Heinrich Scheidemann (c. 1595-1663) Organ Works Vol. 3 In quantity, quality and historical significance the work of Heinrich Scheidemann occupies the...
Heinrich Scheidemann
(c. 1595-1663)
Organ Works Vol. 3
In quantity, quality and historical significance the work of Heinrich
Scheidemann occupies the dominant position in North German organ music of the
first half of the seventeenth century. Scheidemann was born around 1595, the
son of the organist David Scheidemann. The young Heinrich travelled to
Amsterdam in 1611 to study with Sweelinck for three years. In 1625 he succeeded
his father as organist at St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg where he also became
the clerk, and remained there until his death in 1663. Many German organists
studied with Sweelinck, in fact, the master was known in Hamburg as 'the
organist maker'. Although a school of organ-playing had already flourished in
Germany at the turn of the seventeenth century, the work of Sweelinck's pupils
marked the beginning of the great period of North German organ music that
lasted throughout the seventeenth century. As part of the Hanseatic League, an
association of merchant towns begun in the mid-twelfth century, Hamburg
benefited from close trading connections with more than two hundred towns,
which brought with it a great cultural and economic flourish. By the mid-seventeenth
century, Hamburg had become one of the most prosperous and wealthy financial
and cultural centres in Northern Europe. It was a cosmopolitan, progressive
town with an established musical life. The Hamburg organs were an important
symbol of the prosperity and power of the free Hanse city. Scheidemann was
organist for thirty eight years at St. Catherine's, a church that housed one of
the most beautiful organs in Northern Germany, with its 56 ranks over four
manuals and pedal. According to Mattheson, Scheidemann's playing was 'nimble
with the hand, merry and full of humour'; he was 'well grounded in the art of
composition and his chorale harmonizations were easily playable'. Scheidemann
assimilated Sweelinck's language, combining his master's polyphony and
virtuosity with other elements, resulting in a new, independent style. Scheidemann's
large and impressive surviving output contains settings of the Magnificat, free
works, extended chorale fantasias, single verse chorale settings and a number
of arrangements of motets by Lassus, Hassler and others.
Scheidemann's brief praeambula are written-down improvisations,
composed in a relatively unsophisticated style. Some of them, with the fugal
developments, foreshadow the later form of prelude and fugue. Praeambulum in
D minor, WV 36, with its three sections, is an example of a
"free" prelude for a fully developed North German baroque organ. Praeambulum
in F major, WV 39 incorporates motivic repetitions, echo effects and
suggested imitations. Praeambulum in D minor, WV 32, is very brief, with
a sequential middle section with descending scales in sequential pattern. The Canzona
in G major is typical of the genre with its light character and note
repetitions at the start of the theme. The writing is typically North German
with the ornamented soprano solo, accompanied by the left hand with the bass in
the pedal.
The practice of singing the Magnificat for Saturday Vespers is
described in a Hamburg order of liturgy from 1699: 'The organ plays a prelude
to the Magnificat. The Magnificat is sung in German, and in this way, it is
divided into four sung sections and whenever a section is over, the organ plays
in between until the last verse is sung'. Scheidemann's Magnificat settings
are composed on each of the Church Modes and they each consist of four verses Magnificat
VII Toni begins with a four voices plenum. Noteworthy is the third verse,
where the ornamented melody is beautifully woven between treble and bass with
echo effects.
Intabulations are an often-neglected genre, but an important facet of
the seventeenth century keyboard literature, and Scheidemann's examples rank
among the finest of the entire tradition. Verbum caro factum est, based
on a motet by Hassler, is a superb example of a "fantasy" style
intabulation where the florid top voice alternates in sections with a florid
bass-line. This piece creatively
uses the resources of the North German organ, offering the opportunity to
feature different solo timbres of the instrument in the treble and bass. Jesu,
wollst uns weisen is an intabulation of the five-voice Tanzlied Viver
lieto voglio by G. Giovanni Gastoldi. It is written in a simple,
transparent style. Ego sum panis vivus (after Lassus) is set for a
single manual and pedal, with the figuration focused largely on the top voice.
Scheidemann's broad
spectrum of chorale settings includes extended chorale fantasias, such as Wir
glauhen all an einen Gall, alternatim verses, and single-verse chorale
settings such as Herzlich lieh hab ich dich and Jesu wollst uns
weisen. While these two manualiter pieces have a secular dance-like
character, Gott sei gelobet und gebenedeiet is a broad pedaliter setting.
Scheidemann typically begins the multi-verse chorale settings with the cantus
firums in long, sustained notes, often in the pedal. This is the case in
the Christmas chorale Es ist das Heil. The severe Kyrie summum is
a good example of the variety of writing employed in alternatim verses.
This setting begins with a full-voiced plenum which is followed by a very
expressive Christe in four parts, with the chorale tune laid out as a cantus
planus, occasionally lightly ornamented. The last Kyrie conceals the
cantus firmus within the polyphony. Some of the multi-verse settings are
continuous, with no break in between the verses, as in Jesus Christus, unser
Heiland. The first three verses are written as bicinia with the cantus
planus is set against an ornamented counterpoint. These gain intensity
through increasingly complex rhythms and changes in registration, until the
entrance of the chorale melody in the pedal. The large North German organ with
fully developed pedal encouraged a new manner of writing, where the
(ornamented) tune is in the right hand on a solo registration, the pedal
playing a continuo-like bass and the two inner voices filling out the texture
on a secondary manual. A beautiful example is the setting of Vater unser, in
which the melody is presented as a delicately embellished cantus firmus in
the soprano voice. Also noteworthy is the second verse of Gelobet seist du,
Jesu Christ.
Julia Brown