Sontagliche Evangelien (review)

Long before Johann Sebastian Bach composed his sacred cantatas to serve as musical reflections on the Gospel reading in the Lutheran worship service, composers were providing other means of musical elaboration on these important Biblical texts. Spruchmotetten (individual motets setting key passages of liturgically prescribed Gospel readings) were popular already in the sixteenth century, and by the early seventeenth century, composers were publishing complete collections of Spruchmotetten that provided one work for every Sunday and holiday of the church year. Many of these publications, including important ones by Andreas Raselius (ca. 1563-1602), Melchior Vulpius (ca. 1570-1615), and Melchior Franck (ca. 1579-1639), have been available in modern edition since the 1960s (Raselius, Deutsche sonntägliche Evangelien-Sprüche, ed. Herbert Nitsche and Hermann Stern, Geistliche Chormusik, ser. 4: Das Chorwerk alter Meister, 8 [Stuttgart-Hohenheim: Hänssler, 1964]; Vulpius, Deutsche sonntägliche Evangeliensprüche, ed. Nitsche and Stern, Geistliche Chormusik, ser. 2: Die junge Kantorei, 12-13 [Stuttgart-Hohenheim: Hänssler, 1960-61]; Franck, Deutsche Evangeliensprüche für das Kirchenjahr(1623) für gemischten Chor, ed. Konrad Ameln [Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1960]). Only recently, however, has the most unusual of these collections, the two-volume Sontägliche Evangelien (Liegnitz: Nicolaus Sartorius, 1616-21) of Thomas Elsbeth (?mid-16th cent.-after 1624), been made available in a new edition by Allen Scott.

Elsbeth's Gospel motets differ from those of his contemporaries primarily in his freer approach to the liturgical text. Whereas other composers set only the Bible verses verbatim, Elsbeth took a variety of approaches: he frequently presented a quotation from the Gospel with an explanatory introduction; he sometimes rearranged the Bible verses; and he often freely paraphrased the Biblical text. Now that Elsbeth's two volumes of unusual Gospel motets are finally available in their entirety, the time has come for a reevaluation of this important genre, which begins in the superb introduction to Scott's edition. By comparing the text of one of Elsbeth's motets with a work on the same Gospel passage by Franck, for instance, Scott convincingly refutes the long-held assumption that these Spruchmotetten only served a strictly liturgical function. Though Elsbeth's motets certainly could have been sung as part of the Lutheran worship service, Scott argues that they would have been equally appropriate for a wide variety of contexts, from school lessons to private devotions. While many of Scott's ideas are drawn from a doctoral thesis by Craig Jon Westendorf ("The Textual and Musical Repertoire of the Spruchmotette" [D.M.A. thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1987]), Scott's arguments extend beyond those of this source. Whereas Westendorf holds that Gospel motets as a whole belong only to a didactic, exegetical tradition, Scott astutely points out that many of the texts in Elsbeth's collection also serve a more comforting (trostreich) function, expressing hope and joy in God's promise of salvation.

Scott's introduction provides a good overview of Elsbeth's treatment of the Biblical texts with a number of clear examples; yet considering how important the composer's choices of text are for understanding these pieces, Scott could have explored this subject in greater detail. At the very least, he could have provided more information along with his translations of the texts. While he correctly identifies the Bible verses quoted or paraphrased in each motet, the reader would better be able to evaluate Elsbeth's selection of texts had Scott provided basic information about the complete Gospel reading required by the Lutheran liturgy. Even more disappointing is that Scott makes no attempt to differentiate in his translations between the direct Biblical quotes, paraphrases, and...