Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein
As we approach the anniversary of our first Covid stay-at-home order (March 16), I find that for my 47th chorale post (!) I'm circling back to my very first--'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'--which I sent out on Wednesday, March 25.
In a strict sense, I'm not repeating a chorale, because today's chorale is 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein'. Historically it actually came first, and 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier' was a later poem applied to the older melody.
But wait (I can almost hear you say): We already had 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein' as our chorale in Week 24!
Ah, true, but that was with the other of the two melodies which were composed in the early Lutheran years
for Martin Luther's text.
And so, for the first time, I offer the simple, heartfelt tune many of us know and love as 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'--the most comforting chorale I know--with its original text, 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein'.
May it brighten your day--
In order to get the most out of these pieces, I suggest that you spend a bit of time with the tune itself. Attached you'll find it as it appeared in the Babst Hymnal of 1545 (fun to look at, and not hard to read), and in a modern transcription. Sing it several times through. If you can, memorize the tune so you can hum it throughout the day, thereby lifting your mood (and that of those around you) and also preparing you to readily perceive it within a complex musical matrix.
Then check out these wonderful settings! (Scores and tracks are available at this Dropbox link. Plus here's a link to a text-translation page. The translation is poetic rather than literal, but gives a pretty good sense of the meaning.)
1) First up: A seven-part setting from Antonio Scandello's 1575 publication 'Newe schöne außerlesene Geistliche Deudsche Lieder'. Here you will encounter the tune and its constituent phrases throughout the texture in one of the most concentrated examples of pervasive imitation I have ever seen or heard. Even in the only recording available--a digital acoustic guitar rendition exported from a transcription I made from the partbooks--it's something to behold.
2) And hold onto your hats when you dive into Michael Praetorius' extended setting from the 'Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyrica', the same 1619 collection from which we drew most of our 'Sing Glorious Praetorius' repertoire back in the fall of 2019. As is his wont, Praetorius wrings out the tune in a myriad of ways, creating--in a very different way from Scandello--a rich tapestry from scant material.
The scoring is typically Praetorian: Two instrumental choirs, unspecified in instrumentation but here performed by winds and strings, accompany two soprano/tenor duets. The basso continuo, which would certainly have been performed with both chordal and single-line instruments, provides solid support for the whole.
Listen with the chorale melody in mind, and you'll wonder at all the ways Praetorius finds to express it, to alter it, to expand and contract it, to make it work against itself, to make you long for the next phrase as he teases out the polyphony. In the hands of the master, the melody becomes a plastic material which can assume almost any guise while remaining unequivocally itself.
And the textures and the interactions between the participating ensembles constitute one of the joys of the whole affair. Usually, the winds support the first vocal duet, the strings the second. But Praetorius employs various antiphonal
and tutti textures as well, while the two duets, often structurally separate, are at times both brought to bear upon
a single gesture or elaboration.
Don't you just wish you knew this guy? Everything we know about Praetorius, from his music itself, from his copious writings, from the writings of others, indicates a true live-wire, a polymath but with a heart, a genius but humble, the most earnest of God's children but with a sense of humor, demanding and idealistic but immensely practical.
If someone should ever happen to ask me: 'If you could have a beer with a single composer in history?',
my reply would have to be: Michael Praetorius!
Enjoy--keep music in your life--and love
As we approach the anniversary of our first Covid stay-at-home order (March 16), I find that for my 47th chorale post (!) I'm circling back to my very first--'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'--which I sent out on Wednesday, March 25.
In a strict sense, I'm not repeating a chorale, because today's chorale is 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein'. Historically it actually came first, and 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier' was a later poem applied to the older melody.
But wait (I can almost hear you say): We already had 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein' as our chorale in Week 24!
Ah, true, but that was with the other of the two melodies which were composed in the early Lutheran years
for Martin Luther's text.
And so, for the first time, I offer the simple, heartfelt tune many of us know and love as 'Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier'--the most comforting chorale I know--with its original text, 'Nun freut euch lieben Christen g'mein'.
May it brighten your day--
In order to get the most out of these pieces, I suggest that you spend a bit of time with the tune itself. Attached you'll find it as it appeared in the Babst Hymnal of 1545 (fun to look at, and not hard to read), and in a modern transcription. Sing it several times through. If you can, memorize the tune so you can hum it throughout the day, thereby lifting your mood (and that of those around you) and also preparing you to readily perceive it within a complex musical matrix.
Then check out these wonderful settings! (Scores and tracks are available at this Dropbox link. Plus here's a link to a text-translation page. The translation is poetic rather than literal, but gives a pretty good sense of the meaning.)
1) First up: A seven-part setting from Antonio Scandello's 1575 publication 'Newe schöne außerlesene Geistliche Deudsche Lieder'. Here you will encounter the tune and its constituent phrases throughout the texture in one of the most concentrated examples of pervasive imitation I have ever seen or heard. Even in the only recording available--a digital acoustic guitar rendition exported from a transcription I made from the partbooks--it's something to behold.
2) And hold onto your hats when you dive into Michael Praetorius' extended setting from the 'Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyrica', the same 1619 collection from which we drew most of our 'Sing Glorious Praetorius' repertoire back in the fall of 2019. As is his wont, Praetorius wrings out the tune in a myriad of ways, creating--in a very different way from Scandello--a rich tapestry from scant material.
The scoring is typically Praetorian: Two instrumental choirs, unspecified in instrumentation but here performed by winds and strings, accompany two soprano/tenor duets. The basso continuo, which would certainly have been performed with both chordal and single-line instruments, provides solid support for the whole.
Listen with the chorale melody in mind, and you'll wonder at all the ways Praetorius finds to express it, to alter it, to expand and contract it, to make it work against itself, to make you long for the next phrase as he teases out the polyphony. In the hands of the master, the melody becomes a plastic material which can assume almost any guise while remaining unequivocally itself.
And the textures and the interactions between the participating ensembles constitute one of the joys of the whole affair. Usually, the winds support the first vocal duet, the strings the second. But Praetorius employs various antiphonal
and tutti textures as well, while the two duets, often structurally separate, are at times both brought to bear upon
a single gesture or elaboration.
Don't you just wish you knew this guy? Everything we know about Praetorius, from his music itself, from his copious writings, from the writings of others, indicates a true live-wire, a polymath but with a heart, a genius but humble, the most earnest of God's children but with a sense of humor, demanding and idealistic but immensely practical.
If someone should ever happen to ask me: 'If you could have a beer with a single composer in history?',
my reply would have to be: Michael Praetorius!
Enjoy--keep music in your life--and love