Carl F. Scheidemantel (?), Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her

[update 05-12-2021: Friedrich Christian Samuel Mohrheim is a possibile candidate for the authorship; see Richard Reichel’s comment below]

The choral prelude I post today is a sort of left over from Christmas diner. The plan was to publish it before Christmas, but obviously I did not succeed. I could wait till next Christmas, but decided not to. The author of this piece is uncertain. Walther indicates only initials in his manuscript: F.C.S.M. It is sometimes ascribed to one Carl F. Scheidemantel. And that is, as far as I could find, only a name. No year or place of birth of death, no information about where he worked, lived, married or not, nothing. Yet this prelude is a brilliant piece of trio writing. It’s everything one could wish for in such a piece. It has drive, clever ornamentation of the choral melody, perhaps simple but very effective counterpoint, and overal harmonic layout that follows the structure of the choral melody brilliantly. Whoever the author was, he deserves a statue for this piece alone.

One drawback: it’s difficult to register. In the end I choose this particular registration, primarily because of the nice punch in the last low C of the pedal.

The recording was done on the sample set of the Bader-organ in the Walburgiskerk in Zutphen by Sonus Paradisi for Hauptwerk.

Registration
Man.: Prestant 8′, Octaaf 4′, Quint 3′, Octaaf 2′, Trompet 8′ bas+discant (LH)
RW: Prestant 4′, Kromhoorn 8′ (RH)
Ped: Subbas 16′, Octaaf 8, Octaaf 4′
RW+Man, Ped+RW

Score
Scheidemantel, Vom Himmel hoch

Score (non tenor)
Scheidemantel, Vom Himmel hoch

Performance

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