoppeltenContrapunctenundderenGebrauch"handof HeinrichBokemeyer)ndmus.ms.theor.917, part2,"Joh. Theilens ... Contrapuncts-Praecepta 1690" (hand of Johann Gottfried Wal-ther).There is yet anotherMS for PartII, underthe title "KurtzedochdeutlicheRegulnvon den doppeltenContrapuncten."t is transmittedanonymouslyn a vol-ume which also containsJohannKuhnau'sFundamentaompositionisBdsmus. ms.autogr.Kuhnau,Johann:FundamentaCompositionis).54 Wolff'sarticle s forthcoming, ndI amgrateful o him for havingsharedhisworkwithmebefore tspublication.Thepaintinghasbeenreproducednpart color)in3ooJabreOpernHamburg,d. HamburgStaatsoper,Museum dirHamburgischeGeschichteund Verein-und Westbank(Hamburg,1977),p. 43, andin its entirety(blackand white) in Beitrdge ur deutschen olks-undAltertumskunde, VII (1978), plate23, accompanying discussionof thepaintingby GiselaJaacks," 'HiuslicheMusik-szene'vonJohannesVoorhout:Zu einemneu erworberenGemildeimMuseum Uir


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562 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYfigure, a man in an elegant brocadedressing gown seated at the harpsichord,is easily identifiable as Reincken by comparison with an existing portrait. Tohis right is a younger man who is holding a canon with the inscription "Inhon: dit: Buxtehude: et Joh: Adam Reink: fratres" and a Latin text fromPsalm i33: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwelltogether 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 beBuxtehude. Wolff assumes Reincken to be the composer of the canon on thebasis of his peculiar way of writing the C clef. To Reincken's left is a gambaplayer whom Wolff suggests to be Theile; he had earned his living by singingand gamba playing during his student days in Leipzig.5s Weckmann andBernhardcould not have been in this painting;Weckmannhad died in Febru-ary, 1674, and soon afterwards Bernhard had returned to Dresden.Thus there appearsto have been a coterie of musiciansactive in Hamburgand 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 "fatherof the contrapuntists"56hewas actually the youngest member of the group. They were all relatedto oneanother in a variety of ways. Buxtehude and Reincken helped finance thepublication of Theile's masses, and Bernhard wrote the foreword.57 Rein-cken and Weckmann had family ties in Libeck,ss58nd Buxtehude later com-posed the music on the occasion of Reincken's second marriage in 1685.59Weckmann, Bernhard and Theile were all students of Schitz; Weckmannand Reincken were both students of Sweelinck pupils and organists in Ham-burg churches. Buxtehude was familiar with Bernhard'sPrudentia within aHamburgischenGeschichte,"pp. 56-9. It alsoappearson the coverof TheMusicalTimes fJune, 1979, llustratingmy article"Buxtehude'sOrganMusic:DramaWith-out Words," TheMusicalTimes,CXX ('979), PP- 517-21.ss "Fernerwarenochbey unsermTheilezu merken,dasser sichaufder hohenSchulezu Leipzig, eigen handigemBerichtenach,mit derViol da Gambaund mitdem Singen,bey Vornehmenvom Adel sehr beliebtgemacht,und dadurch einenUnterhalt eichlichhat habenkonnen." ohannMattheson,GrundlageinerEhrenpforte(Hamburg, 1740; rprt. ed. Max Schneider, Berlin, x9xo), p. 369.56 Jacob Adlung, Anleitungzu dermusikalischenelahrtheitErfurt, 1758; facsimileed. Hans Joachim Moser, Kassel, 1953), P. 184.s7See Mackey,pp. 299-309, forfacsimiles ndtranslations ftheprefatorymate-rial.

58 Weckmann ad marriedReginaBeuteof Lubeck n 1648;Reincken'sdaughterMargaretheatermarriedher nephew,AndreasKniller(cf. JohannHenningsandWilhelm Stahl, Musikgeschichteiibecks,Band I: WeltlicheMusik(2 vols., Kassel, 1951-2), pp. 81-2). His brotherGottfriedKnillerpaintedReincken's ortrait eforeleavingfor England n 1675;this painting s also at the Museumfor HamburgischeGe-schichte,andwas the one used to identifyReincken n the Voorhoutpainting cf.Jaacks,p. 58).59Liselotte Kruger, Die hamburgischeMusikorganisationm XVII. Jahrhundert(Strassburg, 933),P. 164,n. 539.The musicwas at D-brd Hs but wasdestroyedn'945.


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STUDIES AND REPORTS 563short time of its publication.60 Reincken and Theile collaborated in thefounding of the Hamburg opera.All five of these men were involved in some way with learned counter-point duringthe years that Buxtehude was composing these works. BernhardcomposedPrudentia n 1669, composed funeral music in stileantico for Schitzat his request in I67061 and in 1673 praised Theile's masses for their oldstyle. Theile was composing those masses and perhapsalso teaching counter-point, although not to Buxtehude. Reincken rewrote the first part of theSweelinck treatise in 1670 and composed the canon in the painting. Weck-mann appearsto have been in poor health during these years,62 but he mayhave been the owner of Hamburg 5383 at this time and his organ pieces showa great interest in canon.63 But perhaps the most important fact about thisgroup of composers interested in esoteric counterpoint is that they were atthe same time the leaders of new music in northern Germany. Weckmannand Bernhard ed the Collegiummusicum,Reinckenwas a founder of the Ham-burg opera, Theile composed the first opera for it, and Buxtehude changedthe Libeck Abendmusikeno a much more dramaticformat, 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,Weckmannand 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 extendedleave from his first job in Arnstadt. It would be tempting to suggest that Bachderived his interest in esoteric counterpoint from these contacts, but that isvery 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 dideventually reach Bach, however, through a circuitous route which led fromTheile 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 noevidence that he composed any works in learned counterpoint after 1674, theyear Weckmann died and Bernhard left Hamburg. One organ piece, "Ichdankdir schon durch deinen Sohn"(BuxWV 195)bearsstrong suggestions ofstile anticoand may have been composed at about this time. The imprint of

60 This workmust have arousedconsiderablenterestamongmusicians;morethan60 years aterWaltherwroteof it:"Sein eutschesManuscriptonderCompositionbesitzetder jetzigeHochffirstl.Sachsen-GothischeCapell-Meister,Herr GottfriedHeinrichStilzel im Original; ie Copien berdavonsind in vielerHinden"(Musi-kalisches exikon,pp. 88-9).61 Mattheson, Grundlage inerEhrenpforte, . 323.62Gerhard Ilgner, MatthiasWeckmann(Wolfenbiittel-Berlin, 1939), p. 58.63His choralevariations n "Olux beata rinitas" nd"Es st dasHeil uns kom-menher" ncludeseveralclosecanonsagainst he cantus irmus; ee MatthiasWeck-mann,Gesammelteerke, d. GerhardIlgner, Das Erbe deutscherMusik;ZweiteReihe: Schleswig-Holstein und Hansestidte, 4 (Leipzig, 1942), Pp. 89, 91, o101, 105,1o7-


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564 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL OCIETYhis studiesin learnedcounterpoint an be foundin much of his music;al-thoughcanonwas not an important lementof his style, invertiblecounter-point was, and he often extendedthe numberof voices in a contrapuntalfabricby the additionof parallelhirds,sixthsortenths. Buthe incorporatedthesetechniquesnto a musicallanguagewhichwasthoroughlytilemoderno.YaleUniversity

Documents

831305 - Dietrich Buxtehude's Studies in Learned Counterpoint