Gottfried August Homilius: Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke by Uwe Wolf (review)

Carus-Verlag took double notice in 2014, when two of the composers in its program— Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788) and Gottfried August Homilius (1714–1785)—reached their tercentennials. The publisher marked the anniversaries of these two nearly exact contemporaries with one major thematic catalog each. For Bach, it was a thematic catalog of his vocal works (Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke. Teil 2: Vokalwerk, ed. Wolfram Ensslin et al., Bach-Repertorium vol. III/2 [Stuttgart: Carus, 2014]; the catalog of his instrumental works is forthcoming). For Homilius, the director of church music at the main Protestant churches in Dresden (the Kreuz kirche, Sophienkirche, and Frauenkirche) from 1755 until his death, it was the thematic catalog of all of his works, under review here.

Indeed, the compilation of the Homilius catalog was influenced by developments in C. P. E. Bach scholarship. Initially intended to “provide a useful overview of the works and their sources as quickly as possible and to leave everything else to later scholarship,” the Homilius catalog was significantly expanded when Bach sources were discovered among the Berlin Sing-Akademie materials that resurfaced in the late 1990s (p. 13). Scholars sifting through Bach’s pasticcio cantatas and Passion settings discovered how much music Bach had borrowed from Homilius and the utility of a full catalog was recognized—in particular one that includes incipits and scoring for every movement to aid identifications. Adding to the benefits of a thorough catalog is organizing the web of extant material: Wolf lists over 125 institutions and private collections with surviving sources across Europe, Russia, and the United States. Numerous manuscript copies of Homilius’s works are still extant (the Répertoire international des sources musicales [RISM] online catalog currently indexes over 1,800), some in versions with regional variations, and many with questionable attributions.

Scholars have only partially evaluated the oeuvre of Homilius; he has not enjoyed the same place in either the literature or the performing repertoire as his contemporary Bach. This catalog of works by Homilius, who was a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach and was “during his lifetime and long thereafter . . . incontrovertibly the composer par excellence of Protestant church music,” is a significant contribution to scholarship that will be instrumental in making the works of this composer more widely known, which include ca. 180 cantatas and 60 motets (p. 13). The author, Uwe Wolf, has been engaged with the music of Homilius for a considerable time and has contributed significantly to the renaissance of his works that began in 2000.

Wolf published an initial list of Homilius’s works in 2009 as part of a concise overview of the composer’s life and output (Uwe Wolf, Gottfried August Homilius: Studien zu Leben und Werk mit Werkverzeichnis [kleine Ausgabe] [Stuttgart: Carus, 2009]). The HoWV numbers (Homilius Werkverzeichnis, or Homilius catalog of works) that were introduced in this simplified inventory were carried over to the full thematic catalog, and works that have been discovered since then were inserted into the list and marked with an N for Nachtrag (addendum); for example, HoWV II.107N, “Nun darf ich nicht verzagen,” comes after II.107 as a further cantata belonging to the third Sunday after Trinity Sunday, and before II.108, a work for the fourth Sunday (which can expand to N2 and beyond, should additional works come to light).

The book begins with a “Preface” and “Guide to the catalog” in German and English. The guide explains the structure of entries thoroughly and with clarity, so not only will readers understand the scope and intention of the information provided about each work, but those with a limited grasp of German will be well-equipped to navigate the catalog, which is in German only. Works in the catalog are divided into twelve categories (including vocal works, chorale settings, other instrumental works, and writings...