Mensch Wiltu | Lehben säliglich, |

Choral Im Tenor | H. S. M. ||

Choral |Im Bas: ||

Tertius | Versus | Auff 2: Clauier |

Quarta | Variatio |
...Anno . 1648 ADj 29 Novem: ||
  Lüneburg Tablature KN 209

(Heinrich Baltzer Wedemann, ca 1660–78)

‘Mensch, willst du leben seliglich’ is the shorter of two verse tropes upon the Decalogue by Martin Luther. Its first stanza serves as an introduction to the paraphrase proper found in the other four, which can be grouped into pairs dealing with the covenant between God and humanity (Commandments I–V, stanzas 2–3) and the relationships among humans (Commandments VI–X, stanzas 4–5). 

Scheidemann’s setting of this song is striking in several ways. The work marks a return to the chained-variation technique which Scheidemann learned from Sweelinck and used in the early settings ‘Es spricht der Unweisen Mund wohl’ and ‘Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn’. Pieter Dirksen is eager to see the pair of paired variations as an enrichment of a two-verset form that he believes – without any reference to texts or liturgical praxis – Scheidemann to have preferred in his maturity, but I think it clear that the four-verses-in-two form here reflects the structure of the text explained above, when (as Julia Dokter suggests with regard to Sweelinck) it is prefaced with a monophonic or homophonic rendition of the first stanza.* 

The overall form is not the only homage to Sweelinck, however; as Dirksen has pointed out, the work has other features in common with Sweelinck’s variations on ‘Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott’: placement of the cantus firmus in the tenor, then the bass, in the pedal in a four-voice texture; the abrupt entrance of the coloratura voice. I suspect that these techniques may have suggested themselves particularly because the two tunes in question share their first phrase. 

The texture of the present work, however, is less derivative. The first pair of verses can be seen as a blurring of Scheidemann’s usually more placid four-voice style and his usually more active and intricate three-voice style; indeed in the second verse the texture might be described as consisting of three and a half voices. The second pair of verses, in turn, might, despite the lack of true echo passages, be considered a mini-fantasia. Indeed the work as a whole might be seen as a highly concentrated distillation of Schiedemann’s œuvre, the intricacy of the writing in the first pair of verses matched by the intensity of expression in the coloratura of the second, culminating in the suddenly unornamented cry of ‘Kyrieleis’ right at the top of the compass at the end of v.3, and reaching a not entirely restful conclusion in an unusual series of quintuplets, and an abrupt ending to the coloratura, at the final cadence.

What might have inspired such expressive music? The text, despite some pithy commentary – we are to worship God alone in order to be God’s kingdom; we are to honor the sabbath-day, to abstain from work, so that God in turn may work in us – may fairly be called plainspoken. Perhaps we might look instead to an unusual feature of the manuscript witness: a date of composition. 29 November 1648 was just a month after the signing of the last two treaties bringing an end to the Thirty Years’ War, which had devastated much of Western Europe and loomed over most of the composer’s life. Is this work a meditation on war, in which practically all of the Commandments are notoriously, routinely broken?

Mensch, willt du leben seliglich,

  Und bei Gott bleiben ewiglich,

  Sollt du halten die zehn gebot’,

  Die uns gebeut unser Gott.

  Kyrieleis.

Mortal, if thou wouldst live blessedly,

and with God abide eternally,

thou shalt keep the ten commands,

which our God commanded us.

Kyrie eleison.

Dein Gott und Herr allein bin ich,

  Kein ander Gott soll irren dich,

  Trauen soll mir das herze dein,

  Mein eigen reich sollt du sein.

  Kyrieleis.

Thy God and Lord alone am I;

none other God shall lead thee astray;

thy heart shall trust in me;

mine own kingdom shalt thou be.

Kyrie eleison.

Du sollt mein’n namen ehren schon,

  Und in der noth mich rufen an,

  Du sollt heiligen den sabbathtag,

  Daß ich in dir wirken mag.
 Kyrieleis.

Thou shalt honor my name,

and in need call upon me;

Thou shalt hallow the sabbath-day,

that I may work in thee.

Kyrie eleison.

Dem vater und der mutter dein

  Sollt du nach mir gehorsam sein, 

  Niemand tödten noch zornig sein 

  Und deine ehe halten rein.

  Kyrieleis.

To thy father and thy mother

shalt thou, after me, be obedient;

kill no one nor wrathful be,

and keep thy wedlock pure.

Kyrie eleison.

Du sollt ein’m andern stehlen nicht,

  Auf niemand falsches zeugen nicht,

  Deines nächsten weib nicht begehr’n 

  Und all’ sein’s gut’s gern entbehr’n. 

  Kyrieleis.

Thou shalt not steal from another,

give false evidence about no one,

covet not thy neighbor’s wife,

and gladly spare all his goods.

Kyrie eleison.

  I have previously speculated as to the reason for the return of the CF from the bass octave to the tenor in bar 36 of Verse 2: did the Pedal Trompete, for example, not extend to C? Returning to this piece with the text now underlaid, I see that the reason is somewhat more likely to be a desire to allow the melisma at that point to be played with both feet and thus more smoothly. (The validity of this conjecture depends in part on the exact layout of the pedal in St Catharine’s; Ulf Grapenthin’s article in Dirksen’s book on Scheidemann proposes the – I think somewhat unusual – pedal compass of CDEFF#GA–d' but does not describe the key layout.)

*  I have chosen Scheidt’s setting from the ‘Görlitzer’ Tabulatur-Buch.
program notes
