German chamber music from the 17th century

Dietrich Becker (1623 – 1679)
1 Sonata 3 in A minor for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Nikolaus Adam Strungk (1640 – 1700)
2 Sonata in D minor for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Johann Adam Reincken (1643 – 1722)
3 Sonata VI in A major for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Dietrich Buxtehude (1637 – 1707)
4 Ciacona in E minor BuxWV 160 for harpsichord & b.c.

Dietrich Becker
5 Sonata 4 in A minor for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Dietrich Buxtehude
6 Sonata in F major BuxWV 269 for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Kaspar Förster (1616 – 1673)
7 Sonata in C minor for 2 violins, violone & b.c.

Johann Theile (1646 – 1724)
8 Sonata duplex in G minor for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Kaspar Förster
9 Sonata in F major La Sidon for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.
10 Sonata in B flat major for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.

Dietrich Buxtehude
11 Triosonata in C minor BuxWV 262 for violin, gamba & B.c.
12 Sonata in G major BuxWV 271 for 2 violins, gamba & b.c.


Fantastical things on solid foundations

In 1666, the theologian and man of letters Johann Rist, originally from Holstein, went to Hamburg “to enjoy celebrated music made there”. In the house of Cristoph Bernhard, the Musical Director and Cantor of the Johanneum, the virtuosos of the Ratsmusiker ensemble of the Hanseatic city gathered, in a Collegium Musicum, to perform for the distinguished guest all that was en vogue in music for string instruments, such as “a beautiful sonata by Försten junior for two violins and viola da gamba… in which each eighth measure has its free variation, in the stylo phantastico”.

These words appertain to Johann Mattheson, in his musical biography, Groundwork of an Honour-Gate/Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte, published in 1740. In order to characterise the composition of a concept he utilises a notation introduced into the theory of style ninety years previously in Rome by German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, in his encyclopaedic work Musurgia Universalis. According to Kircher, the phantasticus stylus is a mode of composition reserved for instruments that are not related to each other from the harmonic or rhythmic point of view, so that they can provide a proof of the performer’s genius.

In 1739, Mattheson will partially refute him, in his work A Consummate Kapellmeister. He invokes the need for harmonic bases, but at the level of individual interpretation he allows sufficient room for play: “inasmuch as all kinds of otherwise unusual things occur, hidden wrong notes, inversions and ingenious flourishes, without observing the measure and key, (…) without a formal principal part, without constraint, without the interpretation of a theme or a subject; sometimes lively, sometimes hesitant; sometimes univocal, sometimes polyphonic; sometimes without time or measure, but nonetheless not lacking in the intention to construct, to precipitate, to surprise”. The Stylus phantasticus coul produce its full effect only in contrast to the parts “bound” by rhythm and counterpart: for example, in alternation with chord-structured dances or fugue imitations. The stringing together of contrasting passages is characteristic of the instrumental art of the seventeenth century, which was increasingly emancipating itself in relation to vocal music and blossoming in strong colours. It highlights the unrestricted principle of the ricercari and toccate for keyboard and string instruments, in solo sonatas or in ensembles, in which the higher voices can be performed against the base of a basso continuo in the foreground.

After listening to the concerto dedicated to him, Johann Rist was to compliment the violinist Samuel Peter von Sidon in particular. At the time, the latter was a candidate with many perspectives, and Rist considered him worthy to take the place of Johann Schopp, a generation older, as musical director of the Hamburg Ratsmusik. Nevertheless, after the death of Schopp, in 1667, Dietrich Becker (1623-1679), Sidon’s colleague, would be the one who took up the position. Perhaps from career-motivated eagerness, but also from knowledge of his own progress in the art of the violin, he was to choose a particular sonata title, published in the year following his appointment: Musical Fruits of Spring/Musicalische Frühlingsfrüchte, in which the most strongly represented instruments are two violins, violadagamba and continuo. As an instrument of virtuosity, the violadagamba is situated in an inferior position, taking – amid the higher voices in duet and the harmonious accompaniment of the cello, organ and flute – the role of background voice, but nevertheless permitted solo episodes in places.

Perhaps it is coincidence, but almost simultaneous with ascendancy of Becker, all trace is lost of his colleague Sidon. The latter, in any case, will be instrumental in the consecration of Kaspar Förster (1616-1673), a renowned musician from Danzig, educated in Rome, who will compose for him, many years later, the sonata La Sidon. Förster and Sidon had met in Copenhagen, at the court of King Frederick III. Förster was to be Kapellmeister there between 1652 and 1655, and again between 1661 and 1667. Sidon temporarily took over as conductor of the chapel, while Förster, fighting for Venice, was to know military glory in the war against the Turks, later being immortalised as the “knight of San Marco.” He probably composed La Sidon in 1661, thus in the period when, before his return from Copenhagen, he had been hosted by his colleague, who was in Hamburg at the time. On the other hand, it may be that it was composed many years before that, the same as his other two sonatas for two violins, violadagamba, bass and continuo, for the Copenhagen Royal Chamber Orchestra.

A change of generations also occurred in 1679, when Nikolaus Adam Strungk (1640-1700) became musical director of the Hamburg Ratsmusik, after the death of Dietrich Becker. At the age of forty, Strungk could boast a career in the ascendant: he had been first violinist at the court chapels of Wolfenbuettel, Celle and Hannover, and then, between 1661 and 1665, he had impressed Emperor Leopold I with his artistry. He stayed in Hamburg for four years, introducing into the pretentious idiom of the Hamburg Ratsmusik not only his sovereign ability but also a certain harmonic daring, as is demonstrated by his Sonata in re minor. Then, his path took him to Hannover once more, then to Italy and again Vienna. In 1688, we find him vice-Kapellmeister and then Kapellmeister in Dresden. In 1693, he was to found at the Leipzig Opera.

From Strungk’s generation there are three composers who it is supposed were included by painter Johannes Voorhout in his allegory of 1674, which refers to friendship on the musical stage: on violin can be found Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722), alongside Johann Theile (1646-1724) and Dietrich Buxtehude (1637- 1707). It is not known who is on violadagamba or who is listening to the music, as the gaze is directed rather towards a female lutanist than towards the notes. Of Reincken, organist at the Katharinenkirche in Hamburg, it was presumed until recently that his date of birth was ten years earlier than was known and that consequently, shortly before reaching the age of one hundred, he is supposed to have greeted Johann Sebastian Bach with words of praise, when the latter made a mark for himself in the Hanseatic city, in 1720, with an Improvised Choral Fantasia, as organist at the St. Jacobi church. Bach was attracted to the transposition of string sonatas and suites from the Hortus Musicus. The first and otherwise only printed publications to have survived were issued by Reincken in 1688. The fact that in the preface he added the fictive title director organi is evidence of his pregnant sense of self-consciousness, as is also demonstrated by the extravagant cloak he is wearing in the respective painting.

Theile, still Kapellmeister at the Gottorf residence in Holstein at the time the painting was composed, has gone down in musical history as the “father of counterpoint”. This is principally due to his Book on the Art of Music, from 1691, also published in numerous copies, a manuscript collection, in which the last disciple of Heinrich Schutz presents, on the basis of his own compositions, the combinatory art of the double counterpoint. The fact that Theile, an expert in melody, whose work Adam und Eva opened at Hamburg’s Gänsemarkt Opera in 1678, will not be forgotten is proven by the Sonata Duplex, which can still be listened to today. “Two subjects, then the same backwards / can be listened to yet again,” thus goes one of Theile’s commentaries in the above mentioned book on the art of music. However, a piece may still delight even if one does not have knowledge of this method of composition.

Buxtehude, organist at the Marienkirche in Lübeck, was renowned amongst his contemporaries as a virtuoso, but also as the composer of splendid vocal music. From his work for keyboard instruments, we retain the Ciacona in mi minor, an excellent example of the potentialities of variation that can be obtained according to the patterns of old dance forms, in essentially uniform harmonic successions along a bass line. (Cordarte adapted this lively piece for an ensemble made up of violin, violadagamba and chitarrone.) In 1694 and then 1696, following the example of his colleague and friend Reincken, Buxtehude published works entitled VII. Suonate a doi, violino & violadagamba, con cembalo, publications in which he presents the entire creative gamut of compositional techniques for chamber music. Thus, the Sonata in do minor, from opus 2, reveals a charming dialogue through the play of nuances between the violin and the violadagamba. The Sonatas in fa major and sol major have come down to us only in manuscript. In their structure, they constitute shining examples of those baroque compositions for quartet, whose brilliant exponent would, a century later, be Georg Philipp Telemann in Hamburg. These sonatas provide, in the concerto manner, a different podium for affirmation of the solo virtuosity of the violins and violadagamba.