Sacred Songs

The motet ‘ & ’ by Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz was thus building on a centuries-old tradition when he set about composing the motet at the beginning of the 17th century. The composer had just completed the journey of his life: from his native Saxony to sunny Venice, where he learnt his craft from Giovanni Gabrieli. The influence of Schütz’s first and only teacher can be heard in his early work *Quid commisisti*, a poignant meditation on the suffering of Christ. The text is still written in Latin, and stylistically the work clearly has an Italian flair: dramatic, chromatic, with dissonances that make the pain and remorse almost tangible.

But Schütz soon forged his own path, and it is particularly in his later German-language motets that he would leave his mark on history. He makes the text intelligible – both literally and musically – and does so with a rhetorical flair that makes him the ‘father of German church music’. In *Stehe auf, meine Freundin*, set to a text from the Song of Songs, love for Christ resounds like a gentle, almost earthly embrace. *Mit dem Amphion zwar* is his personal lament, in which he gives voice to the loss of his wife in his own words. And *O lieber Herre Gott* shows Schütz at his most concise and deeply felt: one short prayer, one profound emotion.

The motet ‘ & ’ by the Bach family

Anyone wishing to understand how the motet went on to evolve must leaf through the Bach family albums. Not straight to Johann Sebastian, but first a step back up the family tree, to the man he would later call his ‘profound Uncle ’: Johann Christoph. His *Fürchte dich nicht* is a lesser-known gem. The music is simple, yet expressive. The text is comforting, yet without sentimentality. It seems as though this Johann Bach is aware of the limits of the form – no grand architecture here, but a subtle setting of a Bible verse. Yet it is precisely these understated works that would later make such a deep impression on the young Johann Sebastian.

He resolutely bends the motet form to his will. In ‘Komm, Jesu, komm’, you can hear everything that makes Bach Bach: the polyphonic craftsmanship, the spiritual depth, the theological symbolism. The text – exceptionally, not a psalm but a stanza from a poem by Paul Thymich – reflects on death as liberation. Bach does not write a lament, but a comforting farewell. The structure is clear: a free opening passage, almost like a personal sigh, followed by a second, fugato-like section, which ultimately culminates in an almost dance-like minuet on the words ‘Du bist der rechte Weg’. Through this versatility, Bach demonstrates that the motet can be more than just a brief interlude in church services.

The motet through the generations

After Bach, there was a long lull. The motet tradition lost ground to larger vocal forms, to opera and to the choral symphony. Moreover, in the Romantic period, choral works became increasingly less spiritual, drawing instead on secular poetry. Until Felix Mendelssohn revived the genre in the 19th century. Mendelssohn, who himself had hardly been brought up in a religious manner but who threw himself heart and soul into the Protestant musical tradition, set Psalm 2 to music in *Warum toben die Heiden*.

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and his Anointed One: ‘Let us break their bonds.’”

In Mendelssohn’s work, this ominous text is set to tense polyphony, sharp rhythms and precise imitations. Yet there is no trace of Baroque bombast here. Everything remains clear, measured and classical. The motet is not reinvented here, but it is taken seriously once more.

A generation later still, it is Johannes Brahms who returns to the motet, albeit in his own unique way. In his *Fest- und Gedenksprüche* , he sets three texts from the Old and New Testaments to music. The composer wrote this jubilant work to mark his appointment as an honorary citizen of his native city, Hamburg. As a result, the music exudes a certain stately power. But Brahms would not be Brahms if there were not a deeper meaning to it. Behind the monumental character lies a touch of melancholy, as if, through these biblical verses, the composer is also trying to hold on to a world that is slowly disappearing. The Hamburg of his youth no longer exists; perhaps that is why he also looks back over his shoulder, musically speaking. As if to make it clear to the listener: look at what we have lost.

Thus the motet remains – even today, incidentally, with composers such as Arvo Pärt and Morten Lauridsen – above all a timeless form in which composers seek to capture life in all its challenges. It is no coincidence that so many motets sing of themes such as death, consolation and redemption. The form lends itself to introspection, to stillness, but also to subtle grandeur. No wonder it keeps cropping up whenever composers really have something to say.

Jasper Croonen