Martin Luther, the Reformation and Liturgical Music in Germany

Transcription

1 Martin Luther, the Reformation and Liturgical Music in Germany Introduction The Reformation was the foundation of the Lutheran Church a breakaway from the stranglehold that the Church of Rome had exerted on Europe for centuries. Martin Luther was a well-versed musician. He busked on streets of Magdeburg as a boy, and would have learnt how to compose short songs and motets whilst at university in Erfurt. He was known to declare that after theology, I give music the highest place and the highest honours Although a generation apart, Luther and J.S.Bach were strongly linked through their faith and love of music. They were both boy choristers at the Georgenkirche in Eisenach. Bach was baptised there, and it was also where Luther preached his sermon of defiance in Bach acquired a copy of Luther s three-volume bible translation at the age of 48. He underlined passages, corrected errors in the text and commentary, inserted missing words and made notes in the margins. Biography Martin Luther was born in Eisleben on 10 th November In 1501 he enrolled at the university of Erfurt. He graduated on 29 th September In 1505 he received his Masters at Erfurt, after which he started studying law. Whilst walking through a severe thunderstorm on 2 nd July, a bolt of lightning struck the ground near him, and he vowed to become a friar. He entered the Augustinian cloister in Erfurt on 17 th July. He celebrated his first mass on 2 nd May 1507 following his ordination as a priest. In 1517, he sends his letter of protest about the sale of indulgences, along with his Ninety-Five Thesis to the Archbishop of Mainz. Popular legend also tells us that he nailed them to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

2 Summoned to defend his writings at the Diet of Augsburg in In 1520 Pope Leo X declares him a heretic, and he is formally excommunicated in He refused to recant, and is hidden away in the Wartburg for his own safety. In 1522 he published his German translation of the New Testament, and in 1526 he published the German Mass. Away from Germany, the English Reformation took place in Henry VIII declared himself the supreme head of the Church in England. In 1534, Luther completed his translation of the bible into German. On 18 th February 1546, Martin Luther died in Eisleben. Music and liturgy in the medieval Catholic Church Plainchant would be sung in church and cathedrals, and polyphonic masterpieces would be heard in the greatest abbeys and basilicas. Peasants and the illiterate would sing pious songs to complement their daily routines. Medieval liturgy was the domain of the clergy. Ordinary people would be able to pray and made devotions alongside, or in parallel with what the clergy were doing. The clergy were often out of sight in the quire, and only when there were processions or when mass or devotion was held in the nave or around the church would the congregation be able to see the liturgy. The Mass had one form, and those parts of the Mass which were sung by the clergy, or by a choir in greater establishments, consisted of items whose text and melody changed (the Proper of the Mass), including; the Introit, Gradual, Alleluya, Offertory, and Communion; and those items whose text was unchanging, but whose melody might vary (The Ordinary of the Mass), including; the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Deo gratias. The Franco-Flemish composer, Josquin des Prez, was undoubtedly one of the most important and influential composers of religious music for the Catholic Church before the Reformation. He was certainly admired by Martin Luther, who was to write: Josquin is a master of the notes: they must do as he wishes.for God also proclaimed the Gospel through music, as it appears in Josquin, whose compositions flow out joyfully, willingly, tenderly, like the song of the finch, and is not forced or restrained by rules. For Catholic composers, plainchant was the basis for musical expansion and elaboration

3 Music: Ave Maria (Josquin des Prez) Music and liturgy in the Lutheran Church Martin Luther s vision was that a high proportion of the liturgy would be chanted, either by the celebrant, or by the congregation with the support of a choir. He gave music a central position in the Lutheran Church, and he wanted the entire congregation to participate in services. His Formula Missae of 1523, a Latin liturgy that he composed for the new Lutheran Churches in Wittenberg, was based on the medieval mass: Introit-Kyrie-Gloria-Collect-Epistle-Gradual and Alleluia-Gospel-Creed- Sermon-Preface-Eucharistic Prayer-Sanctus and Benedictus-Lords Prayer- The Peace-Agnus Dei and Communion-Collect-The Blessing-Benediction. Martin Luther published his German Mass: the Deutsche Messe in 1526, which followed roughly the same order as the Formula Missae of In the Deutsche Messe, we see the inclusion and encouragement of congregational singing in all parts of the mass, and through the singing of Chorales, which are more commonly known nowadays as Gotteslobe. The fundamental parts of the Mass were often paraphrased in German, or sung as a hymn, for example, the Agnus Dei might have been replaced with the hymn Jesus Christus unser Heiland, der von uns den Gotteszorn wandt. The models for the text and melody originate from 15 th century Bohemia, and are based on the hymn Jesus Christus nostra salus, which was composed by the Archbishop of Prague, Jan of Jenštein. The content of the Jenštein hymn is comparable to the first two verses of the 13 th Century hymn sequence Lauda Sion Salvatorem by St Thomas Aquinas, which is focused on the Eucharist, and the presence of Christ in bread and wine. Music: Hymn: Lauda Sion Salvatorem (St Thomas Aquinas) Hymn: Jesus Christus nostra salus (Jan of Jenštein) Hymn: Jesus Christus unser Heiland (Martin Luther) The congregational Chorale was a strophic hymn intended to be sung by the congregation in unison, and was developed by Luther along with his colleague, the composer Johann Walther (not Johann Gottfried Walther).

4 Ties with the Catholic service were also extended to the Chorales through adaptation of text and melodies from the old plainsong repertoire. One example is the Advent hymn Veni redemptor gentium which was adapted to become Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. Music: Hymn: Veni redemptor gentium (Ambrose) Hymn: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Martin Luther) Old songs that mixed German and Latin phrases, such as In dulci jubilo, were taken over unchanged. Music: Hymn: In dulci jubilo (13 th century possibly Heinrich Seuse) The folksong tradition of German sacred song was invaluable to Luther. Many of these songs were associated with Christmas, Easter and Marian feasts, and using a method called contrafactum, new texts were fitted to the old melodies The most important source of the new repertoire was to be Martin Luther s own songs. He composed for occasions of the liturgical year, including Advent, Christmas, the Purification, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost and the Trinity. He also composed on topics related to the catechism; the Ten Commandments, the Lord s Prayer, the Creed, Baptism, Confession and the Eucharist. The close relation of text and melody in many of his chorales suggests a strong sense of creativity. Music: Hymn: Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her (Martin Luther) The Counter-Reformation Because of the major changes that were taking place across Europe, the Catholic Church felt the need to respond to the Protestant Reformation. There was little significant papal reaction to the Protestants or to demands for reform from within the Roman Catholic Church before the mid-16 th century. Pope Paul III, who reigned from , is considered to be the first pope of the Counter-Reformation. He convened the Council of Trent in Disciplinary reforms attacked the corruption of the clergy. There was an attempt to regulate the training of candidates for the priesthood; measures were taken against luxurious living on the part of the clergy, the appointment of relatives to church office, and the absence of bishops from

5 their dioceses, and prescriptions were given about pastoral care and the administration of the sacraments. Catholic church music itself changed very little during the sixteenth century. Following the death of Josquin in 1521, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was to take up the mantel as one of the leading composers of church music In his masses, Palestrina used a variety of techniques, including cantus firmus, parody, paraphrase and free composition. Among the most famous of these was the Missa Papae Marcelli, which was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in In the late 16th century, a legend began that polyphony might have been banned by the Council because of the unintelligibility of the words. Perhaps this was the impetus behind Palestrina's composition of the Missa Papae Marcelli. It was believed that its simple, declamatory style convinced Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, on hearing, that polyphony could be intelligible, and that music such as Palestrina's was all too beautiful to ban from the Church. Music: Sanctus from Missa Papae Marcelli (Giovanni Palestrina) The use of the organ in church In the Catholic Church, it was common practice to present liturgical text using a method called alternatim, in which the organist would present part of the text through the performance of short improvised or specially composed versets, with the remainder of the text being sung as chant by the clergy or choir. The earliest source of composed settings for alternatim performance can be found in the Faenza Codex: a 15th-century Italian manuscript containing some of the oldest preserved keyboard music in existence. Later examples can be found in the Buxheimer Orgelbuch of c.1470, and through other sources composed during the 16 th and 17 th centuries. This practice was in use from as early as the fourteenth century, before Pope Pius X banned it in 1903, when he set new regulations for the performance of music in the Roman Catholic Church. It should be remembered that even when alternatim was in use, the choir would often take over the organist s role, through the performance of polyphonic mass settings and motets. Music: Magnificat Octavi Toni (Johann Kaspar Kerll)

6 In the new Lutheran tradition, the organ played a wholly different role in supporting the liturgy. The organs primary purpose within the context of Lutheran liturgy was to support and lead the congregation in the singing of hymns, and to accompany and cover other parts of the liturgy. The organist would also often improvise short preludes in order to establish the key of a piece that the choir was about to sing, or to improvise preludes on the melody of the hymn the congregation were about to sing. Organists would have also been required to cover other parts of the liturgy, such as movement around the church, or if preparation for communion had not been completed by the conclusion of the offertory. There is no doubt that the practice of alternatim was carried over into the Lutheran liturgy. North German composers such as Samuel Scheidt, Heinrich Scheidemann and Mattias Weckmann have left us examples of alternatim hymns and Magnificats. J.S.Bach also composed one example his setting of the Te Deum, which is more commonly know in its Lutheran translation as Herr Gott, dich loben wir (BWV 725). Bach s vast legacy of organ music is based on Chorales from the Protestant Hymnals of Luther and Walther. The purpose of these chorale preludes is unclear. They might have been played as a prelude to a vocal work, which was based on the same chorale that was to be performed as part of the Gottesdienst. It seems highly unlikely that they would have been used to introduce the hymns, as many are quite substantial in length. The only collection of chorale preludes that might have suited this purpose is the Orgelbüchlein or the Little Organ Book - a collection of 46 short chorale preludes, and a few other stand-alone chorales. Music: Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her BWV 606 (J.S.Bach) Music: Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ BWV 722 (J.S.Bach) Music: Jesus Christus, unser Heiland BWV 665 (J.S.Bach) The legacy of Martin Luther s Reformation In the years following the publication of Martin Luther s Ninety-Five Theses, German principalities aligned themselves with either the Protestant, or the Catholic faith. Protestantism spread, and today it has millions of followers across the world. We can still witness Luther s legacy at work in the church today. We have seen the revival of ancient liturgies, and numerous new approaches to liturgy and musical styles. In addition to Catholic repertoire, musicians

7 now have access to a vast array of Lutheran repertoire dating from 1520 to the present day. Congregational Hymn: Ein feste burg ist unser Gott (Martin Luther) Richard Brasier 05/08/2017