Four weeks ago, I featured a collection from our favorite choir: Dresdner Keuzchor: Legendary recordings. Most of the recordings in that collection are Sacred choral works from the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque periods, by Lutheran composers like Heinrich Schütz, Johann Schein, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Sebastian Bach and even Martin Luther. More importantly, seven of the ten disks in this collection were filled with recordings of music that was composed for use in the context of Lutheran Worship, and were recorded by a choir that regularly sings them in the context of worship. I also posted definitions of the various periods in Classical Music. If you are unfamiliar with these periods, a review may be helpful. Last week, I featured a collection from one of those composers, the Psalmen Davids, by Heinrich Schütz.
This week, I am again returning to one of the composers featured in that initial collection: Johann Hermann Schein.
The second of "the three great S'es" of the German Baroque that I have introduced in past weeks, Schein, like his contemporary, Heinrich Schütz, was a prolific and influential composer of liturgical music for the Lutheran Church. Schein is considered to be the more polished composer of the three. His published sacred works number on the order of 400, including an entire hymnal in 1627, titled Cantional. This hymnal was unique in that it arranged its approximately 200 hymns in four-part harmony, with the soprano part carrying the melody -- following what had apparently become standard Lutheran worship practice. This is the way most hymnbooks are arranged today, even though congregations don't sing in parts anymore.
Like Johann Sebastion Bach who followed him almost a century later, Schein was Cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig. Also like Bach -- yet, unlike Schütz -- Schein did not write exclusively for the Church in Germany. He also wrote secular music for social gatherings. Unlike modern composers, who seem to prefer minimizing or eliminating any distinction between secular and sacred composition, the distinction between Schein's sacred and secular compositions has been described as stark. Composed to carry the meaning of Biblical texts and the Church's theology, his sacred compositions were nuanced and refined. In contrast, the comparatively banal nature of secularity required compositions reflective only of tedious simplicity. It was only entertainment, after all, not Divine Worship -- and like most entertainment, it generally only functioned as background for other activities which were the true object of the gathering (like dancing). Though Schein's secular compositions varied in their degrees of "simplicity" (from simple drinking songs to revolutionary orchestral pieces for high-society), the contrast generally found between his secular and sacred compositions are reflective of a very potent fact: as such compositions are written to carry meaning of an entirely and profoundly different nature, one should expect them to sound much different.
In my opinion, today's composers of Church music would do well to observe the distinctions generally found in Schein's body of work, as well. Church music that merely duplicates the pervasive background noise that accompanies us everywhere we go (like the car, the airplane, the subway station, the home, the workplace, the department store, the grocery store, the restaurant, the elevator ...everywhere), is simply not distinguished enough to meaningfully carry the weight of Scripture teaching and the distinctiveness of our Lutheran Confession (although, for aconfessional churches of weak theology, it may be just fine...).
The collection pictured above, entitled Psalmen Davids, is a short collection of some of Johann Schein's settings of the Psalms (Pss. 150, 39, 128, 103, 33, 13, 98, 20, 116, and 23), various motets, and a setting of the Te Deum, all composed for occasions, such as weddings, funerals, and the like. It is conducted by Roland Wilson, an expert in early Baroque music, and is performed by La Capella Ducale and Musica Fiata Köln, which specialize in the techniques and instrumentation of the early Baroque repertoire. This is very clear recording of some of Schein's highly polished Lutheran compositions.
Three weeks ago, I featured a collection from our favorite choir: Dresdner Keuzchor: Legendary recordings. Most of the recordings in that collection are Sacred choral works from the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque periods, by Lutheran composers like Heinrich Schütz, Johann Schein, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Sebastian Bach and even Martin Luther. More importantly, seven of the ten disks in this collection were filled with recordings of music that was composed for use in the context of Lutheran Worship, and were recorded by a choir that regularly sings them in the context of worship. I also posted definitions of the various periods in Classical Music. If you are unfamiliar with these periods, a review may be helpful.
Anyway, this week, I am returning to one of the composers featured in that collection: Heinrich Schütz.
Heinrich Schütz was a very important early-Baroque composer, and is considered to be the greatest German composer second to Johann Sebastian Bach. But I'll bet you have never heard of him. How can it be that a composer of such stature – second in line to Bach, and one whom Bach himself looked to for inspiration – is generally unknown? Why is it that the average American is denied popular access to his works, not to mention his name, either on the radio or in the schools – or at the local music store! – and is instead left to stumble upon this compositional goldmine on his own?
As he quickly became (and has remained) our favorite composer, Mrs. Finkelstein and I wondered about this when we stumbled upon him shortly after our wedding; having also just become bona fide Lutherans, we were searching for wholesome Lutheran music with which to fill our minds and our home. The answer: Heinrich Schütz composed almost exclusively for the Lutheran Church in Germany (and Denmark) during the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy. Except for a single collection of Renaissance madrigals, nothing of his can be played or discussed without also confronting the listener with overt Christianity. So paranoid and suspicious of Christianity has society become, that even the influential high-art of Christians from the pinnacle of Western Civilization is censured. If it were not for the "super-novas" of the Fine Arts, who simply cannot be ignored – i.e., Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Cranach, Dürer, and even Rembrandt – Christian art would be shunted aside and forgotten. And how many pop-art-dependent Christians today would be all the happier for it!
Heinrich Schütz studied at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice under none other than Giovanni Gabrieli, who, along with his father Andreas, was of prime influence in the development of western music following the Renaissance, particularly in the development of antiphonal and polychoral music. This was the influence that Schütz brought back to Germany and upper Europe, and which he masterfully wedded with the German language, the purest manifestation of which, for him, was Martin Luther's translation of the the Bible.
Heinrich Schütz's Psalmen Davids, the collection featured above, was published collectively in 1619, six years after completing his studies with Gabrieli. It is the finest example of Italian influenced polychoral composition produced by him, and was instrumental in the development and refinement of German compositions moving into the Baroque period. Dresdner Keuzchor: Legendary recordings, the collection I featured three weeks ago, included one full disk devoted to the Psalmen Davids, but this single disk does not contain the full cycle of Psalms from Schütz's published collection. Rather, the recording pictured above, conducted by Frieder Bernius, and performed by the Kammerchor Stuttgart and Musica Fiata Köln, is the only complete collection of all 26 Psalms available. Performed by experts in early music, the execution is full, precise and envigorating. If one has not heard Schütz's Psalmen Davids, they may well wonder if they know what catholicity sounds like! This is music for the Church – BIG and Deep.
Last week, I featured an Oratorio composed by Franz Josef Haydn: The Creation. The text of this work is a directly Scriptural account of the Creation story, taken from the words of Genesis and Psalms, and following Milton's Paradise Lost in the manner in which the story is told. Interestingly, and typical of works from the Classical period, Haydn incorporates musical devices to reinforce the Creation account with observations of Natural Law. Not only on the basis of it's texts, or the superb artistic quality of its composition and performance, this work ought to be appreciated by true Christians specifically on the basis of the fact that it reverently affirms for those who hear it what the Scriptures say: that the God of Creation is real, that His Creation testifies of Him, and that the Creation account found in Special Revelation is the true account given to us by this Creator.
This week, I offer something similar, but different. Over fifty years prior to Haydn's The Creation, as the Baroque period was drawing to a close and burgeoning Enlightenment ideas were beginning to move artistic expression into the Classical period, an elderly French composer named Jean-Féry Rebel wrote a remarkable Suite for Orchestra entitled, Les Elémens – or, The Elements. Unlike Haydn's oratorio, this is not a choral work, but an orchestral work of distinctly Baroque composition and instrumentation, which makes use of these elements to tell the story of Creation. In addition, being primarily influenced by French Enlightment ideas, Rebel, unlike Haydn, did not even acknowledge which "god" was responsible for the Creation, but drew purely upon Natural Law as the inspiration for his work. The result is a late-Baroque orchestral work which expresses underlying Enlightenment ideas – which acknowledge a Creator, or an Intelligent Designer, on the basis of what Creation itself testifies. And testify it does, as the Scriptures clearly state (and I repeat from last week):For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things... (Rom. 1:18-23).
A particularly unique aspect of this work is the opening movement, entitled Le Cahos. This musical picture of chaos precedes the creative work of God, which in terms of Natural Law, is that event which, by the hand of a Divine architect and engineer, brought all things into being and set them in motion according the the Laws of Nature. That is, creation brought order to non-order, something which cannot happen spontaneously, nor evolve over time (all things tending to a state of greater disorder over time). Pre-creation, being the absence of order, could only be conceived of as chaos. And so the opening movement is titled "Chaos" (just as it is in Haydn's The Creation). The way that Rebel pictures chaos is two centuries ahead of his time:After all the songs of house-trained birds, cats and frogs, all the battles fought according to the Queensberry rules, all the storms in teacups and manageably proportioned stage-earthquakes, with which late-Baroque composers threw their audiences into – it should be noted – commensurate states of astonishment, Jean-Féry Rebel's "cahos" from Les Elémens takes one's breath away, even today.
Goebel, R. (1995). Rebel: Les Elémens, Gluck: Alessandro & Telemann: Septet. Hamburg: Deutsche Grammophon. (Liner notes, pg. 3).
Indeed, Rebel's Les Cahos, is taken straight from the pages of 20th Century Barbarism, and stands as an example of what dissonance truly represents: chaos, disorder, and uncertainty. And this is true not only of art, but in life from which art draws its inspiration and of which it is merely a shadowy image. God be praised for the miracle of Creation, for the power of His Word which, by its very speaking, brought order to chaos, brought out of nothing the existence of a fully functioning and mature Universe; which alone is able to give life to spiritually dead souls, to reconcile and restore harmony to man's relationship with God, to fill him with a certainty and conviction that chases away the dissonance of doubt, and to endow him confidence in his purpose -- to glorify God.
Last week, I featured a collection from our favorite choir: Dresdner Keuzchor: Legendary recordings. Most of the recordings in that collection are from the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque periods, and fall in the Sacred genre. More importantly, seven of the ten disks in this collection were filled with recordings of music that was composed for use in the context of Lutheran Worship, and were recorded by a choir that regularly sings them in the context of worship. I also posted definitions of the various periods in Classical Music. If you are unfamiliar with these periods, a review may be helpful.
Anyway, this week, I am featuring a Sacred Choral piece from the Classical period: The Creation, by Franz Josef Haydn. Though his name sounds German, Haydn was an Austrian, a Roman Catholic, and a prolific composer in the era of the Enlightenment. Not known principally as a composer of the Sacred genre, he composed this work late in life – as if, it strikes me, he was trying to do something good for God before he died (perhaps he thought he could earn his way into heaven...). It is quite good. While this work was originally composed by Haydn in German, the late Robert Shaw, a highly respected conductor of seminal importance in the revival of choral repertoire in America, translated the work into English. This recording is considered to be a definitive English-language performance.
Perhaps you've noticed that I made use of the term “performance” in reference to a Sacred work. Why the word "performance" and not "worship?" This is a troubling fact that I wanted to point out. Its use is necessary because, even though the majority of works in the Sacred genre were intended for use in the context of the Divine Service, worshipers no longer sing them; rather, performers, obsessed with the genuine artistic quality and musical integrity of these Sacred choral works, are the ones who continue to sing them and to keep them alive – and even these secular performers are quick to admit how well these musical compositions complement their lyrical content. It is a sad fact, in my opinion, that we Christians need to take our lessons in this regard from such performers, many of whom may likely be unbelievers, rather than have the privilege of realizing it for ourselves in our own worship. Where has the excellence gone?
In relation to this, I mentioned above that this particular work was from the Classical period. Last week, I defined this period as that "which roughly corresponds with the period of the Enlightenment, and like the Enlightenment is a reaction against religious and emotional themes, and tends to be expressive of an intellectually inspired utopianism, particularly of human dominance over nature." So what is a "Sacred work" in a period that exists partially in reaction against religion?
First, unlike nearly all Sacred works of the Baroque and Renaissance periods, many sacred works of the Classical period were meant to present religious texts to secular audiences in the context of the concert hall, not the Divine Service. Many settings of the Mass were composed during this period for this purpose, and such is true in the case of Haydn's The Creation. This doesn't mean, however, that all such works were stripped of religious value and presented merely as art or entertainment – and this is certainly not the case in Haydn's work. The manuscript of this work is littered with notes to the musicians, ascribing all praise and glory to God and reminding them of Whom they represent as this piece is "performed"; and throughout the remainder of his life, Haydn was quick to point to this work as his testimony of God's work as he publicly gave credit to God on many occasions and endeavored to direct the attention of his audiences heavenward.
Second, while the texts of this work come directly from Genesis and Psalms, following the order of their presentation in the account of Creation from Book VII of Milton's Paradise Lost, the composition is measured in a way that does not deliberately excite religious sentiments. This is typical of Enlightenment perspectives which sought to divorce human sentiment from matters of truth – to wisely avoid subjective criteria in the assessment of the objective. Instead, the composition serves to accentuate the coherence of revealed religious truth with objective observations of Natural Law. The product of human emotion it generates results from the affirmation this manifest coherence produces.
Indeed, as an example of this, during the pre-concert lecture of a recent performance of this piece that Mrs. Finkelstein and I attended, the lecturer – a Roman Catholic priest and Professor of Music at a local Catholic University – emphasized Haydn's regard for and use of Natural Law in his composition of The Creation. In the Aria, Rolling in Foaming Billows, Haydn makes use one of the most powerful images of God conceived in the Enlightenment mind: that of an Intelligent Designer, of a "divine clockmaker," whose pendulum is the certain rhythms of the massive and mysterious ocean. Haydn found great comfort in this image – the testimony of God and of His creative dominion found in Nature – and creates the musical image of the surf rhythmically building and crashing against the shore.
Though we are divided on several vitally important points of doctrine (such as the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, and the authority of Scripture), we Lutherans do share with the Romans a recognition of the validity of Natural Law (derived from General Revelation). Though it is distinct from Divine Law (spoken in Special Revelation), Natural Law is cited in Scripture as that which leaves mankind without excuse regarding the existence of God and of His power and dominion over all creation:For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things... (Rom. 1:18-23).
General Revelation, while sufficient to show the existence, power, and perfection of God, while sufficient to suggest that humans are sinners and are thus indebted to God, is insufficient to show the true depth of man's depravity and helplessness before a perfectly righteous Judge, and does not even begin to suggest the only certain remedy of our terminal condition before God: the Gospel of Jesus Christ – that Jesus Christ, as True Man and True God, lived perfectly under God's Law, and while deserving no punishment, yet took upon Himself the sin of mankind, paid the penalty of man's sin on the Cross, and by His resurrection now promises that through faith our sins are forgiven and that we bear His perfect righteousness before God. General Revelation does not communicate this. Rather, only Special Revelation, the revelation of God's full message to Man in the Holy Scriptures, communicates to us the reality of our desperate condition and the Good News of the Gospel.
While some would be quick (and quite correct) to point out that, true to Enlightenment ideals, the use of Natural Law can be used to affirm Christianity merely on the strength of human intellect (which makes Scripture the servant of human reason, rather than reason that of Scripture), I would suggest that works such as this can be, and ought to be, appreciated by true Christians not only on the basis of it's texts, not only on the superb artistic quality of its composition and performance, but specifically in the fact that it reverently affirms for those who hear it what the Scriptures say: that the God of Creation is real, that His Creation testifies of this fact, and that the Creation account found in Special Revelation is the account of this Creator, Whose Creation testifies of Him.
For those who may not know, "Classical Music" (along with other Fine Arts of the Western Tradition) is generally divided into distinct periods:-- the Renaissance, which, corresponding in time to the revival of Art, Music, Architecture and Education in Western Civilization that goes by the same name (which not coincidentally corresponds with the period of the Reformation, as well), often strikes me as "optimistically medieval" – grandiose and confident in a way that shows that the Church was the dominant influence in Western culture at that time;
-- the Baroque, in which matured artistic expression, following their development in the previous Renaissance period, excelled at expressing elements of the whole of life (intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) and were generally guided by the revolutionary themes of humanism and the Reformation;
-- the Classical, which roughly corresponds with the period of the Enlightenment, and like the Enlightenment is a reaction against religious and emotional themes, and tends to be expressive of an intellectually inspired utopianism, particularly of human dominance over nature;
-- the Romantic, which is a reaction against the spartan intellectualism of the Classical period in favor of human emotional life and the dominance of nature over man, and which seems to welcome a form of religious sentimentality at times; and finally,
-- the 20th Century, which is typified by a convulsive struggle between intellect and emotion, frequently in the same dissonant work of art, and which seems to search for, or, more often the case these days, find its foundation in some nebulous and elusive form of spirituality.
These are my general definitions/descriptions of these periods, which professional Classicists may find wanting, but which jibe with my experience, study and interpretation. In addition, it should be noted that within these periods are various genres, like sacred, secular, choral, orchestral, etc.
My family's favorite pieces invariably come from the Sacred Choral works of the late Renaissance and Baroque periods, especially those of the German composers (who in this genre wrote Liturgical music and hymnody almost exclusively for the Lutheran church). After many years of researching and collecting, we have also settled upon our favorite choir: the Dresdner Kreuzchor – particularly under the direction of Rudolph Mauersberger and Martin Flämig. This was the combination that produced the legendary German tenor, Peter Schreier, who joined the Kreuzchor as a boy in 1945. He is also our favorite tenor of all time...
The Dresdner Kreuzchor is the boy's choir of the Church of the Holy Cross in Dresden, Germany (which is right across the Elbe River from the famed Frauenkirche). It is one of the oldest boys choirs in the world, having a continuous 700 year history. For many years, under the leadership of Maestro Mauersberger (1930-1971), this choir, unlike all other famous boy's choirs, focused almost exclusively on the repertoire of Lutheran worship -- and it shows. Their recordings possess the quality of worship, having come from those who regularly produce music in and for the context of divine worship, and who seem to understand and personally connect with what they are singing. This is in contrast with recordings of worship music produced by professional performers, who regularly produce music purely for the delight of audiences, who may or may not understand or appreciate the texts they sing. As a result, while not technically perfect in all areas of execution, our family has nevertheless come to love the recordings of this choir.
Anyway, desiring to share with everyone the treasures of Lutheran liturgical music and hymnody, I highly recommend the collection pictured at the head of this blog entry: Dresdner Keuzchor: Legendary recordings. A full ten-disk collection for a mere €35.10, it's a steal.
The first two disks are collections from Heinrich Schütz (Psalmen Davids and Kleine geistliche Konzerte), the third is Johann Schein's Israelsbrünnlein, the fourth is Samuel Scheidt's Concertus Sacri, and the fifth and sixth CD's contain four Lutheran Masses by J.S. Bach. The first six CD's of this collection all contain music composed for use in the context of Lutheran worship. The seventh CD is a collection of motets by Sweelinck, Kuhnau, Gabrieli, and Schein, while the eighth disk is a collection of Chorals of the Lutheran Age, all by Martin Luther and Johann Walter. The ninth disk is a collection of German folk music, under the direction of Rudolf Mauersberger, and the tenth is a collection of choral music from the Romantic era.
For what it is worth, I highly recommend this collection.
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