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Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672): Choral Composer Extraordinaire

instrumental voices). 29 Schütz uses the same type of organization to order both
19 parts of the Kleine geistliche Konzerte.
The distinction between Favoriti and Capelle is visually
clearer in Philipp Spitta’s nineteenth-century Schütz 30 Geistliche Chor-Music, NSA 5, ed. Wilhelm Kamlah (Kassel:
Ausgabe than in the Neue Schütz Ausgabe. Bärenreiter Verlag, 1968).
20 Wedgewood, 60–61. 31
In his Preface, Kamlah indicates that motets 8, 12, 13, 20,
21 and 25 appear at original pitch; the rest (save 24) are
Schütz’s publisher knew that potential buyers of this work
would balk if no continuo part had been provided, transposed up a major 2nd. Kamlah fails to include a
proving how widely accepted the device had become. Critical Report or incipits that show the original clefs
22 of the works, making determination of mode virtually
NSA, vols. 8–9, ed. Gottfried Grote (Kassel: Bärenreiter
Verlag, 1960). (Hereafter, Grote) The motets referred to impossible.
in the text are Turbabor, sed non perturbator (SWV 70); Ecce 32 According to Smallman, 128, two other motets—Ein Kind
advocatus meus (SWV 34); and the three-part setting of ist uns geboren (SWV 384) and Ich weiss das mein Erlöser lebt
Psalm 6, Domine, ne in furore tuo arguas me (SWV 85–87). (SWV 393)—suggest earlier dates of origin.
23 This example (and those that follow) replicate Schütz’s 33 Smallman, 126. The original German text is “Worbey der
original notation. In the NSA¸ Gottfried Grote Bassus Generalis, auff Gutachten und Begehren / nicht aber aus

transposes the motets to what he regards as a more Notwendigkeit / zugleich auch zu befi nden ist.”
singable pitch level. Said transposition, while practical, 34
Ibid., 127.
completely obliterates any hope of understanding the 35 Interestingly, the two motets that are completely vocal
mode used in each motet. The new edition of the both seem to stem from an earlier time: SWV 393:
Cantiones sacrae by Walter Werbeck and Heide Volckmar- Ich weiss dass mein Erlöser lebt and SWV 395: Der Engel
Waschk (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 2004) restores the sprach zu den Hirten. (The OUP style sheet or NG2 list of
motets to their original pitch levels. abbreviations uses caps for solo voices and lower case for
24 choral voices.) SWV 395 is the German contrafact of
These include the Passion cycle (SWV 56–60); In te, domine
speravi (SWV 66); Sicut Moses serpentem in deserto exaltavit A. Gabrieli’s Angelus ad pastores ait, published in the 1587
(SWV 68); Ad dominum cum tribularer (SWN 71); and the print Concerti di Andrea ed Giovanni Gabrieli. However, SWV
Table Graces (SWV 836–40). 393, while not demonstrably the reworking of another
25 composition, features the homophonic style and varied
In fact, the five-motet Passion cycle (SWV 56–60) reveals its
Phrygian character by making cadences to the fi nal and voice groupings found in Venetian choral music.
both reciting tones. The first ends in A (the reciting tone 36 In her monograph on Dietrich Buxtehude (New York:

of the plagal mode); the second in C (the reciting tone Schirmer, 1987), the musicologist Kerala Snyder points
of the authentic mode); and, quite tellingly, the third, out that the term “aria” refers to the setting of a strophic
ends on the forbidden pitch B (forbidden because of its text of the type included by Giulio Caccini in Le Nuove
long-standing association with the tritone, the diabolus in Musiche. Also referred to as “strophic bass variations,”
musica), to indicate how far the poet feels estranged from such “arias” feature a repeated bass line, diff erent

and forsaken by God. The fourth and fifth motets end melodies, and a consistently homophonic texture used
on G and E, respectively. for each verse. For an example, see Buxtehude’s cantata
26 Membra Jesu Nostri (BuxWV 75.2).
Schütz uses this same “sprung” rhythm in two settings of
the Lord’s Prayer—the first in the Cantiones sacrae (Latin, 37 This example is, like the NSA edition, transposed a major

SWV 89) and the second in SWV 411, Vater unser, der second higher than the original.
du bist im Himmel (Symphoniae sacrae III)—at the text “but
deliver us from evil.”
27 Song of Solomon 4:9.
28 The author has not only successfully performed all these
motets but has also published an edition of the Pater
noster (SWV 89) with Roger Dean Music, 15/2445R.

32 CHORAL JOURNAL October 2022 Volume 63 Number 3