Five Hundred Eighty-Fourth Program of the 2008-09 Season ______Early Music Institute Guest Recital

Concerto Palatino Johannette Zomer, Soprano Bruce Dickey, Cornetto Doron David Sherwin, Cornetto Charles Toet, Trombone Simen Van Mechelen, Trombone Wim Becu, Trombone Hanneke van Proosdij, Organ

______Recital Hall Thursday Evening February Twelfth Eight O’Clock

music.indiana.edu Schein, Scheidt, Schütz and Beyond: An Evening of German Sacred Music for Soprano and Wind Instruments

Intrada a 5 (Hamburg, 1633) ...... Johann Schop (died 1667)

Erbarm dich mein o Herr Gott (Ms . Uppsala)...... Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)

Vater unser ...... Johann Hermann Schein Christ lag in Todesbanden (1586-1630) Christ, unser Herr Gelobet seist Du (Leipzig, 1618)

Capriccio...... Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

Paduana 18a “Susanne un jour” ...... Johann Sommer (died 1627) Galliard 18b ...... John Dowland (1563-1626) (Hamburg, 1607)

O præclara dies (Venice, 1688) ...... Daniel Speer (1636-1707) Intermission

Canzon Belgicam (Hamburg, 1621)...... Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)

O süsser, o freundlicher, o gütiger Herr Jesu Christe ...... Heinrich Schütz O lieber Herre Gott wecke uns auf (Leipzig, 1636)

Paduana ...... Johann Steffens Gagliard (c1560-1616) (Hamburg, 1609)

Lieber Herr Gott (Leipzig, 1648) ...... Johann Rosenmüller

Canzon à 5 (Hamburg, 1609) ...... William Brade (1560-1630) Wie der Hirsch schreyet (Ms ., Uppsala) ...... David Pohle (1624-1695)

Canzon Bergamasca (Hamburg, 1621)...... Samuel Scheidt

Quis consistere (Venice, 1688) ...... Daniel Speer

Schein, Scheidt, Schütz and Beyond: An Evening of German Sacred Music for Soprano and Wind Instruments

Tonight’s concert explores the fertile but still relatively unknown landscape of 17th century German sacred music . Our program brings together composers including, but also going far beyond, the famous “three S’s” of the German Baroque . Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt, have often been seen as the leading German composers of their time . All three of the them were born between 1585 and 1587 and they all knew one another . Schütz and Schein were close friends; Schütz visited Schein on his deathbed . There are many parallels in their careers, including their education as choirboys with a talent that attracted the attention of a nobleman who supported their education, the study of law, and a later concentration on settings of Lutheran texts for a few voices and instruments . No factor is more important to the history of German sacred music in the 17th century than the diffusion of Italian style in the North . German musicians, traveling to Italy to learn the latest fashions in concerted polychoral music or solo monody, brought back home with them musical ideas, styles and techniques which they and their German colleagues would assimilate into a revolutionary new German musical language fusing the Germanic interest in polyphony and harmony to the Venetian concertato style, the more severe consonant-laden sounds of the German language to the Italian recitar cantando, and an Italian graciousness of melody to the German motet . In tonight’s concert we focus, not on the large-scale polychoral music in the extravagent Venetian manor also cultivated in northern Germany, but on the much more intimate style which became popular from the 1630’s . In this style, partly necessitated by the devastation of the Thirty Years War, obbligato instruments in various combinations accompany a solo voice, employing all of the virtuosity and expressivity of new Italian monodic style . We open the concert with an intrada by an early master of the violin, Johann Schop . As the pre-eminent north-German trading city of the Hanseatic League, Hamburg was an international cultural hub of great importance . Schop himself was a pupil of the English viol player and composer William Brade . His intrada, though, is typical of the kind of festive wind music which would have been played by that universal fixture of 17th-century civic life: the wind band . Heinrich Schütz’s life is marked most notably by his two sojourns in Italy, where he studied with Giovanni Gabrieli, and his long relationship with the Dresden court, where he was Kapellmeister . Schütz showed boundless enthusiasm for the latest Italian musical developments, and in Dresden, the greatest center for Italian singing and Italian style in 17th century Germany, he had ample opportunity to experiment . He demonstrated an astonishing capacity to adapt the Italian style with unconscious assurance to his own musical tastes and to put it in the service of German Protestantism . In his hand the Italian concertato style is bent to the rhythms and cadences of the German language and colored with a harmonically darker and richer palette more characteristic of the North . In less capable hands the result could be a heavy preponderance of four-square rhythms and angular melodic shapes . With Schütz what emerges is something entirely new, personal and extraordinarily powerful – genius of the first order . Schütz’ss Erbarm dich mein is a miniature masterpiece . After a moving instrumental sinfonia the soprano insistently intones a 16th century chorale melody appealing for God’s mercy . Nothing is known about when and why Schütz composed this setting, which survives in manuscript in Uppsala . At the time Schütz published his first collection of Kleine geistliche Concerte in 1636, the Thirty Years War was raging and interest in music in general and in financing court chapels in particular was declining radically . Certainly this is a prime reason for their much reduced scale, employing as they do a small number of voices without obbligato instruments . In Schütz’ss hands, though, the small-scale form is artfully treated and becomes almost a virtue . Despite Schütz intention that these pieces be performed without instruments, we feel that a voice and a cornetto are a suitable alternative (given the power of the cornetto to imitate the voice) in the duet O lieber Herre Gott . Schein’s Opella nova of 1618 was the composer’s first collection of sacred concertos with continuo . It was undoubtedly influenced by Viadana’sCento concerti ecclesiastici, published in 1602, which attracted a great deal of interest in Germany, and probably also served as a model for Schütz’s Kleine geistliche Concerte . While Schein refers continuo players to the Italian model for information on realizing the bass, his concerti are thoroughly German, based for the most part on Lutheran chorales . Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, born in Deventer in 1562, was one of the greatest organists of the 17th century . As a young man he became organist at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, a post which he held for the rest of his life in a city he never left for more than a few days at a time . At the Oude Kerk, in which he was an employee of the city of Amsterdam, his duties would have included providing an hour of music twice a day, inspecting new organs, advising on restorations, and teaching, an activity for which he became exceedingly famous . He was evidently well loved by the city authorities who more than once referred to him as the “Orpheus of Amsterdam ”. As a composer and teacher his influence runs deep in the fabric of northern European organ music, and provides a parallel to the great organist-teacher of the south, Giovanni Gabrieli . While dance music was more normally the province of string ensembles, wind instruments are often indicated as alternatives, or at least the choice was left invitingly vague: “to be pleasingly used on all sorts of instruments ”. The prevalent musical genre for instrumental music was the dance suite, in particular Pavan and Galliard pairs . These pieces are dances in name only and display a remarkable expressive range, even incorporating Italian canzona elements . Sometimes the same colletions contain pieces given the designation “canzona”, as in the example by William Brade on tonight’s concert, though in reality such pieces differ little from the dance pieces . Johann Sommer’s pavan based on Lasso’s popular chanson Susanne un jour is a wonderful example of the north German pavan and it is accompanied in the printed collection by a Galliard of John Dowland based on the same theme . We conclude each half of our concert with a motet by one of the most fascinating musical personalities of 17th century music, Daniel Speer . Speer was a many faceted figure: music theorist, composer, instrumentalist and writer . His three autobiographical novels provide a fascinating glimpse into his life as a travelling musician, a life which even led him into imprisonment for his activity in local politics . In his Philomela angelica cantionum sacrarum, published in Venice under a pseudonym, and from which the pieces on our program our taken, Speer claims to have set down melodies which he heard sung by a cloistered nun in Rome . In reality her pieces were probably much more than “melodies” . It seems likely they were full-blown solo concerti to which Speer has added instrumental ritornelli and obbligati . The German organist and composer Samuel Scheidt was one of the greatest masters of the ensemble canzona . Born in Halle in 1587, he was court Kapellmeister there, first to the Margrave of Brandenburg, and later to Duke August of Saxony . Though little of Scheidt’s ensemble music survives, the canzonas of the first volume of Ludi musici are small masterpieces of the genre . The two canzonas on tonight’s program are both based on folk tunes, one Belgian and one Italian . Had things proceeded smoothly for Johann Rosenmüller, he would very likely have become Thomaskantor in Leipzig and thus been a direct predecessor to Johann Kuhnau and ultimately to J .S . Bach . This hypothetical happy ending, though, would have changed the course of German music as well as the career of one promising young composer . In 1642 Johann Rosenmüller was a theology student at the University of Leipzig while studying music with Tobias Michael, cantor of the Thomasschule . Appointed organist of the Nicolaikirche as well, his career seemed about to take off when he was named a possible candidate for the prestigious position of Thomaskantor . As it happened, in May of 1655 Rosenmüller and several of the St . Thomas schoolboys were suddenly arrested and imprisoned on charges of pederasty . Somehow, Rosenmüller managed to avoid what would certainly have been grizzly consequences by escaping from prison and fleeing, first to Hamburg and then to Venice, where he stayed for twenty-five years . Rosenmüller established himself first as trombonist in the musical chapel of St . Mark’s, but soon began to make himself known as a composer . At St . Mark’s Rosenmüller would have associated with such renowned Venetian composers as Giovanni Rovetta and Francesco Cavalli . Perhaps owing to the circumstances surrounding Rosenmüller’s flight from Leipzig, it has been said that more rumors and whispers surround the details of the composer’s life than facts . These rumors suffice to show, however, that Rosenmüller enjoyed an exalted position in Venetian musical life, and that his compositions were held in high regard . The motet Lieber Herr Gott on tonight’s program, however, comes from Rosenmüller’s abruptly curtailed Leipig period, and is written for a solo soprano accompanied by three trombones, the composer’s own instrument . David Pohle was a student of Schütz in Dresden . His motet Wie der Hirsch schreÿet for a soprano with two violins and a dulcian (played by two cornetti and a bass trombone) survives in a manuscript in Uppsala . Psalm 41, with it’s colorful depiction of the hart seeking the brook, was a favorite for musical setting in the 17th century . Pohle uses virtuoso leaping passage-work to depict the deer and triple time sections of obviously italianate melodic grace .