The Anthologies of Ambrosius Profe (1589–1661) and Lutheran Spirituality1 Introduction

The Anthologies of Ambrosius Profe (1589–1661) and Lutheran Spirituality1 Mary E. Frandsen Introduction As did other sixteenth-century church reformers, Martin Luther held firmly to the conviction that churchgoers should both understand and active- ly participate in public celebrations of worship. This fundamental belief led him to propose a number of radical new ideas to address problems he perceived in the worship culture of the contemporary church. His desire to provide lay people with comprehension of the liturgy and thus a more meaningful worship experience led him to call for the use of the vernac- ular in worship, and his wish to see parishioners play an active part in worship led him to recommend that they sing during the service. Both of these desiderata, which formed central pillars in Luther’s reform agenda, had major implications for the development of music in the church that quickly came to be associated with him and his views. They led first to the active effort, spearheaded by the Reformer himself, to create a distinctive body of German hymns, or chorales, for congregations to sing; so success- ful was this endeavor that a core repertoire had already been put in place by 1529. The cultivation of this body of chorales, as well as the translation of the scriptures into German by Luther and others, also encouraged the creation of an extensive repertoire of sacred art music in German, one intended for performance by trained singers and instrumentalists during worship services. A major portion of this repertoire involves sophisticat- ed musical treatments of chorales, and of passages of scripture excerpted from the new German translation. Together with the immense corpus of chorale treatments for the organ that also emerged during this period, this is the music that is still most readily identified as “Lutheran” today, and 1 This article is an expansion of a paper first delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, Eastman School of Music (Rochester N.Y.), 23–26 April, 2009. A Festschrift for Kerala J. Snyder that has received the most attention from scholars since at least the early nineteenth century.2 But while the distinctly Lutheran nature of this music is beyond dis- pute, the almost singular scholarly focus on it over time has resulted in very limited exploration of the other repertoires that continued to adorn liturgies in the majority of Lutheran areas during this period. These include the body of Latin chant that formed part of many Lutheran worship celebrations until at least the early seventeenth century, as well as the body of Latin motets, composed predominantly by Catholics, that dominated the repertoire of Lutheran choirs in the latter half of the sixteenth century.3 While the continued cultivation of these Latin musical elements would seem to represent an obvious departure from two of Luther’s foundational worship principles, their inclusion can be explained by another of Luther’s primary concerns—the education of the young—and his promotion of the classical education received in Latin schools.4 With respect to the seventeenth century, these overlooked repertoires include the devotional music that was widely cultivated by Lutherans after ca. 1600. In one respect, this 2 Carl von Winterfeld (1784-1852) stands as one of the first scholars to focus on Lutheran music; see the discussion of the music of Heinrich Schütz in his study of Giovanni Gabrieli, Johannes Gabrieli und seine Zeit- und Kunstgenossen während des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts; sein Schüler Heinrich Schütz (Berlin: Schlesinger’schen Buch- und Musikhandlung, 1834). 3 Two major twentieth-century studies documented just how common was the Luther- an use of Latin (and German) chant and Latin motets in the sixteenth century; these include Johannes Rautenstrauch, Luther und die Pflege der kirchlichen Musik in Sachsen: 14.– 19. Jahrhundert (1907; repr., Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1970), and Klaus Wolfgang Niemöller, Untersuchungen zur Musikpflege und Musikunterricht an den deutschen Lateinschulen vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis um 1600 (Regensburg: Bosse, 1969). Additional studies of these repertoires remain comparatively few. 4 In the preface to his Deutsche Messe of 1526, Luther commented, “For in no wise would I want to discontinue the service in the Latin language, because the young are my chief concern,” Luther’s Works 53, ed. Ulrich S. Leupold (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), 63. See also his 1524 letter “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools,” trans. Albert T. W. Steinhauser, Luther’s Works 45 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), 347-378, and his 1530 “Sermon on Keep- ing Children in School,” trans. Charles M. Jacobs, Luther’s Works 46 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 209-258. In 1528, Philipp Melanchthon, one of Luther’s closest associates, developed a Schulordnung (school organization and curriculum) that was widely adopted for use in Lutheran Latin schools; it provided for music instruction during the school day. The expectation, which stemmed from Luther, that the boys in Latin schools would provide music in churches is clear from the liturgical orders developed in various regions under the influence of Luther’s Latin (1523) and German (1526) masses; these subse- quent orders often provide more elaborate liturgies with Latin elements for towns with Latin schools, and simpler German liturgies for towns without them. 2 Mary E. Frandsen – The Anthologies of Ambrosius Profe devotional repertoire differs quite fundamentally from the music described above, for although it includes settings of familiar words of comfort, pen- itence, and supplication, drawn largely from the psalms, it also includes musical treatments of expressions of intense love, longing, and desire for Christ, drawn from a vast repository of hymns and prayers by both medie- val and early modern authors. These Christocentric devotional texts represent an entirely new element in the Lutheran musical repertoire, one that first appears in the seventeenth century and takes as its focus the fostering of a close, personal, often mystical relationship between the individual be- liever and Christ. Devotional music, including works composed by both Lutherans and Catholics, exerted a strong presence in the Lutheran repertoire throughout the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth, and contributed an element of personal religiosity that balanced the corporate voice heard in much of the repertoire. Yet today, few scholars are even aware of the existence of this repertoire, or would readily associate it with the concept of “Lutheran music.” The explanation for the virtual neglect of a vast body of music that enjoyed cultivation in a Lutheran context for so many decades seems to be located in the nature of the texts themselves; at first glance, they would ap- pear to bear scant relationship to Lutheranism, particularly when measured against the texts of the more familiar repertoire of scripture and chorale settings. These tender, passionate, often erotically-charged expressions of mystical love and desire for the second Person of the Trinity seem rather re- mote from the “stiff” and “cold” orthodoxy with which seventeenth-century Lutheranism has often (but erroneously) been associated. But settings of these devotional texts are strongly represented in numerous contemporary sources: in the music prints issued by Lutheran composers, in the manuscript collections owned by Lutheran institutions, and in the inventories of lost collections once owned by those institutions. All of these sources clear- ly illustrate the extent to which Lutheran cantors, Kapellmeisters,5 and organists composed, copied, and performed Christocentric devotional works during the seventeenth century, and demonstrate that such pieces formed an integral part of their musical contributions to public worship as well as private devotion. These sources also testify to the fact that this decidedly intimate, Christ-centered repertoire was not only immensely popular, but was also widely regarded as consonant with Lutheran teaching in the sev- 5 This group includes a few Italian musicians serving in Lutheran courts. 3 A Festschrift for Kerala J. Snyder enteenth century. Thus this large corpus of music, long in widespread use by the adherents of a major confessional body in early modern Europe, warrants scholarly attention; not only are its origins and sustained period of cultivation of interest, but also its complex and intriguing relationship to Lutheranism itself. Christocentric Devotional Music in the Lutheran Repertoire The repertoire of sacred art music in Lutheran use during the seventeenth century included nearly one thousand settings of devotional texts,6 chief- ly in the form of motets and sacred concertos intended for performance during celebrations of worship.7 In addition, the repertoire of Hausmusik, intended for use in the home, also included many devotional works (see below). The patterns of dissemination of the repertoire of devotional works intended for liturgical use reflect those of sacred music in Germany in gen- eral. Until around 1660, most Lutheran composers and editors regularly offered music to the public in prints that were purchased for both public and private use. Throughout the seventeenth century, however, many Lutheran musicians (cantors, organists, etc.) also supplemented their own collections, or those of their institutions, with copies of music in manuscript. At first, most works were copied from prints, but after ca. 1660, when the number of prints began to decline precipitously, many new com- positions by musicians working in Germany were never published, but in- stead, circulated only in manuscript.8 Thus manuscript transmission grad- ually overtook print as the predominant means by which sacred art music was circulated and acquired. Some of the largest manuscript collections were amassed in the latter half of the seventeenth century, at this time of 6 From this point on, “devotional music” will be used to refer to that part of the repertoire that is Christocentric in nature.

Load more