Towards an Allegorical Interpretation of Buxtehude's Funerary Counterpoints Author(s): David Yearsley Reviewed work(s): Source: Music & Letters,

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TOWARDS AN ALLEGORICALINTERPRETATION OF BUXTEHUDE'S FUNERARY COUNTERPOINTS

BY DAVID YEARSLEY
Death looms so large and is terrifyingbecause our foolishand fainthearted naturehas etched its image too vividly within itself and constantlyfixes its gaze on it.' IF ONLY by its vastness, the archive of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Lutheran funerary texts-both literary and musical-attests to a cultural obsession with the commemoration of death: perhaps 100,000 published funeral sermons survive, as do over a thousand burial pieces, which account for about half of all the occasional music printed during the period.2 From the early years of the Reformation, Luther had encouraged diversity in local liturgical practices concerning death and burial,3 and as a result there was a proliferation of municipal ordinances carefully regulating funerary musical customs, often with great specificity as regards the kinds of pieces and performing forces appropriate to the social standing of the deceased. The income from funeral commissions often provided a crucial supplement to a musician's sometimes meagre salary. Occasionally a composer's artistic and monetary ambitions conflicted with a town council's prohibitions against the performance of elaborateand expensive-burial music for citizens considered to occupy a position too low on the carefully monitored class hierarchy.4 The most famous and grandiose funerary works of the seventeenth century were written for members of the upper echelons of society: Schiitz's Musicalische Exequienof 1636, for example, was composed for the aptly named Prince Heinrich Posthumus von Reuss. Though less ambitious in scope, the expansive six-voice stile antico motet 'Zur selbigen Zeit' composed in 1667 by Schiitz's pupil Christoph Bernhard was nonetheless an appropriate commemoration of the worldly position of the Hamburg mayor at whose funeral it was performed and in whose honour it was duly published.5 Works of this scale towered above the unison chorale singing typical of the funerals of ordinary citizens. In contrast to such compulsory-and remunerative-tributes to powerful individuals, funerary music written specifically for other musicians was inspired by personal ties and mutual respect between composer and colleague; appeals for
1 Martin Luther, 'A Sermon on Preparingto Die', Luther'sWorks, ed. JaroslavPelikan & Helmut T. Lehmann, St Louis, 1955-1976 (henceforthLW), xlii. 95-115, at p. 99. 2 See Eberhard im deutschen Luthertum bisSpener, Winkler,Die Leichenpredigt Munich, 1967, p. 9. 3 See Luther, 'Prefaceto the BurialHymns(1542)', LW, liii. 325-31, esp. p. 328. derStadtLiineburg, See, for example, Horst Walter,Musikgeschichte Tutzing, 1951, pp. 195-200. 5 For a modem edition, see Threnodiae sacrae: aus gedruckten des 16. und 17. Beerdigungskompositionen Leichenpredigten ed. Wolfgang Reich ('Das Erbe deutscher Musik', lxxix), Wiesbaden, 1975, pp. 69-78. In Hamburg, Jahrhunderts, speciallycommissionedfuneralmusic was allowed only for the burial of mayors,althoughthere seems to have been an exception for leading musicians; Matthias Weckmann, for example, wrote his own funeral motet, 'In te Domine ist speravi',which was performedunder the direction of Bernhardat Weckmann'sburial. See Norbert Bolin, 'Sterben meinGewinn': Ein Beitragzur evangelischen derdeutschen desBarock, Funeralkomposition Sepulkralkultur 1550-1750, Kassel, im 17. Jahrhundert, 1985, p. 256; Liselotte Kriiger,Die Hamburgische Musikorganisation Strasbourg,1933, p. 160.

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burial music from a fellow musician surely drew from composers a particularly concentratedcommitment to the task at hand. Johann Hermann Schein's deathbed appealto Schiitz for a funeralmotet, and, in turn, Schtitz'srequestfor such music from Bernhardat his own burial must have made these pieces particularlymeaningful to their respectivecomposers. Bernhardwould undoubtedly have lavished great care on his now lost stile anticomotet for Schiitz's funeral, particularlyas the work was to be vetted by the master himself and, indeed, was gratefullyapprovedby him two years before his death.6 One of the most interesting and accomplished funeraryworks of the seventeenth Hinfarth ('Peaceful and Joyful century, Dietrich Buxtehude's Fried-undFreudenreiche Journey';BuxWV 76), published in Liibeck in 1674,representsan even more personal tribute.7The two pieces of the 1674 collection were performed at the funeral of Buxtehude'sfather,Johannes, the musicianfromwhom Buxtehudehad firstlearntthe craftthat would take him to the pinnacle of his profession.In 1673 the old man had moved south fromthe Danish city of Helsingor,where he had servedas organistfor 32 years, to Liibeck to live with his son; on his death in the followingyear at the age of 72, the funeral service was held in the Marienkirche,where Dietrich Buxtehude was organist,and his body was buried within the walls of the church, a privilegegenerally The honouraccordedJohannes Buxtehude reservedfor membersof the upper classes.8 the music composedby his son and performed his burial was matched the site of by by at the service. elaboratecontrapuntalsetting of the Lutheranburial hymn 'Mit Fried und Freud ich fahrdahin' and may originallyhave been composed and publishedforthe 1671funeral of an importantLubeck citizen, Meno Hanneken the elder.9As city superintendent, Hanneken was a member of Liibeck's highest class, and Buxtehude's funerary tribute-both in its musical complexity and by the fact of its publication-was certainly more typical of Hanneken's standing than of a musician such as Johannes Buxtehude, situated along with brewers and lesser wholesalers in the fourth of Libeck's six classes.'0 Since his arrival in Liibeck in 1668, however, Dietrich Buxtehude, the city's leading musician, had been permitted a good deal of latitude in terms of the city's social regulations;for example, the municipalordinancesallowed his class only 35 wedding guests, yet Buxtehude's marriagefeast was enjoyed by 70.
Likewise, the publication of Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth, regardless of whether or The second of the two pieces that make up the Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth, the The first of the two pieces found in the Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfahrt is an

not it involved previouslycomposed material, was a luxury. This was not everyday funeralmusic in seventeenth-century Libeck. 'Klag-Lied'(henceforth'Klagelied'),was certainlycomposed by Buxtehude specially for his father's funeral, and its threnody presents a marked contrast to the serene assuranceof 'Mit Fried und Freud'. While the four strophesof 'Mit Fried und Freud',
See the comments in Johann Mattheson, Grundlage einerEhren-Pforte, Hamburg, 1739 (repr.Berlin, 1910), 322. Buxtehudes ed. WilibaldGurlitt,Klecken& Hamburg, 1925-38 (repr.New York, 1977),ii. Edited in Dietrich Werke, 86-8. ist meinGewinn', 8 See Bolin, 'Sterben pp. 69-70. 9 The identity of the burial music for Hanneken with that by Buxtehudeis assumed by KeralaJ. Snyder (Dieterich in Liibeck,New York, 1987, p. 214) and contested by Dietrich Kilian (Das Vokalwerk Buxtehude: Dietrich Organist ist meinGewinn', Berlin, 1956, p. 79) and Norbert Bolin ('Sterben Buxtehudes, p. 261). Hanneken's burial music is now lost-only the title-page survives-and the claim for the identity of the two pieces rests on the reference to 'two on the title-pagesof the 1671('zween Contrapunctis') and 1674('2. Contrapuncten') counterpoints' publications,as well as similarlyformulatedcomparisonsbetween the two deceased men and the biblical figure of Simeon. o0Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, p. 45.
6 7

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whose subject is sureness in the face of death, are composed according to the strict rules of invertiblecounterpoint,the strophic'Klagelied'sets seven strophesof grieving poetry to a plaintive melody accompanied by two string instruments (marked 'tremulo')-presumably viols using bow vibrato-and continuo, pulsing through chains of suspensions. By turning to the antique and contrapuntallycomplex style in his settings of 'Mit Fried und Freud', Buxtehude projectsa sense of universaltruth and profound belief; the 'Klagelied', however, is written in the modern style and is immediate, expressiveand questioning. The contrastbetween 'Mit Fried und Freud' and the 'Klagelied'parallelsa shift in the discourseof contemporary funeralsermons, which, in comparison with those of the sixteenth century, increasingly emphasized affectoverdoctrine.As one contemporary theologianput it, 'Sermonsof mourningand lament are more effectiveand go deeper into the heart'.11 In its two halves, the Friedund Freudenreiche craft and assurance and sorrow, and, in emotion, Hinfarthparses terms of musical style, the retrospectiveand the modern. The stylisticcontrastthat characterizes the two pieces of the Fried-undFreudenreiche is on the which Hinfarth anticipated title-page, opposesthe instabilityand disorderof the world to the spiritualcomfortsawaitingthe deceased in heaven: 'JohannisBuxtehude worldand has [has]departedwith peace andjoy fromthis troubledand anxiety-wracked been taken home by his Redeemer,who has been awaitinghim with longing'(see P1.I). The rhetoricaloppositionbetween the mundane and the celestialwas a standardtopic of seventeenth-centuryfuneral oration and religious poetry, and the dedication of Fried-undFreudenreiche likewiseviewsJohannes Buxtehude'sdeath as a release Hinfarth from the difficultiesof this life, with the implicit promiseof everlasting joy in the next. And the two funerary pieces that constitute the publication offered the mourners divergentmusical views of death, the 'Klagelied'throughsensual expression,and 'Mit Fried und Freud' throughthe tone of reverenceand belief attendingthe stileantico and the intellectual and spiritualqualities of invertiblecounterpointitself. The burial hymn 'Mit Freud und Freud ich fahr dahin' (first published at Wittenberg in 1524) appeared in 1542 in the first collection of funerarychorales to be published afterthe Reformation.In the preface,Luther claimed that these hymns differentfromthat of his Catholic representedan attitudetowardsdeath fundamentally opposition: 'We do not want our churches to be houses of wailing and places of mourningany longer... Nor do we sing any dirgesor dolefulsongs.' Instead,he urged the bereaved'not to sorrowoverthe dead as otherswho have no hope, but to comfort each other with God's Word as having a certainhope of life and of the resurrectionof the dead'.12 From its inception, the Lutheranliturgy was meant to affirmthis vision, andd hymns such as 'Mit Fried und Freud'were intendedto reassuremournersthat the dead body in the coffin was destined for resurrectionand later reunion with the departed soul; the pastoral and musical message at the time of burial was one of consolation through the promise of redemption. This resistance to emotional surrender, the refusal to be overwhelmed by grief, is at the core of Buxtehude's treatmentof 'Mit Fried und Freud',with its calm, seemingly eternalconfidence.Here, the consonant certaintyof the music testifiesto belief.'3
" CasparTitius, Locitheologi historici, Leipzig, 1684, p. 1290: 'daB [Klag-und TrauerPredigten]mehr afficirenund naher zu Hertzen gehen'; given in WinfriedZeller, 'Leichenpredigtund Erbauungsliteratur', als Quell Leichenpredigten historischer ed. Rudolf Lenz, Cologne, 1975, pp. 66-81, at p. 67. Wissenschaften, 12 Luther, 'Prefaceto the BurialHymns(1542)', LW, liii. 325-6. 13 In the same vein, Buxtehude's friend Andreas Werckmeister'never played any dissonance or an evil-sounding note' while mourning the death of his firstwife and child ('Er hat aber niemahls einige Dissonans oder ubel-klingenden Thon der Ungedult von sich horen lasen') according to the sermon preached at Werckmeister'sfuneral by Johann [cont.onp. 187]

185

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186

The text of 'Mit Fried und Freud' consists of Luther's four-strophe paraphrase of the Nunc dimittis, and articulates the resolute response to death found throughout his writings: Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin in Gottes Willen, getrost ist mir mein Herz und Sinn, sanft und stille, wie Gott mir verheissenhat der Tod ist mein Schlaf worden. With peace and joy I depart in the will of God, my heart and mind are consoled, soft and still, as God has promised me, death has become my sleep.

There is no mention here of the troubles of the world; instead the poetic 'I' dies with 'peace and joy', and, in one of Luther's favoured metaphors, death is portrayed as sleep; in one of his funeral sermons Luther argued that '[Our Lord God] will send death to you only in the sense that you will die as far as your five senses are concerned, as in sleep'.'4 Lutheran theology construed graves as resting-places (dormitoria) from which the dead would be raised up at the Last Judgement.'5 The faithfully departed could look forward to a realm devoid of physical strain and sinful desire, in which, as one seventeenth-century funeral sermon put it, there would be 'no old age, no weaknesses of the body, no debilitation, but instead nothing but eternal youth, enduring beauty, everlasting strength and health'.'6 In the preface to the 1542 edition of burial hymns, Luther explains his admonitions against excessive mourning with the promise of the non-physical human form which the saved will have in heaven: '[St. Paul] bans from his sight every ugly aspect of death in our mortal body and brings to the fore a wholly delightful and joyous picture of life when he says: ... it is sown [i.e., buried] a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body'.'7 Transfiguration allowed Luther and the orthodox theologians of the next century to promise their followers the resurrection of the body and the complete transcendence of the sentient and sinwracked nature that had marked existence on earth and its accompanying sorrows, the most fearful of which was death. Luther upheld the traditional definition of biological death as the separation of the soul from the body, and this view continued to be articulated in the funerary literature of the seventeenth century.'8 At the moment of death, the soul leaves the body and, if saved, returns to heaven. This was an essential feature of Lutheran orthodoxy which, in contrast to the delayed judgement of Roman Catholic purgatory, promised immediate reward to true believers. As the Rostock theologian Heinrich Muller put it in a funeral sermon from a volume published in 1675: 'The moment in which the soul [leaves] the
Melchior B6ssen on 26 October 1706 and published the following year. The sermon is reprinted in Andreas musica' undandere Werckmeister,'Hypomnemata Hildesheim, 1970, unpaginated. Schriften, 4 Luther, 'Two Funeral Sermons, 1532', LW, li. 229-55, at p. 239. '5 The title of the fourthvolume ofJohann Heermann'sseriesof funeralsermonsreflectsthis conceptionof the graves of the blessed: Dormitoria: Etlicher Christen Das ist Christlicher frommer Vierdter Schlaff-Hduslein. Theil, Leich-Predigten Rostock, 1650. 16 Johann Heermann, Christianae euthanasias statutae, Leipzig, 1630, p. 262: 'kein Alter, keine Leibes Schwachheit, keine UnvermBglichkeit, sonder eitel bestendigeJugend, trawerhafftige [i.e., dauerhafte]Schonheit, immerwaihende Stirke und Gesundheit'; given in Winkler, Die Leichenpredigt im deutschen Luthertum bis Spener,p. 149. Here and I elsewhere, have replaced the oblique strokesused as punctuationin seventeenth-century German with commas. 17 Luther, 'Prefaceto the Burial Hymns (1542)',L W, liii. 326. Luthermakesthis same distinctionbetweenthe physical and spiritualbody in 'Two Funeral Sermons, 1532', LW, li. 238. 18 Consider,for example, the followingpassagebyJohann Heermann,whose four-volumeset of funeralsermonswas widely read: 'As soon as man dies, the soul is separatedand disengagedfrom the body, and returnsto God' ('So bald [derMensch] stirbet,wird die Seele vom Leibe ab- und auffgeloset,und komptwiederzu Gott');Heermann, Christianae euthanasias statutae, im deutschen bis Spener, Luthertum p. 603, given in Winkler,Die Leichenpredigt p. 146.

187

The title-pageof Friedbody is exactly the moment that it travelsto heavenlybliss'.19 undFreudenreiche makes it clear that Buxtehude has been saved;his Hinfarth Johannes death is described as blessed ('seeligen ableiben'), and the collection's contents are offered'dutifullyhonouringand in Christianpraiseof the blessed deceased [whowas] his dearly beloved father' ('Dem Seelig-verstorbenen, als seinem herzlich geliebten Vater zu schuldigen Ehren und Christlichennachruhme').The 'peaceful and joyful journey' of the title is that of the biblical figure of the old and faithful Simeon ('des alten groBglaubigenSimeons');by associationwith Simeon, a symbol of all Christians and of an exemplary death, Johannes Buxtehude is seen to have died with an unwavering belief in God. Testimony to a devout Christian life is also scattered acrossthe seven strophesof the 'Klagelied',including,in the fifth,the crucialquotation of the dying words-spoken by the fatherto his son: 'I will wait for you with longing' ('Deiner wart' ich mit Verlangen')-which were commonly cited in contemporary funeral sermons and are here offered as dramatic proof of Johannes's abiding faithfulnessand love for his son.20 Because death meant either instant gratification for the soul or its damnation, the congregationat Johannes Buxtehude'sfuneralwould have been encouragedto believe that his spirit had already ascended to heaven. But for the purposes of offeringthe listeners a dramatic representationof the spirit'sjourney, the chorale provides firstperson narrationand comment on its joyful ascent. The rhetoricaltrope employed is German funeral orations and in all prosopopoeia, pervasivein seventeenth-century The the chorale.21 of burial music, including purpose of this figurewas to give genres the impressionthat the soul of the dead personwas speakingthroughthe preacher-or singer-directly to the congregation;this effect was given furtherdramaticpower by the common practiceof placing the coffin directlybelow the pulpit, so that in the case of the funeral sermon, the assembled mourners would hear 'the deceased himself preaching through prosopopoeiadirectlyfrom the coffin' ('gleichsamperprosopopoiian In Buxtehude's setting, den Verstorbenen selbst aus dem Sarge herffirpredigten').22 then, the 'I' of the opening verse of 'Mit Fried und Freud' would have been taken to representthe soul of Johannes Buxtehude singing to the congregation,consoling them with the assurancethat his spirit has left the body and made the journey to heaven: 'With peace andjoy I depart'.Although the title-pagedescribes'Mit Fried und Freud' as having been sung ('abgesungen')-and it is printed in four parts (soprano, alto, tenor and bass clefs)-Johann GottfriedWalther claimed, some 60 years after the that it was an organ piece. But whether Hinfarth, publicationof Fried-undFreudenreiche the cantus firmus was sung or played, it would have remained richly significantto a congregation in whose consciousness the chorale was so deeply embedded that its powerof the tropeto melody was inseparablefromits text; in eithercase, the rhetorical been of the would have abetted the deceased to voice by Buxtehude's spirit give elaboratecontrapuntaltreatment,which, as I shall show, also speaks from the soul.23
19Heinrich Miiller, Graber derHeiligen, Frankfurt,1675, p. 100: 'der Blick, darinndie Seel aul dem Corper,ist eben Luthertum im deutscher bis der Blick, darinn sie fahrt in die himmlische Seligkeit';given in Winkler,Die Leichenpredigt Spener, p. 164. Buxtehude knew Miller's poetryand set his 'Was mich auf dieserWelt betriibt'(BuxWV 105)and 'Wie schmeckt es so lieblich und wohl' (BuxWV 108); see Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, p. 146. 20 Miller was particularlyfond of such citations; see Winkler, Die Leichenpredigt Luthertum im deutschen bis Spener, p. 171. of the Dead in 17th-Century 21 For a discussion of this figure, see GregoryS. Johnston, 'RhetoricalPersonification German Funeral Music: Heinrich Schiitz's Musikalische Exequien (1636) and Three Works by Michael Wiedemann ix (1991), 186-213. (1693)', Journalof Musicology, 22 historici, p. 1291; given in Zeller, 'Leichenpredigtund Erbauungsliteratur', Titius, Locitheologi p. 67. 23 In a funeral piece by Michael Wiedemann dated 1693, the soul of the dead man speaks through what the

188

Given the Lutheran emphasis on the release of the spirit at death, it is perhapsnot surprisingthat Buxtehude should have chosen to set the funeraryhymn 'Mit Fried und Freud' in invertible counterpoint. Not only would this backward-lookingmode of composition have powerfully represented tradition and belief, but, perhaps more important,it appealed directlyto the intellectualfaculties,to the spiritualratherthan the physical. In short, strict counterpointwas the style which best avoided sensuous engagement with the body. Christoph Bernhard alluded to the important stylistic to be made between spiritualand physical music in his prefaceto the differentiation 1673 publication of stileanticoMasses by Johann Theile.24Bernhardpraised Theile's compositions for having been 'purified of all lasciviousness' ('von aller Geilheit and implied that the stile antico,elaborated with intricate contrapuntal saubere'),25 devices, not only encouraged decorous religious devotion but also nourished the soul ratherthan the senses. In the context of burial, such music anticipateda transfigured body cleansed of sin and freedfrompain. Berhard's own funeralmotet for Schiitzwas not only Styl'),26 expresslywrittenin the style of Palestrina('nach dem pranestinischen as a testamentto his teacher'smasteryof that traditionbut as a musical representation of the transcendenceof earthly suffering,an emancipationfrom the prison of physical
existence.27

melody in long notes in the soprano above a rhythmicallymore active texture in the lower parts. The musical material of the opening movement is repeated in the first Evolutio, where it is transposed from D-Dorian to A-Dorian, with the outer voices (soprano and bass) exchanging places while the inner voices (alto and tenor) switch and its Evolutio, positions.This pair of settingsis mirroredby the second Contrapunctus the latteringeniously constructedfollowingthe same patternof contrapuntalinversion but exploiting in addition the melodic inversionof the individualvoices (see Ex. 1). The careful harmonic movement and exacting contrapuntal construction of Buxtehude's 'Mit Fried und Freud' does not seek to move the affectionsby engaging the body; rather, it presents a placid texture, articulated through the precise manipulation of strict techniques. In all four strophes of 'Mit Fried und Freud', Buxtehude creates a predominantlyconsonant texture, almost a necessity since the voices must allow for inversion; melodically, he avoids all harsh skips, with the The first Contrapunctus exception of one downward leap of a diminished fifth.29 and
composer calls the 'Seelen Stimme'; see Johnston, 'RhetoricalPersonificationof the Dead in 17th-CenturyGerman Funeral Music', p. 210. 24 One of the greatestcontrapuntalenthusiastsand teachersof the late seventeenthcentury,Johann Theile was living in Libeck when his ParsprimaMissarum (Wismar, 1673) was published with the financialsupport of Buxtehude and Bernhard,among others. 25 Given in Carl Dahlhaus's preface to the facsimile of Johann Theile, Musicalisches Kunstbuch ('Denkmaler norddeutscherMusik', i), Kassel, 1965, p. viii. 26 to einerEhren-Pforte, According Mattheson, Grundlage p. 322. 27 For the derHeiligen, body as prison, see Miiller, Graber im deutschen Luthertum p. 696; Winkler,Die Leichenpredigt bis Spener, p. 162. 28 is given in Die Kompositionslehre Christoph Bernhard's Tractatus compositionis Heinrich Schutzens augmentatus in der ed. Joseph Miiller-Blattau,2nd edn., Kassel, 1963, pp. 40-121; for a Fassungseines SchiilersChristoph Bernhard, see Walter 'The Treatisesof ChristophBernhard',TheMusicForum, translation, Hilse, iii (1973),31-196. The Tractatus was probablycompiled about 1660;see Paul Walker,Fuguein German Theory (unpublisheddissertation,StateUniversity of New York at Buffalo, 1987, p. 252. 9 Berhard admits this interval in the stylusgravis;see Bernhard, Tractatus ed. Milleraugmentatus, compositionis Blattau, p. 58.

The opening Contrapunctus compositionis augmentatus.28 places the unadorned chorale

All four strophesof Buxtehude's 'Mit Fried und Freud' conformto the stylus gravis, the antique style described by Bernhard in his widely disseminated Tractatus

189

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its Evolutioeschew chromaticism and affective inflection; the only chromatic alterations are on the sixth and seventh degrees of the scale and occur as the result of melodic motion. The contrapuntal motion complies with Bernhard's rules for the stylusgravis: all the dissonances on strong beats are prepared, and unprepared dissonances are and its merely passing notes. The accompanying voices of the second Contrapunctus Evolutio are more active, with occasional hints at chromaticism. But Buxtehude still avoids emotional excess, and the piece remains within the confines of the strict style. The staid melodic movement and dissonance treatment parallel the calm certainty of the text, and the restrained aural effect of the invertible counterpoint presents a music of the 'kingdom of heaven, where sense is not'.3 However, the 'Klagelied' is a different case. Although Luther had inveighed against the use of dirges at funerals, he recognized that the expression of grief was a necessary
30 Luther, 'Lectures on Isaiah: Chapters 40-66', LW, xvii. 334. The metaphysicalproblems associated with the music of heaven were of some concern to seventeenth-and eighteenth-century music theorists.Towardsthe end of his derhimmlischen Musik(Hamburg, 1747,pp. 70, career,Matthesonturned to questions of heavenlymusic; in Behauptung theoristJ. A. Herbst that the music of heaven 'will be 77) he concurredwith the assertionof the seventeenth-century performedin the angelic, heavenly choir, with the highest perfection(as both science and art) for all eternityto the praiseand glory of God' ('im dem englischen, himmlichenChor, mit hochstenVollkommenheit(als Wissenschaftund Kunst zugleich)zu GottesLob und Preis,in alle Ewigkeitausgeiibetwerdenwird').But Matthesonwas at greatpains to argue,in oppositionto tradition,that this music would still be a physical-though transfigured-phenomenon, since for him there was no music, even in heaven,withoutthe senses. For more on the sensualnatureof angelic music, see Joyce HeartnorSongAlone,New York, 1993, p. 137. Irwin,Neither

192

part of coming to terms with death, and he disparaged complete stoicism at the loss of a friend or family member as an 'artificial virtue and a fabricated strength'.31During the course of the seventeenth century, the consolatory mission of the liturgy and of pastoral care during bereavement was emphasized through the frequent citation of Augustine's aphorism that funeral rites were for the comfort of the living rather than for the benefit of the dead, since the essential message at the time of burial was one of assurance to the survivors.32It is the second part of Fried- und Freudenreiche, the 'Klagelied', which represents and encourages this emotional reaction to death. Whereas 'Mit Fried und Freud' reflects the music of the soul bound for heaven, the 'Klagelied' dramatizes the anxiety of the mourners; the title of the piece ('Song of lament'), as well as the immediately accessible and affective style of the music, announce that the work is of this world and not of the next. Unfettered by a preexisting melody and the doctrinal status of chorale texts, particularly those attributed to Luther, the 'Klagelied' offered Buxtehude the possibility of great immediacy and expressiveness;33in contrast to the arcane chorale setting, the worldly style of its music appeals directly to the senses and conveys its content independently of any study or technical expertise on the part of the listener. This turn from the venerable, universal chorale to the moder, personal Lied reflects the tendency towards individual emotion manifested in contemporary poetry, a trend particularly prominent in many of the publications which Buxtehude knew and from which he drew texts for his music. The generic possibilities afforded by the Lied, with its freedom from intricate contrapuntal rules such as those governing chorale-based compositions, are here crucial to the musical expression of the text.34 The tradition of Palestrina and the contrapuntal researches of Theile would not serve such purposes. Instead of pure spirit, the 'Klagelied' is a heartfelt lament of the kind Martin Fuhrmann, who attended at least one performance of Buxtehude's Abendmusik in Liibeck, described in 1706 as 'a sonata for burial and other sorrowful occasions, which must be movingly set and slowly performed'.35The main requirement of the genre, according to Fuhrmann, was that it should engage the affections of the listener, that the music should express grief rather than sublimate it. The 'Klagelied' does indeed render emotional release palpable, evoking a response similar to that witnessed by the seventeenth-century north German poet Johann Rist, who, on attending a performance of Passion music, described how the congregation's 'hot tears were excited and forced to tumble out' ('heisse Tranen auszustiirzen gereizet und gezwungen').36 Such music was not simply a representation of mourning; it was an invitation, even a demand, to participate in the threnody. In contrast to Buxtehude's contrapuntal presentation of 'Mit Fried und Freud', which encouraged a distanced contemplation, the power of such passionate music to move the affections and involve the listener physically could prove irresistible. The text of the 'Klagelied' was probably written by Buxtehude himself,37 and it
Leichenpredigt Spener, p. 144. Because of the centralityof consolation and assurance in burial services, Norbert Bolin has argued that Lutheran funerals of Buxtehude's time cannot be characterizedas rites of mourning, nor should the music be called 'Trauermusik';see Bolin, 'Sterben ist mein Gewinn'esp. p. 100. 33 See Martin Geck, Die Vokalmusik Dietrich Buxtehudes undderfriihe Pietismus, Kassel, 1965, p. 131. 34 See the discussion ibid., pp. 119-31. 3Martin Fuhrmann, Musicalischer-Trichter, Frankfurt an der Spree (Berlin), 1706, p. 87: 'eine Sonata bei Begrabnissenund dergleichen traurigenZufallen, muB beweglich gesetzt und langsam gemacht werden'. Fuhrmann studied with Buxtehude's pupil FriedrichKlingenberg;see Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, p. 131. 36 Given in Rolf Dammann, Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock, Cologne, 1967, p. 228. 37 As an educated composer,Buxtehudewould have been expectedto be competentin the writingof poetry;witness
3" Luther, 'Two Funeral Sermons, 1532', LW, li. 232. 32 Winkler, Die im deutschen Luthertum bis

193

evokes a charged atmosphere much like that described by Rist. Whereas the text of'Mit Fried und Freud' has the status of truth, that of the 'Klagelied' delivers an individual statement on death, and in the absence of intervening ritornellos or a framing sinfonia, its message is delivered uninterrupted with no pause for reflection: in this representation, grief is unrelenting. For poetic models, Buxtehude could well have turned to Fritzsch's Himmels Lust und Welt-Unlust ('Delight in Heaven and Aversion to the World') in its first edition of 1670,38a volume which provided Buxtehude with another of his aria texts concerned with death, Heinrich Muller's 'EntreiBt euch, meine Sinne, / und steiget, Wolken auf' ('Tear yourself away, my spirits, and climb to heaven'; BuxWV 25).39Like much of the poetry collected by Fritzsch, the seven strophes of the 'Klagelied' catalogue the misery of earthly existence while intermittently attesting to the truth of salvation and the joys awaiting in heaven.4 The 'Klagelied', however, gestures towards heavenly flight only to fixate on the grief of mourners and the anguish which visits them after the death of a loved one. Thus according to the first strophe Must death then also dissolve MuB der Tod denn auch entbinden, what nothing else can rend asunder? was kein Fall entbinden kann? Must he wrench himself from me, Mu3 sich der mir auch entwinden, he who clings to my heart? der mir klebt dem Herzen an? Oh! the fathers'sad departure Ach! der Vgter triibes Scheiden causes too much bitter suffering, machet gar zu herbes Leiden, when our heart is torn away, wenn man unsre Brust entherzt, it is more painful than death. solches mehr als t6dlich schmerzt. The affect of the text could not be further from the reassuring message of 'Mit Fried und Freud'. Whereas the chorale presents a death as benign as sleep for the deceased, the 'Klagelied' depicts the violent suffering inflicted on the survivors; this is emphasized by powerful verbs such as 'entbinden', 'entwinden' and 'entherzen', and through the cries of anguish released by the mourners in the first strophe, at 'Ach! der Viter triibes Scheiden', and again in the fourth, with 'Ach! wie heftig ist der Schmerz' ('Oh! how intense is the pain'). While the soul of the dead man has been freed from the senses, those left behind remain imprisoned by them, as the 'Klagelied' demonstrates with its ubiquitous complaints against physical and emotional suffering (e.g. 'herbes Leiden' and 'schmerzt' in the first strophe). References to the body abound ('Herzen', 'Brust'), and earthly life accrues nothing but misery ('(Eitelkeiten) der Erde'). In the sixth strophe, the conditions of heaven are juxtaposed with those of earth in a description of two contrasting musical discourses which parallel the stylistic polarities found in the collection itself: Er spielt nun die Freuden-Lieder auf des Himmels-Lust-Clavier, da die Engel hin und wieder singen ein mit siszer Zier. He is now playing songs of joy on the joyous heavenly keyboard, where the angels from time to time join in singing with sweet ornament.

oder zurmusicalischen Kurtze his dedicatorypoems for AndreasWerckmeister's musica, Composition Anleitung Harmonologia (Frankfurt& Leipzig, 1702; repr. Hildesheim, 1970). The finest composer-poet of the period was certainlyJohann Hermann Schein, who wrote funeral music for which he also provided the text; see Gerhard Schuhmacher, ed. Lenz, pp. 408-25. als Quellehistorischer Wissenschaften, 'Musikbeigaben in Leichenpredigten', Leichenpredigtes Christoph Bernhard also wrote consolatorypoetry; see Johnston, 'RhetoricalPersonificationof the Dead in 17thCenturyGerman Funeral Music', p. 195. 38AhasverusFritzsch,Himmels Lust und Welt-Unlust, Jena, 1670 (2nd edn., Leipzig, 1679). of 1686under the rubric'Sterbelieder' 39This text would laterappearin the Luneburgischen ('Songs of the Gesangbuch undderfriihe Buxtehudes Dietrich Pietismus, pp. 208-9. dying'); see Geck, Die Vokalmusik 40The oppositionbetween earthand heaven, sufferingand salvation,also informsanothersurvivingfuneralwork by ist meinGewinn', Buxtehude, the 'Trost-Lied',BuxWV 61; see Bolin, 'Sterben pp. 264-7.

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Hier ist unser Leid-Gesange schwarzeNoten Traur-Gemenge mit viel Kreuzen durchgemischt, Dort ist alles mit Lust erfrischt.

Here our song of sufferingis a sorrowfulmedley of black notes mixed with many crosses [= sharps], there everythingis refreshedwith joy.

While the survivors suffer along with the doleful music of earth, Johannes Buxtehude is taking part in the heavenly concert, playing hymns of joy on his beloved keyboard. The musical styles mentioned here correspond to those of 'Mit Fried und Freud' (the joyous song of heaven) and the 'Klagelied' (the 'sorrowful medley'). The former is sweet and harmonious, the latter bitter and sad. Buxtehude's poetry even gives this dichotomy a stylistic gloss by describing earthly music as laden with black notes ('schwarze Note') and chromaticism ('viel Kreuzen'),41 puns which turn on their dual reference to music theory and to the vicissitudes of life. Black was, of course, the colour of mourning, and the cross the symbol of earthly suffering; in musical terms, however, black notes and frequent chromatic inflection characterized the modern style and were therefore a vital means for an appeal to the senses and, in this case, the representation of grief. Whereas 'Mit Fried und Freud' is for the most part consonant, the 'Klagelied' is built around dissonance, and particularly suspensions, which here evoke emotional tension and release, moments of increased pathos which heighten the insistent plaint of the strings. The opening is made up of a chain of suspensions leading to a tonic cadence on the first beat of bar 2 (see Ex. 2). The vocal part enters against this background of dissonance on the third beat; it is consonant with the bass but sharply dissonant with the middle parts, which continue their suspensions. The resulting harmony when the voice enters is a highly dissonant cluster, an unstable, disturbed sonority which signals the prevailing affect of the piece and amplifies the expressiveness of the voice's entry. This contrasts greatly with 'Mit Fried und Freud'; although there are several suspensions in the latter, they are isolated events, essentially ornaments which quickly yield to the predominantly consonant texture and to the imperatives of contrapuntal precision. In place of the stylus gravis which governs the heavenly music of 'Mit Fried und Freud', the 'Klagelied' seeks above all else to engage the passions through the affective power of the stylus luxurians communis. Thus the 'Klagelied' delivers a subjective poetics which is given emotional potency through the moder style and its freedom of dissonance and melodic treatment. The soprano's downward leap of a minor sixth in the opening bar is a typical figure of sorrow-Bernhard's saltus duriusculus42-and anticipates the word 'Tod' on the first beat of bar 2. Likewise, the descending minor sixth in bar 4 depicts the word 'Fall' and is used later in the piece before the word 't6dlich', in preparation for the final cadence. The underlay of the subsequent strophes interrupts this direct rhetorical correspondence between text and melody, but the positive aspects of dying to which the text later alludes are always heard against the overriding sorrowful affect of the piece; the poet/composer does not doubt the truth of salvation but can barely bring himself to release his father from the world: 'I, as the son, cannot begrudge him the immense joy of Jesus' ('Jesu Freuden ubergrosz / Ich, als Sohn, ihm g6nnen musz'). Only in the final strophe, in which the poet turns from the mourners to address the soul of the deceased, does lament abate as Buxtehude accepts his father's death: 'Sleep well,
4 Bolin, in contrast,interpretsthis phrase as a referenceto the sharps found in both the first and second Evolutio, where they become necessary,at least in part, because of the transpositionup a fifth from D-Dorian to A. 42 Tractatus ed. Muiller-Blattau, compositionis augmentatus, pp. 78-9.

195

Ex. 2 Buxtehude, 'Klagelied',BuxWV 76/2

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dearly beloved, farewell, you blessed soul' ('Schlafe wohl, du Hochgeliebter / lebe wohl, du seelge Seel').43Because of the strophic form, however, this affirmative leave-takingis declaimed above music of lament. Though the 'Klagelied' acknowledges the funerarydialectic of hope and sorrow, it embraces the latter, leaving the task of consolation to 'Mit Fried und Freud'. In their stylistic opposition, the two
Hinfarth discharge the dual pastoral mission, pieces of the Fried- und Freudenreiche

shared with funeral homiletics, of offering comfort to the mourners through the reaffirmationof belief and the possibility for catharsis. But although Buxtehude purposelyjuxtaposes a contrapuntalchorale-settingand a
Lied in the Fried- und Freudenreiche Hinfarth, it would be a mistake to give greater

currencyto the more moder and immediatelyexpressiveof these two genres, and to claim that the treatment of 'Mit Fried und Freud' was meant only as a form of consolation and as an endorsementof doctrinaltruth. The stileanticomay have had a venerablepast in commemoratingthe deaths of figuressuch as Heinrich Schiitz, but for Buxtehude and many of his north German colleagues invertiblecounterpoint-a
43 The poet speakingdirectlyto the fathercan be heardas partof a dialoguewith the departedsoul which has spoken (to the son and the assembled mourners)through prosopopoeiain the chorale.

196

mode of learned composition which, in tandem with canon, was widely studied and practisedby many of the leading figuresof the later seventeenthcentury-remained a thrivingelement of musical discourseamong the discipline'soften secretive,sometimes obsessive practitioners.44 Indeed, for the devotees of the art, the peculiarworkings of double counterpoint, which called for the inversion of two or more voices without violation of contrapuntal rules, were attended by a range of vibrant allegorical meanings. In terms of style, Buxtehude's chorale-settingtranscendsthe body and so points towards heaven; but even more powerfully,his elaborationof 'Mit Fried und Freud' refers beyond itself by exploiting an allegoricalrichness that gave this music special relevance to the topic of death in general and in particularto the deaths of learned musicians and amateurswho would have valued the unique qualities of the technique. The phrase 'in 2. Contrapunctenabgesungen'constitutesthe only stylisticreference on the title-page of Fried-undFreudenreiche to the collection's contents. This Hinfarth privileges the strict procedures of 'Mit Fried und Freud'-which contains the 'two In so doing, the title-page counterpoints'-over the looser ones of the 'Klagelied'.45 projects the view that an involved work in the stile anticois a proper tribute to an organistand musician describedas 'kunstreich',but it also places Buxtehude'ssetting of 'Mit Fried und Freud' within a uniquely north German practice of linking death and invertiblecounterpoint. Buxtehude's elaboration of the chorale 'Mit Fried und Freud' is in fact closely modelled on another collection that commemoratesdeath through invertiblecounterpoint; in its deployment of voices and schemes of contrapuntal inversion,Buxtehude's settingfollowsexactlythe firstfour pieces of ChristophBerhard's Prudentia prudentiana The title-page of Prudentia (Hamburg, 1669; BerWV IV).46 describes the prudentiana work as a 'consolation' ('solatio') for Rudolf Capell,47Bemhard's colleague at the HamburgJohanneum and a professorof Greek and rhetoric,who had lost his mother and his wife; because the collectionwas composed aftertheir deaths, it seems unlikely that it was intended as funeralmusic.4 Like Meno Hanneken the elder, Capell was a highly educated man for whom the eruditionof Bernhard'scontrapuntalessay would have been a fitting tribute, and he would certainly have recognized the literary reference of the title of Prudentia the cantus firmus of the first four prudentiana;
* The so-called Sweelinck manuscript was an important inspiration for study in this field, as was Matthias Weckmann'sKurtzdoch deutliche vondenen which probablydates fromafterthe middle of Regulen doppelten Contrapuncten, the century; see J. P. Sweelinck:Werken, x: Compositions-Regeln, ed. Hermann Gehrmann, Leipzig, 1901 (repr. Farborough, 1968), and Walker, Fugue in German Theory, pp. 346-64. Buxtehude's colleague Johann Theile was the most prolifictheoristof learnedcounterpoint;for a list of his surviving treatises,see HaraldKfimmerling,Katalog der Kassel, 1970, pp. 11-12. For an account of an obsession with counterpointreportedby Johann Sammlung Bokemeyer, Valentin Meder, Kapellmeisterin Danzig, to whom Buxtehude dedicated the canon BuxWV 123, see Mattheson, einerEhren-Pforte, Grundlage p. 219. 45 Although no referenceis made to the 'Klagelied',it was often the case that additionalworkswere not mentioned on the title-pages of publications of funerarymusic; see Bolin, 'Sterben ist meinGewinn', p. 261. 4 For a moder edition of Prudentia see Christoph Bernhard: Geistliche prudentiana, undandere Konzerte ed. Otto Werke, Drechsler('Das Erbe deutscherMusik', xc), Kassel, 1982, pp. 189-93. Given Buxtehude'swell-documentedinterestin invertiblecounterpointand canon, it is entirely to be expected that he would have acquired Bernhard'spublication. The two composers probablyknew each other, and their shared interestin counterpointis reflectedin their financial support of the publication of Theile's collection of Masses (see n. 24, above); also contributingto the project were Johann Adam Reinken and, not coincidentally,Meno Hanneken the younger, son of the superintendentfor whom Buxtehude had written his funerary counterpoints of 1671. A graphic example of social and musical interest in counterpointcan be seen inJohannes Vorhout's1674paintingof Reinken,Theile and Buxtehudein which Theile holds a commemorativecanon; see Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, pp. 110, 212-33. 47 For the full title of the ist meinGewinn'p. 255. publication, see Bolin, 'Sterben 8 Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, p. 215.

197

movements is the Latin funeral hymn 'Iam moesta quiesce querela', the text of which was written by the fourth-century poet Aurelius Prudentius;49 it appeared along with 'Mit Fried und Freud' in Luther's 1542 edition of burial hymns,50 and in seventeenthcentury Luibeck it was sung during burial processions.51 Like 'Mit Fried und Freud' it is a hymn of belief and consolation, and the text exhorts the faithful to 'silence sad laments' and to cease mourning the departed: Iam moesta quiesce querela lacrymassuspendite matres, nullus sua pignora plangat mors haec reparatiovitae est. Now silence sad laments, mothers, suspend your tears, let no one mourn loved ones, this death is a reparationfor life.

Also descended from Prudentiaprudentiana,or perhaps, more directly, from Buxtehude's 'Mit Fried und Freud', is a work by the Copenhagen organist Martin Radek entitled 'Jesus Christus unser Heylandt, in ordinari und doppelten Contrapunt gesetzt', that is, 'set in ordinary and double counterpoint' (see Ex. 3).52As his contribution to the art of writing in double counterpoint, Radek treated the well-known communion chorale, which was also sung on Maundy Thursday and was associated with the Passion and death of Christ. Only one strophe of double counterpoint along with its inversion survives; the opening clearly derives from the melodic invention of its predecessors, and the subsequent inversion follows the scheme used by Bernhard and then Buxtehude. It is certainly possible that Radek originally wrote another counterpoint-inversion pair, both reproducing the melodic inversions found in the third and fourth strophes of Prudentia prudentianaand 'Mit Fried und Freud'. the appearance of Buxtehude's Fried- und Freudenreiche Nearly twenty years after Flor published a work of learned counterChristian Hinfarth, the Liineburg organist in dem Liede: 'Auf meinen lieben Gott' mit title the Todesgedanken striking point with kiinstlich zu Hamburg1692 sehr Clavier furs gesetzt und gedruckt Contrapuncte umgekehrtem in invertible meines lieben "Auf in the Death on Gott", counterpoint Song ('Thoughts very artfully set for the clavier and printed in Hamburg 1692').53The work is no longer extant, so it is impossible to know whether Flor, too, found inspiration in the contrapuntal collections of Bernhard and Buxtehude, although it is not unlikely that
9 'Iam moesta quiesce querela' was also sung in one of several German translations,but in Hamburg, which maintained a large proportion of Latin liturgy throughout the seventeenth century, the melody continued to be ii: Geistliche Musik, Lubecks, associatedwith its Latin text, just as it was in Liibeck; see Wilhelm Stahl, Musikgeschichte Kirchenlied, Leipzig, Kassel, 1952, p. 65. For the German versions of the hymn, see Philipp Wackeragel, Das deutsche 1864-77 (repr. Hildesheim, 1964), i. 191-3. 50 See Luther, 'Prefaceto the BurialHymns (1542)',L W, liii. 325-31. The two hymns were not only used at the burial service:Luther says that 'Mit Fried und Freud' and 'Iam moesta quiesce querela' might also be sung on returning home from the interment. 51 ii: Geistliche Musik,p. 65. Stahl, Musikgeschichte Liibecks, 52 The piece survivesin Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,Mus. MS 6473. The counterpointcomes under the rubric 'alio modo' since it follows a less strict contrapuntaltreatmentof the chorale melody. 53 It is noted in Johann Gottfried Lexicon Walther'sMusicalisches (Leipzig, 1732(repr.Kassel, 1953),249) and survived into the nineteenth century. In 1685, Nicolaus Adam Strungk-who later became Berhard's successor as where Kapellmeisterin Dresden, and whose peripateticcareer included three years as a city musician in Hamburg, he was an importantfigure in the earlyyears of that city's opera house-composed one of the greatestcommemorative pieces, his 'Ricercarsopra la morte della mia carissimamadre CatharinaMaria Stubenrauen'.In this extraordinary piece, Strungkreflects on the death of his mother in a long and complex contrapuntalessay which begins as a 'fuga contrariariversa',where the fugal subject is answered by its exact melodic inversion, and culminates in a section Buxtehude's 'Mit Fried und Freud', Flor's Todesgedanken combining the opening theme with three counter-subjects. of 1732(pp. 123, 249, 583). Lexicon were all given specialmention by Waltherin his Musicalisches and Strungk'sricercare The striking association of death with contrapuntal music was first noticed by Friedrich W. Riedel; see his Munich, in derzweitenHilfte des17. Jahrhunderts, derMusik zur Geschichte fir Tasteninstrumente Beitrage Quellenkundliche 1990, pp. 70, 182.

198

Ex. 3
II (a) Bernhard,Prudentia prudentiana, Contrapunctus

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199

he would have known and studied them. Flor's title suggests that, like the works of Bernhardand Radek, the counterpointswere not writtenfor a funeralservice.Rather, Flor's collection might be seen as a form of contemplationon death by the composer, who, through the publication of his music, offeredthese thoughts as an exemplar of reflectionfor those who acquired the volume.4 Because the final moments of life markedthe crucialbattle between Christand the Devil, between salvationand damnation,concertedthinkingabout one's death was an essentialpartof personalreligiouseducation.MartinLuther's'Sermonon Preparingto Die', which continued to exerta profoundeffecton funeraryhomileticsthroughoutthe exhortedhis followersto prepareearlyfor their dying hour: 'We seventeenthcentury,55 should familiarizeourselves with death during our lifetime, inviting death into our Collectionsof funeralsermons,such as Johann presencewhen it is still at a distance'.56 mortis: Todes-Schule Heermann'swidely circulatedSchola ('School of Death'), promised to teach readershow 'to die blessedly'('selig sterben')and encouragedthem to prepare As a careful,technicalcontemplationof death, Flor's for their deaths through study.57 now lost collection would have taken its place alongside the works of Bernhardand Buxtehude in the widespreadliteratureof moral uplift of which the volumes of funeral As the text of Buxtehude's 'Klagelied'makes clear sermons formed the largest part.58 his to references blessedness, Johannes Buxtehudewas well prepared throughrepeated for death; perhaps these preparationsincluded study of his son's funerarycounterpoints of 1671. These essays in double counterpointconstitutea complex of worksrevolvingaround a particularmusical practice, and perhaps even the contrapuntalscheme of a single But it could well be the case that Berhard prudentiana. piece, Berhard's Prudentia himself had based his piece on a prior work, and that these survivingnorth German compositionsare only a remnantof a more widespreadpracticeof ruminatingon death of these complicatedworks have Most interpretations by way of strict counterpoint.59 the thus technical proceduresof 'Mit the tributes as them seen deceased; glorifying would have servedas a symbol of Fried und Freud' and its model Prudentia prudentiana the intellectual kinship between composers and dedicatees.60 Indeed, the laudatory a is technical of these accomplishment certainly crucial part of their pieces' aspect undFreudenreiche of Friedthe as Hinfarth suggests,the main workof title-page meaning: was done by the Buxtehude to fame ('nachruhme') Johannes according posthumous two counterpoints. But learned counterpoint carried a further significance that perhaps explains its
54 Like the collectionsof Buxtehude and Bernhard, would certainlyhavebeen publishedin open Flor's Todesgedanken score, a formatwhich encouragedthis type of serious study. und Erbauungsliteratur', 55 Zeller, 'Leichenpredigt p. 73. 56Luther, 'A Sermon on Preparingto Die', LW, xlii. 101. 57Winkler,Die Luthertum im deutschen bisSpener, p. 144. For an account of perhapsthe most famous of Leichenpredigt such preparations,those of Heinrich Posthumus, which included the commissioningof Schiitz'sMusicalische Exequien, German Funeral Music'. see Johnston, 'RhetoricalPersonificationof the Dead in 17th-Century 58 If Meno Hanneken'sfuneralcounterpointwas not the same piece performed atJohannes Buxtehude'sburial,then this would be yet another work to add to this complex. 5' The music examples found in theoretical sources contain further links between death and the strict style of invertiblecounterpoint.In the Tractatus (ed. Miller-Blattau, p. 125) Bernharddemonstrated compositionis augmentatus invertiblecounterpointat the twelfth with an example based on the communion and burial chorale 'Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir'. In the 'Sweelinck'compositiontreatise,the Passion chorale 'O Mensch, bewein' dein' Siinde gross' servesas the cantus firmusfor a four-partcanon. Laterin the treatise,the chorale'Wenn wir in hochsten N6then sein', the text of which is closely relatedto 'Aus tieferNoth', providesthe cantus firmusfor two differentdouble canons, one x: Compositions-Regeln, Werken, pp. 76-7, 83-4. by John Bull and the other probablyby Sweelinck.See J. P. Sweelinck: 60 Cf. KeralaJ. Snyder, 'Buxtehude'sStudies in LearnedCounterpoint', Society, Musicological Journalof theAmerican xxxiii (1980), 544-64.

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intimate association with death and consolation. Buxtehude wrote two laudatory poems which were published in Werckmeister's composition treatise Harmonologia musica (1702).61 By that time Werckmeister, organist in the central German town of Quedlinburg and a prolific theorist and avid antiquarian, had probably already acquired a large collection of Buxtehude's music, including his setting of 'Mit Fried und Freud'.62 Buxtehude's contrapuntal essay may even have been in Werckmeister's mind when he wrote in the Harmonologiaof the 'amazing harmonies ['wunderlichen harmonien'] of double counterpoint' and its mysterious properties which were 'nearly beyond the understanding of men' ('fast fiber den Verstand des Menschen sind').63In his other writings, Werckmeister reflects further on the meaning of learned counterpoint and is awed by the 'wonderful inversions of double counterpoint and canon' ('wunderliche Versetzung in Harmonia Geminata und Fugis Ligatis').64 But Werckmeister is not simply astounded by the properties of double counterpoint and canon; he also attempts to understand them through allegory. One such interpretative effort in the Harmonologia hinges on a comparison between the movement of voices in invertible and the motion of planets, where cosmology and harmony are manifestacounterpoint tions of the same universal principle: The heavensare now revolvingand circulatingsteadilyso that one [body]now goes up but in anothertime it changes again and comes down ... We also have these mirrorsof heaven and naturein musical harmony,because a certainvoice can be the highest voice, but can become the lowest or middle voice, and the lowest and middle can again become the highest. One voice can become all other voices and no othervoice must be added, and at the very least ... four voices can be transformedin differentways in good harmony.65 In the appendix which concludes the Harmonologia, Werckmeister again ponders the relationship between cosmological order and invertible counterpoint, stating that a piece in invertible counterpoint can reach its perfection in its 'inversion' ('replica') and is therefore 'a mirror of nature and of God's order' ('ein Spiegel der Natur und Ordnung Gottes').66Werckmeister gives musical form to this allegorical conception in a four-part setting of the chorale 'Vater unser im Himmelreich', employing invertible counterpoint at the octave and the twelfth, presenting ten of the possible permutations; he does not conclude the piece but simply writes 'and so forth' ('u.s.w.'), suggesting that these combinations could be continued until the musical system returns to its original configuration, the progression of the voices re-creating in microcosm the cycles of the planets.67The constant motion of the heavens is thus analogous to the perpetual
For the poems along with English translations,see idem, Dieterich Buxtehude, p. 127. Werckmeister probablyowned a copy of Buxtehude's'Mit Fried und Freud' given thatJohann GottfriedWalther, who examined the work closely in his own compositiontreatise,the Praecepta dermusicalischen of 1708 (ed. Composition Peter Benary ('Jenaer Beitrage zur Musikforschung',ii), Leipzig, 1955, p. 187), must have received his copy from Werckmeister. Walthermentions his acquisitionof Werckmeister's collection of Buxtehude manuscriptsin two letters to Heinrich Bokemeyer of 6 August and 3 October 1729; see J. G. Walther: Briefe,ed. Klaus Beckmann & HansJoachim Schulze, Leipzig, 1987, pp. 62-83, esp. p. 70; Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, pp. 126-8. 63 Werckmeister,Harmonologia musica, p. 89. 6 Andreas Werckmeister, Musicae mathematicae Hodeguscuriosus,2nd edn., Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1687 (repr. Hildesheim, 1972), 108; see also pp. 137-8. 65 Werckmeister, musica,dedication, p. [v]: 'Wie nun der Himmel in steter revolution Harmonologia und Circulation stehet, da dasjenige, was ietzo oben gehet, eine andere Zeit wieder verandertwird und unten komt, also ist solche Circulation in und an der Erdkugel: . . . Diesen Himmels- und Natur-Spiegelhaben wir auch in der Musicalischen denn diejenige Stimme so da oben gehet, kann wieder die untersteund mittelerewerden, und die untersten harmonia, und mitleren k6nnen wieder die oberen werden, also daB eine Stimme alle Stimmen werden kan, und keine andere Stimme darzu oder davon k6mt, und doch zum wenigsten 4. Stimmen ... mit einanderin verwechselt guter harmonia werden'. 66Ibid., p. 101. 67 Ibid., pp. 90-93. There are 24 possible configurationsof the four voices.
61 62

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revolution of the parts in a well constructed piece of double counterpoint, whose inversionsmirrorthe perfectionof heavenand provideearthlybeings with a glimpse of God's unending order,a preludeto the heavenlyconcert.But the relationshipbetween these phenomenawas more than merely similitude:the mechanicsof the heavenswere not simply manifested in double counterpointbut were allegorizedby its workings. Bernhard's choice of the word 'revolutio'for the contrapuntallyinverted verses of Prudentiaprudentianais suggestive, resonatingas it does with the celestial metaphor. Buxtehude, too, would have been frequently reminded of heavenly motion by the astronomicalclock in Libeck's Marienkirchewith its elaborateplanetariumcharting the movementsof the planets, and he composed a now lost set of suites depictingtheir individual traits.68 Microcosm was inextricably linked to macrocosm, with counterpoint and the heavens governed by the same fundamental principles. As the Jesuit Athanasius of 1650, God was 'a taskmasterof order, the universalis Kircherput it in his Musurgia in der Hirsch's of 1662translation,'[ein Zuchtmeister] guiding principle everything'(in a to the The aller Richtschnur ein universalis, Musurgia Ding').69 frontispiece Ordnung, work known to virtuallyall German music theorists,includingWerckmeister,depicts In heaven-high the link between the heavenly order and counterpoint(see P1. II).70 above the underworldand the earth-two angels carrya banner displayinga 36-voice perpetual canon for nine four-voice choirs. Seated in the lower left-hand coner is Pythagoras,the discovererof the proportionsof the universeand the most successful researcherinto God's order. The canon-an elaborationof a major triad-is given in the centre of the banner, and the nine choirs of angels sing above it. Later in the treatise,Kircherdemonstratesthat the music notated on the banner can be expanded of infiniteconsonance,the canon As a representation to more than a thousandvoices.71 illustratesKircher'sbelief that the universeis thoroughlyorganized,and that learned counterpoint,unending and perfectlyproportioned,is the music of the heavenlychoir, the 'Himmels-Chor'to which Johannes Buxtehude is called in the final line of the concluding strophe of the 'Klagelied'.Kircher'sengravingprovidedthe model for the frontispieceofJohann Rist's collectionof devotionalsongs-with melodies supplied by Thomas Selle, Bernhard'spredecessoras Kantor of Hamburg'sJohanneum-which was published in 1651 in Lineburg, only a year after the appearance of Kircher's There are only slight modificationsto the engraving universalis (see PI. III).72 Musurgia in Rist's version, and the canon is identical. The allegoricalpotential of double counterpointand its close companion, canon, was a theme frequentlytaken up by a circle of Buxtehude'scontemporaries, many of whom had studied with his friendJohann Theile. For Georg Osterreich,a collectorof
68 Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, pp. 76-8. 69 AthanasiusKircher,Musurgia Rome, 1650 (repr.Hildesheim, 1970);trans. Andreas Hirsch, Germaniae universalis, arsminor, et dissono de consono siveArtismagnae redonatus: Schwabisch-Hall,1662, p. i. 70 The engravingis by F. Baroniusafter Paul Schor. 71 universalis, Kircher,Musurgia p. 584. 72 in her Musicof discussesboth frontispieces Seelenlust Johann Rist, Sabbahtische (Liineburg,1651).Kathi Meyer-Baer and theDanceof Death,Princeton, 1970, pp. 210-12. Accordingto Marpurg,the theHarmony theSpheres: of theSpheres canon sharedby the Rist and Kircherfrontispieceshad previouslybeen falselyattributedto Selle, probablybecause he Romani Micheli. See it was in fact composed by the Italiancontrapuntist Seelenlust; supplied the music for Sabbahtische vonderFuge,Berlin, 1753-4 (repr.Hildesheim, 1970),ii. 71-4. ChristianFlor FriedrichWilhelm Marpurg,Abhandlung Seelenparadies, also provided the melodies for another collection of Rist's sacred song texts, the Neues musicalisches Lexicon, p. 249. Buxtehude set texts from published in Hamburg between 1660 and 1662; see Walther,Musicalisches several of Rist's widely distributedvolumes of poetry, and although no Buxtehude settings of texts from Sabbahtische undder Buxtehudes Dietrich Seelenlust survive,it is likely that he would have known the volume; see Geck, Die Vokalmusik Pietismus, pp. 210, 224-6. friThe

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Buxtehude's vocal music and pupil of Theile in the 1680s, double counterpointand canon were concretemanifestations of the 'orderof God' ('OrdnungGottes'),and their elaboration revealed the inexplicable essence of God's creation, not merely as a For another of Theile's metaphorfor God's order but as a concrete realizationof it.73 followers,Johann Philipp Fortsch,learned counterpointwas a profoundlymeaningful distillation, a purified form in which 'the unfathomablenessof music' ('Unergriindlichkeit der Music') was most clearly to be perceived.74 Osterreich'spupil Heinrich Bokemeyer-who inherited his teacher's libraryof counterpointtreatisesand music, including works by Buxtehude-believed that canon and double counterpoint confronted most directly the ineffable 'mystery of harmony' ('mysterium harmoniFor Bokemeyerthe perpetualcanon which allowed for contrapuntalinversion cum').75 was not only the apogee of musical accomplishmentbut also a metaphor for God's original creation of the universe and of heavenly harmony. In a passage which illustrates the persistent allegorical importance of strict counterpoint in musical discourse well into the eighteenth century, Bokemeyermythologizes the moment of revelationwhen the archetypalcontrapuntistdiscovershis first infinite and invertible canon: There he findsthe beginningand end boundtogether and has discovered the perpetual canonin orderto remindhim of the eternal as well as the harmony of all unending origins as a ruleof natureof the mostperfect of his artistic work.76 eternity, example Canonic cycles here allegorize planetary motion and the music it generates, the harmony of the spheres-'the harmony of all eternity'.Bokemeyer'sfrequent correspondentJohann GottfriedWalther,who owned many of Buxtehude'sworks,including 'Mit Fried und Freud', also recognizedthe metaphorical dimensionof such music; in a letterto Bokemeyerhe included a perpetualcanon 'in which it is impossiblefor all the voices to stop at once, and which accordinglycan representa kind of eternity'.77 Canon and double counterpointofferedreal proof, both audible (in performance) and visible (through contrapuntalstudy), of the hidden intricaciesand manifest order in God's
universe.

Buxtehude's setting of 'Mit Fried und Freud' fostered a contemplation of the mysteriesof its musical techniquesand by extensionthe mysteriesof the universe.This dispassionateattitude appears especially markedwhen comparedwith the emotional urgency of the 'Klagelied'. But Buxtehude's funerarycounterpointswere more than simply 'thoughts on death', for in fact they engaged the mourners (and listeners/ students) as directly as did the 'Klagelied'.Although 'Mit Fried und Freud' did not appease the senses, it provided for a kind of ecstasy transcendingthe gratification affordedby the music of the passions.In orderto be effective,the contrapuntal allegory required the active involvement of the listener/student who was to imagine the workings of the heavens through invertible counterpoint'sunique procedures. The contemplationof compositionaltechnique led to thoughts of death and heaven, and
73

Mus. MS theor. 1038, f. 35. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,

75Heinrich Bokemeyerin Johann Mattheson, Critica musica, Hamburg, 1722-5 (repr.Amsterdam, 1964), ii. 328. ii. 342-3: 'Da findet er nun den Anfang und Ende verkniipffet, Bokemeyerin Mattheson, Critica musica, und hat den Canonem um sich des infinitum, ewigen und unendlichen Ursprungs,wie auch der in alle Ewigkeit bestehenden zu Harmonie, erinner, als eine Regul der Natur, zum vollkommenstenMuster aller seine Kunst-Arbeit'. 77 Waltherto Bokemeyer,4 April 1729, in J. G. Walther: ed. Beckmann& Schulze, pp. 32-4: 'in welcher alle Briefe, Stimmen zugleich miteinanderunm6glich aufh6ren,und demnach einen der Unendlichkeitdarstellenkonnen'. typum The canon to which is he referringis 'Keiicheste Flammen brennt ewiglich fort!', the text of which describes eternal flames.
76

74Musicalischer Compositions Tractat, Mus. MS theor. 300, f. 33. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,

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furtherengagementwith the musical argumentof Buxtehude'sfunerarycounterpoints allowedfor an anticipationof the perpetualcelebrationof the risen, purifiedspirit,offer a foretasteof the unimaginablejoys of the transfigured body. In comparisonwith the modem this was of the style, powerfulstuff. transitorypassions As a symbol of constancy in a 'troubled and anxiety-wrackedworld', to cite Buxtehude's title-page, invertiblecounterpointoffered consolation and assurance in times of mourning,a music above earthlytribulation.As a statementof belief, funerary counterpointsappeared as timeless as the universaltruths they allegorized.And as music freed from the body, these pieces tracedthe ascent of the soul to heaven. But it was through allegory that the exacting contrapuntalprocedures of these funerary tributesachieved their most profound,if also most mysterious,meaning, an evocation of the heavenly order to which the blessed would be called. While the 'Klagelied', beautiful in torment, was music of immediacy and catharsis,'Mit Fried und Freud' was a prelude to eternity, an echo of Johannes Buxtehude playing the heavenly keyboard.

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