Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam
multiple sources

‘Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam’ is a typical à 3 ‘partita-type’ chorale setting by Pachelbel – one of twenty or so – with the cantus in the pedal and two upper voices moving in complementary eighth- and sixteenth-note figuration, using very brief fore-imitation for most phrases.

Not only Pachelbel, but Scheidemann before him, Weckman, Van Noordt, and any number of other German composers used something like this texture, which allows the chorale to be played simply and heard clearly, and allows maximum range and agility for the manual parts, since each hand has only one to play. Scheidemann (and Weckman as well) often used this texture for final versets, including those of several of his eight Magnificat cycles and at least four other chorale cycles; I think that in the Magnificats these final versets must stand for the Gloria Patri and the 3-voice texture may both symbolize the Trinity and bespeak an Affekt of praise and joy. At least three of the songs for which Scheidemann’s verset cycles conclude with this kind of piece also end with doxological stanzas.

It seems most obvious – and in the end, probably most correct – to play the upper voices of this kind of piece on a single plenum registration with the cantus on a pedal reed stop, and I first recorded the present piece in this way. The question arises, however, whether seventeenth-century German pieces written in this texture might ever be played as trios, i.e. on two manuals and pedal. Such an approach, to my mind, is not only easier (because the hands are not in each other’s way), but also invites closer attention to the shaping of each manual voice, leading to a more expressive interpretation. The second recording included here accordingly presents the two manual voices on two different plenum registrations. But this strategy, in turn, leads one to ask whether this kind of piece might be played on more characteristic sounds evoking individual instruments, and with a still more expressive approach. The third recording reflects this exploration.

Though Scheidemann, Weckman, and others would have had ample tonal resources available for such trio playing, it seems that the possibilities for such a registration would have been limited on the organ available to Pachelbel in the Predigerkirche at Erfurt (which had a limited Pedal department), and nonexistent during his briefer time in Nürnberg (where the organ was essentially a chorus instrument). Furthermore, there seems to be no indication for trio playing in German or Dutch sources before the time of, say, Walther, who prescribed it in some (not many) of his own chorale settings (his MS of Böhm also prescribes it in ‘Christe, der du bist Tag und Licht’ v.3 – but here, unlike in most of the earlier à 3 pieces, it is required, since the voices cross constantly and substantially). It may or may not be relevant that only in 1688 do the first explicit trios à 3 claviers appear in print in France, i.e. in Raison’s first Livre d’orgue.

It is of course possible that instructions for disposition upon the manual(s) and pedal were usually provided only when a given piece required certain resources, leaving others (like the 3-voice pieces under discussion, or, say, Scheidemann’s typical à 4 versets) to the player’s discretion. But there are also instances in which a seemingly required or obvious disposition (e.g., in other Böhm works with textures and ranges similar to the aforementioned, or in Van Noordt’s à 4 pedaliter psalm versets with the cantus in the treble) has no such indication. In the end the question may have to remain open.
program notes
