Præludium [WV 31]
  Lübbenau Tablature LyB3

(Danzig or Stockholm?, ca 1620s)

This work is one of a group of short Praeludia or Praeambula built along similar lines, serving to establish the pitch and tone (key) of the succeeding liturgical item. Only the briefest motivic imitation is used here, the main concern being an exposition of the most important harmonic field of Tone I: what in modern terms would be called the sub- (pre-) dominant and the dominant, with a brief use of the dominant of the dominant.

This praeludium is one of several Scheidemann works for which some fingerings, hand divisions, and ornamentation are found in a manuscript source (in this case Lynar B3, where part of this work is found on the first extant leaf ). Though the source is not an autograph manuscript of the composer’s, these contemporary performance suggestions are valuable, all the more so given the relative scarcity of such markings, and it is lamentable that the main modern edition of the work does not include such helpful material.

Magnificat | 1 Toni | H Scheidem ||

Secund[us] Vers[us] | auff | zwey Cla-|vir | Pedalit: |

Terti[us] Ver|s[us] | Pedaliter ||

Vers[us] | 4 | Manu|aliter
  Zellerfeld Tablature Ze1

(Hieronymus Jordan, Braunschweig, ca 1635–45?)

vv. 1–3 also
  Zellerfeld Tablature Ze2

(Caspar Calvör, Braunschweig, 1668?)

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in some places after and perhaps before this period, the organ was used extensively in alternation with singing throughout the Mass and Vespers, and much of the extant literature of the period was written as models for improvisation in this context. The Magnificat, being the culmination of Vespers, is one of the most important loci for this aspect of the organist’s art.

Unlike Magnificat verset cycles by, for example, Samuel Scheidt or Jehan Titelouze, those written by Hamburg composers and their circle do not contain enough versets for verse-by-verse alternation between chant and organ. Scheidemann’s Magnificat cycles for the organ each contain four versets, and although the exact alternation scheme(s) employed are not known, I propose, given the number of verses in the Magnificat (twelve) and certain possible instances of text-painting, that a three-way rotation among chant, vocal polyphony, and organ polyphony, or between two sides of the choir and the organ, is possible. (Unfortunately the numbers of repercussions of the reciting note in the first and last versets of Scheidemann’s cycles, where the tone is presented plainly, are not consistent with each other or with any of the verses of the text, so these versets cannot be distributed on that basis.)

In every one of Scheidemann’s eight Magnificat cycles, the first verset features the chant formula in the tenor (as here) or bass voice; the stately style and the full-chorus sound which that style invites are surely meant either to introduce the Magnificat or to respond to the singing at the outset (v.2: ‘and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior’). In most of Scheidemann’s Magnificat cycles the second verset is an extended fantasia (one source has perhaps transposed the order of versets in two of the eight cycles). Underpinning a coloratura treble voice is quasi-imitative writing with motives derived from the chant; part of the chant is also quoted exactly, in long notes, as the bass-line to a passage of echoes between two manuals, perhaps depicting ‘and his mercy is upon them that fear him from generation to generation’ (v.5). The chant likewise forms the basis for each of the subjects treated in the third verset, written in the style of a Renaissance motet. Though I see no specific text-painting here, this kind of writing could plausibly portray ‘He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away’ (v.8). The last verset, like the first, features the unadorned chant, this time in the treble voice; the agile writing in three voices (also found standing for a doxological stanza in several of Scheidemann’s verset cycles on religious songs) may symbolize the Trinity named in the ‘Glory to the Father...’ (v.11) always added to the Magnificat at Vespers, as well as depicting an Affekt of great joy.
program notes
