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German sacred music by Knüpfer, Schelle, Kuhnau and Eberlin

2015; Oxford University Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/em/cav061

1741-7260

Markus Rathey,

Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

The second half of the 17th century was a time of experimentation in German sacred music. Composers of sacred concertos explored different combinations of solo voices, idiomatic instrumental parts, and in particular experimented with different combinations of texts: biblical dicta, chorale stanzas and free poetry. The two editions here under review—Stephen Rose’s edition of Leipzig church music by the cantors Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle and Johann Kuhnau; and Michael Wilhelm Nordbakke’s edition of the sacred vocal works of Daniel Eberlin—provide new insights into this fascinating period of music history. As Stephen Rose points out in the preface to this excellent collection of pieces from the second half of the 17th century, Leipzig was a hotbed for some of these developments long before Johann Sebastian Bach came to the city in 1723. Unfortunately, most of the innovative church music from the time was not printed and a lot of the manuscripts were lost. The inventories of Leipzig’s St Thomas School reflect the wealth of compositions but also show the immense losses. Fortunately, some pieces have survived in collections outside of Leipzig. For instance, the collection of the Jacobi Kirche in Grimma (now in Dresden), the Bokemeyer collection (now in Berlin) and a fairly unknown collection compiled by the English apothecary and amateur musician James Sherard (1666–1738), which is now housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Rose briefly outlines in his preface the life of Sherard and suggests how the material might have come into his possession. Part of Sherard’s large collection of music prints and manuscripts are works of German provenance in manuscript. The works range from instrumental music by Dieterich Buxtehude to vocal pieces by Samuel Capricornus and Johann Philipp Krieger to the eight compositions by Leipzig composers that are represented here.