Lee, David George (2018) Works in progress: early modern Lutheranism, labour, and the act of musical composition. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/81882/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Works in Progress: Early Modern Lutheranism, Labour, and the Act of Musical Composition David George Lee A Thesis Submitted in Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music College of Arts University of Glasgow December 2017 ABSTRACT Even now, some twenty-five years after the publication of Lydia Goehr’s The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (1992), musicologists still have issues talking about composers’ activities in terms of ‘works’. Central to Goehr’s thesis was her assertion that J.S. Bach ‘did not compose works.’ However, a significant number of texts by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Lutheran German musicians and theorists explicitly depict composition as an act of working. For example, in Bach’s defence against the criticisms of Johann Adolph Scheibe, the Leipzig rhetorician Johann Abraham Birnbaum described how ‘the more industriously and painstakingly [the composer] works at the improvement of Nature — the more brilliantly shines the beauty thus brought into being.’ And the reception of Bach’s music in our own time is still inextricably bound up with the notion of work. This has never been more evident than in this year, 2017, which marks the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation. There is a clear sense — both in eighteenth- century texts and in contemporary discourse — that the more difficulty involved in the process of a piece’s composition, the greater value it acquires. However, considerations of the act of composition as a labour process and the ethical implications of this have largely been absent in the discourse surrounding the musical work-concept. Taking into account the underlying cultural and theological tenets of Lutheranism, this dissertation seeks to explore why an emphasis on working was so pervasive in early modern German music, and how this was manifested in aesthetic terms. By assessing composers’ correspondences, theoretical writings, writings by both proponents of the contrapuntal aesthetic and its opponents, it seeks to better understand how thinking of the act of composition in terms of process aligns with our understanding of the work as a product — and ultimately examines what thinking about music in this way might tell us about some of our core contemporary musical and cultural values. 2 „Gestern wird sein, was morgen gewesen ist. Unsere Geschichten von heute müssen sich nicht jetzt zugetragen haben. Meine beginnen viel früher. Diese fing vor mehr als dreihundert Jahren an. Andere Geschichten auch. So lang rührt jede Geschichte her, die in Deutschland handelt.” The things that will be yesterday were tomorrow. Our histories of today need not necessarily take place in the present. Mine start much earlier. This one began more than three hundred years ago. So did many other stories; every story set in Germany goes back that far. Günter Grass, Das Treffen in Telgte (1981) 3 CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS 6 FIGURES & MUSIC EXAMPLES 7 EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 INTRODUCTION 9 Lydia Goehr and the Imaginary Museum of Musical Works 12 ‘Bach did not intend to compose musical works.’ Or did he? 17 Autonomy versus function 20 What’s in a concept? 24 Bach and Luther; Works and Working 26 The Human Condition: Labour, Work and Action 30 Chapter Overview 35 CHAPTER I 38 Beruf: Work as Vocation 40 Luther and Music 50 Working in Music 52 Moving Outwards from Within: Lutheranism and the Individual Subject 75 Conclusions 78 CHAPTER II 80 Listenius’s Three Branches 82 Music Theory and the Idea of the Modern Composer 87 From Science to Art 93 ‘It is the art of shaping a musical poem’ 102 A Word on Rhetoric 110 4 Composition as Work — Man’s Metabolism with Nature 113 Raising Music’s Status 119 Theoretical Writings as Works Themselves 123 Conclusions 126 CHAPTER III 129 Note against note 133 Professional Ethics 139 Nature, Alchemy & Magic 143 Descriptions and Depictions of Counterpoint as Work 145 The Experience of Hearing Counterpoint 151 Hearing Bach’s Fugue 155 Criticisms of Counterpoint 160 Conclusions 164 CHAPTER IV 167 The Problems with Ontology (and Cultural Metaphysics) 175 The term ‘Actualization’ 179 Stages of Actualization 186 Consolidation 190 Generation 196 Interaction 210 Conclusions 215 CONCLUSIONS 218 Bach in the Lutherjahr 220 Work in contemporary society 225 Reinstating work as process in contemporary society 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY 232 5 ABBREVIATIONS BD Bach-Dokumente, W. Neumann and H.J. Schulze (eds), vols. 1–3 (Leipzig and Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1963, 1969, 1972). [numbers refer to item number] BuxWV Georg Karstädt (editor), Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke von Dietrich Buxtehude: Buxtehude-Werke-Verzeichnis (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1974; 2nd edition 1985) NBA Neue Bach-Ausgabe, edited by the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut, Göttingen, and Bach-Archiv, Leipzig (Kassel and Basel: Bärenreiter, 1954-). HSR Gregory Johnston, A Heinrich Schütz Reader: Letters and Documents in Translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). [numbers refer to page number] LW Luther’s Works, 79 Vols (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955-). NBR Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel (eds), revised edition Christoph Wolff (ed.), The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, (New York: Norton, 1998). [numbers refer to page numbers] NGO The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online, Laura Macy (ed.) <http://www.grovemusic.com>. NSA Heinrich Schütz: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1955-). SM Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum, Vols 1-3 (Wittenberg and Wolfenbüttel, 1614-1619). SD I Michael Heinemann (editor), Schütz-Dokumente I: Schriftstücke von Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz-Archiv der Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. (Köln: Verlag Dohr, 2010). [numbers refer to item number] SWV Werner Bittinger (editor), Schütz-Werke-Verzeichnis: Kleine Ausgabe (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1960). WA Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 65 Vols (Weimar: Böhlau, 1883-1993). 6 FIGURES & MUSIC EXAMPLES Figures p. 39 Figure 1.1 Detail from D-B Mus. Ms. Bach P 125 (Bach’s hand) p. 64 Figure 1.2 Detail from Berlin Mus.ms. 30096 p. 83 Figure 2.1 Detail from Listenius, Rudimenta Musicae (1533) p. 167 Figure 4.1 Detail from Dresden Hauptstaatsarchiv 8687, 292v p. 170 Figure 4.2 Catalogue included by Schütz in Symphoniae Sacrae II (1647) p. 180 Figure 4.3 Printed title page Schütz’s Schwanengesang p. 188 Figure 4.4 Abstract model of the network of actualization p. 208 Figure 4.5 Third page of Historia von der Geburt Jesu Christi (1664) p. 209 Figure 4.6 Cantus part for Historia von der Geburt Jesu Christi Music examples p. 43 Example 1.1 J.S. Bach Duetto — fifth movement of BWV 9 p. 58 Example 1.2 Heinrich Schütz — opening of SWV 34 p. 60 Example 1.3 Heinrich Schütz — excerpt from SWV 43 p. 62 Example 1.4 Heinrich Schütz — dialogue passage in SWV 44 p. 65 Example 1.5 Christoph Bernhard — ‘Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet’ p. 70 Example 1.6 J.S. Bach — tenor recitative Der Fleiß BWV 207 p. 71 Example 1.7 J.S. Bach — tenor aria Der Fleiß BWV 208 p. 74 Example 1.8 J.S. Bach — recitative Wollust and Tugend BWV 213 p. 153 Example 3.1 Heinrich Schütz — opening of ‘Selig sind die Toten’ SWV 391 p. 154 Example 3.2 Heinrich Schütz — second idea ‘Selig sind die Toten’ SWV 391 p. 158 Example 3.3 J.S. Bach — subject and answer of Fugue in C minor BWV 847 p. 158 Example 3.4 J.S. Bach — first fugal matrix of Fugue in C minor (BWV 847) p. 198 Example 4.1 Heinrich Schütz — opening of ‘Venite ad me’ (SWV 261) p. 199 Example 4.2 Heinrich Schütz — vocal entry ‘Venite ad me’ (SWV 261) EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS All original note values have been retained from the source texts. However, accidentals have been modernised without comment (i.e. flat-cancellations are represented by natural signs as opposed to sharps), as have clefs and any texts where this has been deemed helpful. Barlines have been added to the Schütz examples in accordance with the prevailing metrical implications of the respective mensuration signs (with the original signs indicated). 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The process of writing this thesis has, at times, been far from straightforward. Over the course of my research and writing, my interests developed across an unusually wide range of areas. I have been so fortunate to enjoy the privilege of having Prof. John Butt as my primary supervisor. His deep learning, patience, lateral-mindedness and indefatigable humour were there in equal measure at every step of the way, and I am incredibly grateful for the guidance and support he provided. His own scholarly and performing activities have been the inspiration for so many of the questions I sought to answer in this work, and will, I am sure, provide further inspiration in answering those that are yet to appear. My second supervisor Dr David McGuinness was also unfailingly insightful, regularly providing a refreshing take on my ideas and helping me to form conclusions I would never have otherwise.