The path which German religious music was destined to follow in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, under the guidance of the new ideas of expression, was plainly indicated when Heinrich Schütz, the greatest German composer of the seventeenth century, and the worthy forerunner of Bach and Händel, wrote his “histories” and “sacred symphonies.” Born in 1585, he came under the inspiring instruction of G. Gabrieli in Venice in 1609, and on a second visit to Italy in 1628 he became still more imbued with the dominant tendencies of the age. He was appointed chapel-master at the court of the Elector of Saxony at Dresden in 1615, and held this position, with a few brief interruptions, until his death in 1672. He was a musician of the most solid attainments, and although living in a transition period in the history of music, he was cautious and respectful in his attitude toward both the methods which were at that time in conflict, accepting the new discoveries in dramatic expression as supplementary, not antagonistic, to the old ideal of devotional music. In his psalms he employed contrasting and combining choral [278] masses, reinforced by a band of instruments. In the Symphoniae sacrae are songs for one or more solo voices, with instrumental obligato, in which the declamatory recitative style is employed with varied and appropriate effect. In his dramatic religious works, the “Resurrection,” the “Seven Words of the Redeemer upon the Cross,” the “Conversion of Saul,” and the Passions after the four evangelists, Schütz uses the vocal solo, the instrumental accompaniment, and the dramatic chorus in a tentative manner, attaining at times striking effects of definite expression quite in accordance with modern ideas, while anon he falls back upon the strict impersonal method identified with the ancient Plain Song and sixteenth-century motet. Most advanced in style and rich in expression is the “Seven Words.” A feature characteristic of the rising school of German Passion music is the imagined presence of Christian believers, giving utterance in chorus to the emotions aroused by the contemplation of the atoning act. In the “Seven Words” the utterances of Jesus and the other separate personages are given in arioso recitative, rising at times to pronounced melody. The tone of the whole work is fervent, elevated, and churchly. The evangelist and all the persons except Christ sing to an organ bass,—the words of the Saviour are accompanied by the ethereal tones of stringed instruments, perhaps intended as an emblematic equivalent to the aureole in religious paintings. In Schütz’s settings of the Passion, although they belong to the later years of his life, he returns to the primitive form, in which the parts of the evangelist and the single characters are rendered in the severe “collect [279] tone” of the ancient Plain Song, making no attempt at exact expression of changing sentiments. Even in these restrained and lofty works, however, his genius as a composer and his progressive sympathies as a modern artist occasionally break forth in vivid expression given to the ejaculations of priests, disciples, and Jewish mob, attaining a quite remarkable warmth and reality of portrayal. Nevertheless, these isolated attempts at naturalism hardly bring the Passions of Schütz into the category of modern works. There is no instrumental accompaniment, and, most decisive of all, they are restrained within the limits of the mediaeval conception by the ancient Gregorian tonality, which is maintained throughout almost to the entire exclusion of chromatic alteration.
The works of Schütz, therefore, in spite of their sweetness and dignity and an occasional glimpse of picturesque detail, are not to be considered as steps in the direct line of progress which led from the early Italian cantata and oratorio to the final achievements of Bach and Händel. These two giants of the culminating period apparently owed nothing to Schütz. It is not probable that they had any acquaintance with his works at all. The methods and the ideals of these three were altogether different. Considering how common and apparently necessary in art is the reciprocal influence of great men, it is remarkable that in the instance of the greatest German musician of the seventeenth century and the two greatest of the eighteenth, all working in the field of religious dramatic music, not one was affected in the slightest degree by the labors of either of the others. Here we have the individualism of modern art exhibited in the most positive degree upon its very threshold.
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In the Passions of Schütz we find only the characters of the Bible story, together with the evangelist’s narrative taken literally from the Gospel,—that is to say, the original frame-work of the Passion music with the chorus element elaborated. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the dramatic scheme of the Passion was enlarged by the addition of the Christian congregation, singing appropriate chorals, and the ideal company of believers, expressing suitable sentiments in recitatives, arias, and choruses. The insertion of church hymns was of the highest importance in view of the relation of the Passion music to the liturgy, for the more stress was laid upon this feature, the more the Passion, in spite of its semi-dramatic character, became fitted as a constituent into the order of service. The choral played here the same part as in the cantata, assimilating to the prescribed order of worship what would otherwise be an extraneous if not a disturbing feature. This was especially the case when, as in the beginning of the adoption of the choral in the Passion, the hymn verses were sung by the congregation itself. In Bach’s time this custom had fallen into abeyance, and the choral stanzas were sung by the choir; but this change involved no alteration in the form or the conception of the Passion performance as a liturgic act.
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The growth of the Passion music from Schütz to its final beauty and pathos under Sebastian Bach was by no means constant. In certain quarters, particularly at Hamburg, the aria in the shallow Italian form took an utterly disproportionate importance. The opera, which was flourishing brilliantly at Hamburg about 1700, exercised a perverting influence upon the Passion to such an extent that the ancient liturgic traditions were completely abandoned. In many of the Hamburg Passions the Bible text was thrown away and poems substituted, all of which were of inferior literary merit, and some quite contemptible. Incredible as it may seem, the comic element was sometimes introduced, the “humorous” characters being the servant Malthus whose ear was cut off by Peter, and a clownish peddler of ointment. It must be said that these productions were not given in the churches; they are not to be included in the same category with the strictly liturgic Passions of Sebastian Bach. The comparative neglect of the choral and also of the organ removes them altogether from the proper history of German church music.
Thus we see how the new musical forms, almost creating the emotions which they were so well adapted to express, penetrated to the very inner shrine of German church music. In some sections, as at Hamburg, the Italian culture supplanted the older school altogether. In others it encountered sterner resistance, and could do no more than form an alliance, in which old German rigor and reserve became somewhat ameliorated and relaxed without becoming perverted. To produce an art work of the highest order out of this union of contrasting principles, a genius was needed who should possess so true an insight into the special [282] capabilities of each that he should be able by their amalgamation to create a form of religious music that should be conformed to the purest conception of the mission of church song, and at the same time endowed with those faculties for moving the affections which were demanded by the tastes of the new age. In fulness of time this genius appeared. His name was Johann Sebastian Bach.
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CHAPTER IX
THE CULMINATION OF GERMAN PROTESTANT MUSIC:
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
The name of Bach is the greatest in Protestant church music,—there are many who do not hesitate to say that it is the greatest in all the history of music, religious and secular. The activity of this man was many-sided, and his invention seems truly inexhaustible. He touched every style of music known to his day except the opera, and most of the forms that he handled he raised to the highest power that they have ever attained. Many of his most admirable qualities appear in his secular works, but these we must pass over. In viewing him exclusively as a composer for the Church, however, we shall see by far the most considerable part of him, for his secular compositions, remarkable as they are, always appear rather as digressions from the main business of his life. His conscious life-long purpose was to enrich the musical treasury of the Church he loved, to strengthen and signalize every feature of her worship which his genius could reach: and to this lofty aim he devoted an intellectual force and an energy of loyal enthusiasm unsurpassed in the annals of art.