Anonymus, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland

by admin · June 13, 2019

The manuscript with the designation “KN 209”, owned bij the Ratsbücherei, Lüneburg, is written in German organ tablature and is one of the most important sources for North German organ music, noth in size and in textual quality. Probably written out in the years 1660 -1670 is contains music from some 10 to 20 years earlier, around 1630 – 1660. It is the primary source for the organ music of Matthias Weckmann, Franz Tunder, Delphin Strunck and Peter Mohrhardt. Besides that, it is an important source for the organ music of Heinrich Scheidemann as well. Besides music of which the composer is indicated, the manuscript contains several compositions without an indication of the composer. These anonymous compositions are largely unedited. And that is a shame, because even though anonymous it is fine music and some of them are even real gems of great quality. It is therefore my pleasure to be able to publish at least five of them. You’ll hopefully forgive me that I save the in my opinion two best composition till last, and start with the music that is slightly less (but only slightly) less in quality.

The first composition is a chorale prelude on the melody of “Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der den Tod überwand”. Two things about this composition are certain: whoever the composer was, he or she knew his/her trade, and it was written in the early years of the seventeenth century. The latter is obvious from the fact the piece is written in d dorian. And that is not always easy on our modern ears: we would write b flat most of the times were in this piece b is written. It caused me to check and recheck the manuscript to verify it really writes b and not b flat.

The recording was done on the sampleset, made by Voxus, of the Matthijs van Deventer-orgel in the Grote Kerk, Hijkerk.

Score
Anonymus, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland