RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sacred Music
yield to the ambitious madrigal style of the modern
harmonized melody. On the border line between
the old and the new conception stand
4. Devel- tne great composers Hans Leo Hassler
.°pn^nL™ (1564-1612) and Johann Eccard (1553-
1611); also Sethus Calvisius (1556-
tbe Modern Hymn Tune.
'1615), Melchior Vulpius (d. 1615), Scandellus (1517-80), Joachim a Burgck (1541- 1610), Jakob Meiland (1542-77), David Scheidemann (c. 1585, in Hamburg), Le Maistre, Dulichius, Johann Stobaus, Demantius, and others. They still stand upon the art of the Netherland masters; Eccard was a pupil of the great Lassus; but the congregational tune comes to its full rights. In Luther's time it was the leader in the dancing round of voices, where " one sings aloud a proper tune, beside which three, four, or five other voices likewise play round about, as it were with shouting; and leap, and with all sorts of sound wonderfully grace and adorn the same, and lead as it were a heavenly dancing procession, encountering one another cordially, and somehow caressing and lovingly embracing each other " (Luther in Encomion musices). It now becomes all-prevailing. The charming work of the polyphonic hymn yields to the merely harmonized four-voiced choral. Soon the choir's place is taken by the organ; and the four- voiced choral is succeeded by the homophonic song of the congregation with organ accompaniment. For the most part, the polyphonic hymn, as it still survives, is artistic song by the choir.
The tendency to emphasize distinctive expression, which came into vogue in Italy toward the end of the sixteenth century and led to the monodic style, had its influence very early upon the German Evangelical church music.
5. New Men like R0Senmuller (1610-84), Mi- Thfclnta'ta chael Pratorius (1571-1621), and above
and the a^» ^e greatest German harmonist be- Oratorio. ^ore Bach, Heinrich Schiitz (1585- 1672), transplanted the Italian forms of the church concerto to Germany. In this way church music acquired the means for an animated musical interpretation of the divine word, such as was not achieved by the purely polyphonic motet. The barriers of the old church tones are broken through; the harmony becomes closer, fuller, more characteristic; the melody more pliant and expressive; while the harmony is reinforced by the accompaniment of distinct instruments (trombones, violins). Especially the arioso and the recitative enabled the composer to enliven dramatically the musical interpretation of the sacred text; to round out melodiously the various indicated moods; to illustrate musically the narrative events, and define musically the persons introduced. Church music, which had formerly elected to present to the congregation the word of God in the sumptuously elaborated monstrance of artistic polyphonic composition, comes to be more and more the independent interpreter of that word, by combining, in the way of arias and recitative, the motets and the polyphonic hymn into a larger comprehensive unity. The " motet " thus expands into the " spiritual dialogue " (Andreas Hammerschmidt, 1612-75); into the "spiritual conversation concerning the Gospel " for the
day (Johann Rudolf Ahle, 1625-73; Wolfgang Briegel, 1626-1712); then into the "cantata," which in turn develops from a simple form into richer and richer complexity (Johann Kuhnau, 1667-1722; Johann Philipp Krieger, 1649-1725; Johann Krieger, 1652-1735; Dietrich Buxtehude, 1637-1707; Johann Christoph Bach, 1642-1703; Johann Michael Bach, 1649-1693; Georg Philipp Tclemann, 1681-1767; Reinhard Keiser, 1674- 1739; Gottfried Stolzel, 1690-1749, and others); and becomes complete in the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach (q.v.), the greatest harmonist of the Evangelical church. In this case the cantata has become divine service within the divine service, transcending the bounds of the liturgy. In connection with the cantata in its final manifestation, Evangelical church music steps outside the church door, so to speak, and as spiritual music, in the form of the oratorio, becomes a powerful witness of the Gospel before people who avoid that witness when uttered in God's house. Upon the broad stream of a powerful, robustly expansive music, which for all its musical profundity continues genuinely popular, Bach's greatest contemporary, Georg Friedrich Handel (q.v.), displays to the eye of the soul the story of divine revelation in his Biblical oratorios; his Messiah is the Gospel in monumental tone-speech, a most powerful heralding of the Gospel, a monumental anthem. Together with its intimate and lively relation to the congregational hymn, Bach's church music is characterized by its close union with the instrument of Evangelical worship, the organ. As he fructifies organ art (see Organ) through the congregational hymn, and thus devotes the same to the Church, adapting it to the religious mood, likewise his vocal compositions that are intended for the divine service are conceived and created out of the spirit of the organ. Handel, too, had his start on the organ bench, and from the organ received the polyphonic spirit which imparts colossal volume and power to his resounding choruses. But Bach's music is directly born of the organ, and for that very reason, the same as through the congregational hymn, it is inseparably connected with the divine service.
There came the time which no longer understood
either of these witnesses, for the primal notes of the
Gospel had themselves become strange.
6. The What came to be " church music "
Period of jn divjne service in the rationalistic Rationalism peri0(jj though sincerely intended Nineteenth music anc* technically " figural music,"
Century. was *n ^act but a feeble imitation of the contemporary stage or concert music. Very capable masters devoted their best strength to the oratorio (Karl Heinrich Graun, 1701- 1759; Friedrich Schneider, 1786-1853; Bernhard Klein, 1793-1832; Karl Loewe, 1796-1869; Ludwig Spohr, 1784-1859), and thus attested, in their way, the inexhaustible power and glory of the divinely revealed word; although their tone-language stood remote from that of a Handel. It was Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47) who in 1829 roused Bach's Passion Music from the sleep of a hundred years, and thereby recalled the Evangelical church of Germany to its greatest musical wit-
Sacred Music