MATTERS OF TASTE: THE LUTHERAN MARKET FOR SACRED MUSIC IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 149-218
Author(s):  
Mary E. Frandsen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Purchasing Patterns

Many studies have been devoted to the producers of Lutheran music in seventeenth-century Germany – composers, editors, publishers and printers. Little attention, however, has been paid to the tastes and preferences of the consumers of this music. This article represents the first study of this subject, and draws on music inventories and account books to examine the Lutheran market for sacred music during this period. It presents a number of key findings, all of which relate to purchasing patterns: that community members donated a considerable amount of music to Lutheran institutions; that music prices remained quite stable for decades; that Lutherans cultivated the older motet alongside the newer sacred concerto throughout much of the century; that Lutherans sought out music by Italians and northern Catholics as well as by Lutherans; and that after c. 1640, the composer Andreas Hammerschmidt dominated the Lutheran market for sacred music, outselling all of his contemporaries. For Frederick Gable and Jeffrey Kurtzman,longtime mentors, colleagues and friends

The Musical Topic of the Mass in B Minor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Melamed
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
The Other ◽  
Entire Spectrum ◽  
Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

If there is a fundamental musical subject of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor, a compositional problem the work explores, it is the tension between two styles cultivated in church music of Bach’s time. One style was modern and drew on up-to-date music such as the instrumental concerto and the opera aria. The other was old-fashioned and fundamentally vocal, borrowing and adapting the style of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, his sixteenth-century contemporaries, and his seventeenth-century imitators. The movements that make up Bach’s Mass can be read as exploring the entire spectrum of possibilities offered by these two styles (the modern and the antique), ranging from movements purely in one or the other to a dazzling variety of ways of combining the two. The work illustrates a fundamental opposition in early-eighteenth-century sacred music that Bach confronts and explores in the Mass.

Alessandro Grandi: A Case Study in the Choice of Texts for Motets

1988 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-305
Author(s):  
Jerome Roche
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way ◽  
Musical Styles

It is perhaps still true that research into sacred types of music in early seventeenth-century Italy lags behind that into madrigal, monody and opera; it is certainly the case that the textual aspects of sacred music, themselves closely bound up with liturgical questions, have not so far received the kind of study that has been taken for granted with regard to the literary texts of opera and of secular vocal music. This is hardly to be wondered at: unlike great madrigal poetry or the work of the best librettists, sacred texts do not include much that can be valued as art in its own right. Nevertheless, if we are to understand better the context of the motet – as distinct from the musical setting of liturgical entities such as Mass, Vespers or Compline – we need a clearer view of the types of text that were set, the way in which composers exercised their choice, and the way such taste was itself changing in relation to the development of musical styles. For the motet was the one form of sacred music in which an Italian composer of the early decades of the seventeenth century could combine a certain freedom of textual choice with an adventurousness of musical idiom.

Music for Martyrs

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 436-478
Author(s):  
Kimberly Beck Hieb
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Liturgical Practice ◽  
Papal Court

This article interrogates sacred repertoire produced in late seventeenth-century Salzburg as a reflection of a local Catholic piety that centered on sacrifice, especially the ultimate sacrifice of martyrdom. As an individual principality that was subject to both the Papal court in Rome and the Holy Roman Emperor, Salzburg provides a meaningful case study in the heterogeneous regional post-Tridentine Catholic practices that musicologists and historians alike have only begun to explore. Compositions by Andreas Hofer (1629–84) and Heinrich Biber (1644–1704) present a prime example of sacred music’s ability to manifest a region’s distinct piety. Supported by their patron Prince-Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph von Kuenburg (r. 1668–87), Hofer and Biber left behind musical evidence of this exceptional Catholicism in the feasts they elaborated with substantial concerted compositions as well as the distinct texts they set, which do not align with prescribed liturgies and likely reflect persistent local practices that resonated with the prince-archbishop’s Counter-Reformation agenda. Printed liturgical books and emblems celebrating Maximilian Gandolph further support the claim that throughout the seventeenth century liturgical practice and sacred music in Salzburg maintained a local flavor that concentrated on themes of sacrifice and martyrdom.

Music in a time of war : the efforts of Saxon Prince Johann Georg II to establish a musical ensemble, 1637-1651

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 33-68
Author(s):  
Mary E. Frandsen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Musical Life

Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony (r. 1656-1680) is primarily remembered today for his cultivation of elaborate court festivals and a lavish musical life at the Dresden court throughout his twenty-four-year reign. He played an important role in the development of sacred music in seventeenth-century Germany and privileged music in the modern Italian style. This article tells about the efforts of Saxon Prince Johann Georg II in establishing a musical ensemble between 1637 and 1651, hampered by the 30 Years‘ War (1618-1648).

scholarly journals Recorder Use in Sacred Music during the Spanish Siglo de Oro: Archival Evidence, Historical Practices, and Applications in Performance - Audio_Files

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Miller
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
First Century ◽  
Siglo De Oro ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Historical Practices

This article presents findings and conclusions from a recently completed Ph.D. project which researched the use of recorders in performing sacred music in Spanish cathedrals and churches during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This study also examined interactions of the historical findings with artistic questions arising in twenty-first-century performance of sacred music repertoire. Paradoxically, while numerous sets of recorders were purchased by ecclesiastic institutions during the sixteenth century, most contemporary compositions did not specifically call for their use. As well, surviving sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century documentation is highly fragmentary regarding the participatory role of recorders in sacred repertoire of this period. Scholarly research and writing had not addressed this issue, and many questions persisted regarding any role of recorders in this repertoire. Sacred music of this era offers the modern musician an extensive and rich potential repertoire of supreme quality and beauty. Therefore, in seeking an historically informed basis for performance, this project asked if recorders were used in such works in Spanish ecclesiastic institutions during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and, if so, how.

Witchcraft with a Novgorodian Flair? A Research Note

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-332
Author(s):  
Valerie A. Kivelson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Witchcraft Trials

This article surveys the few witchcraft trials from the Novogrod region that survive in central archives of the Razriadnyi prikaz from the seventeenth century to determine whether or not there is some particular skew to the cases from that region. Although the number of cases is very small, they all show an uncommon willingness on the part of community members to accept benign, medical explanations for the use of roots and grasses instead of attributing malevolent supernatural powers to those ingredients and their users.

Unmasking ‘Thomas Tudway’: A New Identity for a Seventeenth-Century Windsor Copyist

1999 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 89-117
Author(s):  
Keri Dexter
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
British Library ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
And Function

Almost thirty years ago John Morehen noted the presence of a common hand in four important pre-Commonwealth sources of sacred music: Pembroke College, Cambridge MSS Mus. 6.1–6 (six part-books; hereafter Cpc 6.1–6); St George's Chapel, Windsor MSS 18–20 (three partbooks; WRch 18–20); British Library, Harley MS 4142 (a wordbook; Lbl Harl. 4142); and Christ Church, Oxford Mus. 1220–4 (five partbooks; Och 1220–4). All four sources appeared to date from the early 1640s. Morehen also observed that the same scribe subsequently copied the earliest post-Restoration part-books at Windsor (WRch 1 and 2). Identifying the copyist(s) is a crucial stage in the study of the sources, with important implications for provenance, date and function, as well as their authority relative to other sources of the period.

scholarly journals ‘With sound of lute and pleasing words’: The Lute Song and Voice Types in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century England

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 1-62
Author(s):  
Richard Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Early Music ◽  
Melodic Line

AbstractThe Elizabethan and Jacobean lute song (1597–1622) represents one of the most iconic genres of all early music. Although much literature has been dedicated to this repertory, the issue of the voices for which this music was probably intended still remains surprisingly underexplored. This subject has, moreover, acquired greater significance in light of research undertaken by Simon Ravens (2014) and Andrew Parrott (2015), which has challenged the plausibility of the falsetto voice in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, particularly in sacred music.This paper explores the issue of the types of voices that most likely performed the Elizabethan and Jacobean lute song in three ways. Firstly, contemporary English evidence for lutes and viols is analyzed together with information regarding tuning and transposition. Secondly, the music itself is investigated, including the part names and clefs used alongside the tessitura of the melodic line. Finally, a detailed examination of evidence for the tenor and falsetto voice is presented, including a critical examination of the word ‘faine’ (usually assumed to mean ‘falsetto’). The collective results are then brought together to refine current ideas regarding the voices used in the Elizabethan and Jacobean lute song.

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