Maria Dixit | ad Angelum |
Auff ein Clavier | H.S.M. | Pedaliter ||
Coll Anno 1637 | D[en] 3 Martius
Lüneburg Tablature KN 209
(Heinrich Baltzer Wedemann, Lüneburg, ca 1660s–70s)
after Hans Leo Haßler, ‘Dixit Maria ad angelum’
Cantiones sacrae (Augsburg 1591)
Among Scheidemann’s dozen motet colorations, only one is based upon an original in fewer than five voices: Haßler’s four-
voice ‘Dixit Maria ad Angelum’, a motet for the Feast of the Annunciation (the date of 3 March given in the MS of Scheidemann’s arrangement suggests it might well have been written in preparation for that feast, which falls on 25 March). Scheidemann’s setting is the shortest and simplest of his motet colorations, perhaps befitting the lowly status of the Blessed Virgin and the intimacy of the encounter between her and the messenger of God. The pedal part (which must be played at the same pitch level as the manual so that proper voice-
crossing is maintained) bears very little figuration indeed and is thus almost an exact transcription of the original, and there are substantial stretches without sixteenth-
note coloratura writing, not only at the beginning but also, significantly, at the point at which Haßler set two statements of the Blessed Virgin’s reply ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord’ in a largely homophonic and slow-
moving texture. The most consistently florid writing is reserved for the end of the reply, ‘...according to thy word’, getting underway with two approaches in quick succession to the highest note of the keyboard (a), which has been reached only once before. Haßler’s motet, like many others, essentially repeats the second half, i.e. the entirety of the Blessed Virgin’s reply; Scheidemann omits this repetition, using the second appearance of the passage, with its final plagal cadence, to bring the piece to a close. That this is the simplest of Scheidemann’s motet colorations is only a relative statement; it is still subtle, sophisticated, and well suited to the subject, the work of a master (in his early forties or so when this was written in 1637) carefully wielding his now matured powers.
The articulation and a number of emendations to ties in the present recording reflect closely the text underlay of the original motet – though the appropriateness of this effort is certainly debatable given that the incipit is garbled in the source of Scheidemann’s work. The 4ft registration has been chosen to reflect the innocence and lowly state (by worldly standards) of the Virgin Mary.