Schütz for singers & wind players
VOICES & INSTRUMENTS
Tutor: Roger Wilkes (stepping in for Philip Thorby)
Location: United Reformed Church, Sale
Reviewer: Jill Mitchell
SELIGKEIT MIT SCHÜTZ!
The Schütz workshop to be directed by Philip Thorby had long been anticipated by many. I saw him last operating with characteristic ebullience in Solihull during a weekend course in April 20l0 when, like many other musicians that year, we were focusing on the 1610 Vespers of the divine Claudio: any deficiencies in the resultant, performance – and there were many – were entirely of our making, as he positively spent himself – virtue, in the Biblical manner, going out of him from the start – rehearsing sections of choir, soloists and players before and after tutti rehearsals and throughout the lunch-hours, highly organised, wasting not a moment. By Sunday afternoon he had totally lost his voice but neither his passion nor good humour; for me the Vespers thenceforth are stamped with his ardour, his rapturous insights.
It was, therefore, an inevitable disappointment at first to learn on March 10th that Philip was battling a feverish temperature, having had to leave a rehearsal the previous day as he had felt so ill. It was even worse for Roger, our President, who had had to shoulder the responsibility with less than 24 hours to get the programme together and plan the day. We are very grateful, too, to Peter Syrus who, about to go away himself, hot-footed to Roger’s doorstep with several piles of his own Schütz editions for us to make use of. Looking back through the archives, I am reminded of the Schützschule that Peter held in June 2005 at Nether Alderley: reading what I wrote then, I see that three of Saturday’s pieces were among those we’d enjoyed on that occasion.
Schütz’s predominantly religious output is inspired by and suffused with his own deep piety, which gives his work – from the relatively simple to the complex large-scale – great emotional truth and simple immediacy. This was well demonstrated by our first item, the 6-part setting of Selig Sind Die Toten of 1648 (Blessed are those that die in the Lord), its strong homophonic exposition followed by the individual voices setting off to develop the statement, in their several thoughtful and interleaving ways. They come to military attention again with ’Ja! der Geist spricht’ where, incontrovertibly, the divine authority assures the faithful that they will rest from their labours: the music lingers wistfully, almost languorously, over ‘sie ruhen’ (6 times), as relishing the thought of that ultimate peace. This composer has a positively pedagogic certainty as he expounds his theme; he complements this with a charming vein of open-hearted spiritual gaiety. In this piece (here I unashamedly self-quote!) Schütz ”joyfully tosses the words ’und ihre werke folgen ihnen nach’ (for their good works follow them) repeatedly among the voices, ending with a paean of confidence and a leaping soprano phrase, where the two top parts descend in thirds to a totally affirmative cadence.” I have a friend in Freiburg who has made me smile more than once by the deliberation with which she pronounces “Al-So”; I was reminded again of Elisabeth by the didactic homophonic opening of Also Hat Gott Die Welt Geliebt! . Once again Schütz combines an unconditioned faith with an exhilarating, child-like assurance of everlasting life for all who accept the God who ’so loved the world’. Forgive me for, again, quoting my earlier reaction to this: “The comprehensiveness of the offer of salvation is celebrated by the dancing-quaver repetitions of ’alle’; and the contrast between the eternal loss which no longer threatens the faithful with the everlasting life now to hand is beautifully pointed by the lighthearted skipping of the triple-time Schütz uses for ’ewige Leben’ in ecstatic iteration.”
The third piece of the morning – 5 parts, with 2 Tenors – was Ach, Herr, Du Schöpfer Aller Ding (O Lord, thou Creator of all things, how didst thou humble thyself to lie on withered grass, the fodder for ox and ass). This obviously was not a Biblical text and intrigued me till I realised it was in verse. Possessed now of Roger’s own copy, I learn that it is – I might have guessed – from Luther’s own Weinachtslied collection. Schütz, typically, is expansive and reverent over the opening phrase, which establishes the grandeur and over-arching power of God, then the tempo energises as voice after voice, overlapping, interlocking, expresses astonishment at the thought of the condescension of Christ in having opted for the most basic of possible nativities: he makes a little text go a long way as he ruminates wonderingly about its huge implications.
The morning’s fare under Roger’s energetic tutelage had given much pleasure but hadn’t unduly tested us; the afternoon’s was to challenge us more significantly. Our first account of Verleih Uns Frieden Genädiglich was dreadful! It was not difficult at all, in fact, but we abruptly snapped out of comfortable complacency, realising the need to count, not ’coast’. Similarly, as we’d been at Peter’s day, too, we were hard put to articulate with clarity the rapid, insistent repetitions of ’der für uns könnte streiten’, as Schütz underlines the truth that there is none other but God ’that fighteth for us’. Again we saw how effectively the composer juxtaposes the more emphatic, homophonic moments of exposition or corporate entreaty with the passages where individual voices embark upon their own private agitation. The Zweiter Teil sets off solidly on a second prayer: for principalities and powers to operate with peace and justice so that our own aspirations to goodness may be supported. The time-changes the composer makes here flower into a leisured 3/2, when he imagines the tranquil life he prays for, but returns to two minims, wrongfooting us, with a flurry of quavers passing from part to part, when he reaches ‘führen mögen’. The whole entreaty is sealed, all passion spent, with a triumphantly-collaged Amen.
The double choir Ach, Herr, Straf mich nicht in dienem zorn necessitated a reconfiguration of forces. There is a great deal of anguished text in Psalm 6, so that the composer has to pile up the cumulative picture of distress rather than repeatingly dwell on individual phrases. He uses a lot of homorhythmic declaration to intensify the passionate mood, using the two choirs throughout to great antiphonal, imitative effect; he word-paints with particular drama at several points and concludes with his echoing celebrations of “Von ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit”.
The final challenge of the day was the triple-choir Nicht uns Herr (Not unto us, O Lord). Here Roger treated Choir 1 as for “favoriti” with one soprano on each of the top two lines, two altos singing the third and one tenor on the fourth. Appointed to the top line together with, thank God, a fortifying curtal, I nevertheless blanched when I saw two top ‘A’s in my fourth bar. “Have you seen bar 92, then?” hissed my instrumental colleague, – (Worse!). This was positively alarming (2.5 octaves below that I’d be quite happy, honestly!). However we flung ourselves in the general direction of high altitude not, it be said, with consistent success but some of the notes were not bad. Actually at the end we clamoured to do the whole thing again, with redoubled courage all round. It was a fitting climax to a most engaging day. We are grateful to Roger, and to Peter for the music, for the great pleasure he gave us, well aware of what a great job he had done at the eleventh hour when Philip had no option but to cancel; we are much in his debt.
First published in April 2012 Newsletter
Portrait of Heinrich Schütz by Christoph Spätner, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=111512
