I

Probably the most rewarding experience for the musicologist and performing musician is to encounter in his research a composer from the past whose work shows the divine spark of genius especially when it appears with a consistency and authority that is unmistakable. Too often the music of minor and unknown composers from the past gives us no more than the impression that it is academically correct, uninspired and functional, and, as it were, “in the style.” Though one may encounter isolated masterpieces, the search for its companion piece in artistic value and greatness is too often followed by disillusionment and disappointment. A happy exception to this can be found in the music of Nicolaus Bruhns (1665–1697). As a representative composer of the North German School in the late seventeenth century, Bruhns usually receives no more than passing and dutiful reference by the writers on the period and the biographers of Johann Sebastian Bach. Yet anyone coming into contact with Bruhns’s music is immediately impressed by its originality and compelling inspiration. Further study of Bruhns’s music reveals the extraordinary consistency of his style and the boldness and freshness of his musical imagination. Though his creative production as it has come down to us may indeed be small, it reveals enough of the nature of his musical personality and the scope of his genius to place him in the company of the greatest among Bach’s predecessors in North Germany.

Nicolaus Bruhns descended from a family of North German musicians which held a respected and honored position in the musical life of the province of Schleswig-Holstein and the city of Lübeck during the seventeenth century.^[1] His grandfather, Paul Bruhns, had been attached to the court of Christian Albrecht IV the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, where he served as court lutanist. In 1639 he left the court to accept the post of lutanist and town musician in his native city of Lübeck.^[2] He served in these capacities until his early death in 1655. All three of his sons were trained as musicians and lived and worked in North Germany.

It was Paul Bruhns’s second son, likewise named Paul, who became the father of Nicolaus Bruhns. He was trained as an organist, probably by Franz Tunder, the organist of the Marienkirche in Lübeck from 1641 to 1667. Later he became organist of the Jacobikirche in Schwäbstadt, a small village near the city of Husum in Schleswig-Holstein.

Nicolaus Bruhns was born in Schwästadt in the Advent season of 1665. He received his early musical training under his father, who brought him to a considerable level of proficiency as an organist and composer. In 1681, when he was sixteen, Nicolaus was sent to Lübeck to continue his musical training under his uncle Peter Bruhns, who taught him to play the violin and viola da gamba.

Peter Bruhns, the youngest of Paul Bruhns’s three sons, had established himself in Lübeck as a violin virtuoso and teacher. In 1667 he succeeded Nathanael Schnittelbach as the leading violinist among the Lübeck Rathsmusikanten. Nathanael Schnittelbach, who, according to Gerber, was the greatest German violinist of his day, was the leader of a school of violinists located in Lübeck.^[3] This school emphasized the use of double stops, high positions, scordatura, and other virtuoso techniques introduced by the Italians in the first half of the seventeenth century. Without question Peter Bruhns came under the influence of Schnittelbach and his school, since he was a native of the city of Lübeck.

According to Mattheson, Bruhns’s mastery of the violin and viola da gamba aroused the enthusiasm of all who heard him.^[4] The descriptions of Bruhns’s violin playing indicate that he had mastered the techniques of the Lübeck School. Unfortunately, no examples of Bruhns’s compositions for solo violin or viola da gamba have survived, although we do have the violin obbligato he wrote for the bass cantata Mein Herz ist bereit, in which Bruhns makes intensive use of the various double-stop techniques developed by the violin virtuosi of Lübeck.^[5] The immense possibilities which the double-stop technique provided for new avenues of musical expression no doubt captured Bruhns’s imagination and offered him the opportunity to display his powers as a virtuoso. This predilection for virtuoso display is present in nearly all of Bruhns’s music and provides a key to the understanding of his musical personality. Johann Mattheson’s oft-repeated account of Bruhns’s custom of sitting at the organ with his violin and improvising an obbligato pedal part to that which he played on the violin offers a charming and illuminating picture of this facile and audacious musical personality.[6]

Bruhns’s sojourn in Lübeck led to his mastery of the art of violin and organ playing and the materials of musical composition. But it was also important as a period devoted to the formulation and development of his musical ideas and the search for outward artistic stimulation. Lübeck, “The City of the Seven Golden Spires”^[7] and the once proud seat of the Hanseatic League of the Renaissance and Middle Apes, provided the ideal setting for this phase of Bruhns’s education. The intensive musical life of the city centered on the Marienkirche under the leadership of Dietrich Buxtehude and was rivaled in the North only by the cities of Hamburg and Copenhagen.

The musical traditions of the Lübeck churches are well documented and prove the importance which civic leaders attached to music in the church. The Marienkirche was the most impressive church in the city, and the people of Lübeck took great pride in its music, both in the liturgical service and the Abendmusiken established by Franz Tunder and so greatly developed by Dietrich Buxtehude.^[8] Of more than passing interest to Nicolaus Bruhns, the aspiring young organist, was the fact that the Marienkirche housed one of the most beautiful and imposing organ cases in Europe.

In Lübeck Bruhns continued his study of organ and composition under Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707), the successor of Franz Tunder as organist of the Marienkirche. Bruhns must have been deeply stimulated by his association with this great musician, for Buxtehude had few rivals in the power of his musical expression and the originality and fertility of his musical imagination. Bruhns possessed these same qualities to a remarkable degree and would have been well equipped to absorb and put into practice all that Buxtehude had to offer him.

Unfortunately there is virtually a complete lack of source material on Bruhns’s study and relationship with Buxtehude. It is veiled in the same obscurity which surrounds Bach’s study with Buxtehude during his famous sojourn in Lübeck in the fall of the year 1705. But the evidence in the music of Buxtehude and Bruhns is sufficient to show the striking similarity between their musical style and temperaments. Yet so strong is Bruhns’s creative genius, one seldom feels that his music suffers in comparison with Buxtehude. Rather, it is an individual expression and breathes a life all its own. We may note in passing that in comparing the music of the two composers, one gains the impression that Buxtehude’s vocal compositions are decidedly lacking in the individuality, strength, and clarity of expression as typical of his organ works, while Bruhns’s vocal compositions on the other hand have the same interest and consistency of style of his organ works.

Bruhns’s study with Buxtehude gave him the opportunity to learn and perfect the techniques of organ playing representative of the North German school, which cultivated the idiomatic and virtuoso potentialities of the instrument. As Spitta has pointed out,^[9] the organ music of the Middle and South German composers, which was considered by them to be extremely difficult, could very well have been played at sight by organists of Buxtehude’s and Bruhns’s technical ability. And as organ playing in Germany at this time was primarily an improvisatory art, Bruhns probably received much of his training from Buxtehude along these lines.

The high regard which Buxtehude held for Bruhns prompted him to write a letter of recommendation which Bruhns probably used to establish himself in Copenhagen after his period of study in Lübeck.^[10] Buxtehude’s letter was very probably directed to his old friend and teacher Johann Lorenz, the celebrated organist of the Nicolaikirche.

In Copenhagen Bruhns found a city whose cultural life was fully as stimulating as that of Lübeck. The musical life of Copenhagen had a strongly cosmopolitan tradition. Heinrich Schütz had found in Copenhagen a place of refuge during the Thirty Years’ War, a thriving ballet tradition had been in force in the city for many years, Italian singers and instrumentalists were always in great demand there, and Matthias Weckmann had come into contact with English virginal music by association with English composers residing there. Bruhns’s instrumental style and the highly dramatic nature of his vocal music shows a definite Italian influence which may date from his contact with Italian musical style during his stay in Copenhagen.

The exact year of Bruhns’s arrival in Copenhagen is not known. We know that he left Copenhagen in 1689, when he was twenty-four years old, to assume the position of organist of the Stadtkirche in Husum. So we may assume that the Copenhagen sojourn must have been no longer than three or four years. It is improbable that he left Lübeck and his studies with Buxtehude and his uncle Peter Bruhns before reaching the age of twenty-one. Mattheson states only that Bruhns resided in Copenhagen for “a few years.”[11] That he was there even three or four years seems open to question, for a musician of his ability would probably have left a mark on the city’s musical life that would have been observed and recorded. Unfortunately the record of his activities in Copenhagen is a complete blank.

No doubt Bruhns quickly established a reputation for himself as an organist and violin and viola da gamba virtuoso in Copenhagen, playing in the churches of the city and in the concerts given at the court of Christian V, king of Denmark. He also probably associated himself with Johann Lorenz, who had acquired a considerable reputation as an organist and church musician by the series of concerts of church music which he regularly directed at the Nicolaikirche. Three concerts were given each week, providing anyone connected with them an unparalleled opportunity to study and become familiar with a vast store of church music.^[12]

In February 1689 the city fathers of Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, instituted proceedings for the immediate call of Nicolaus Bruhns as organist of the Church of St. Maria, the city church of Husum. Bruhns passed the formal examination for the position held on March 30, 1689, and his appointment as organist of the Husum Stadtkirche was officially confirmed. The examination was a personal triumph for the young virtuoso, who demonstrated to his examiners a command of the techniques of composition and of playing all kinds of instruments which, by their own admission they had never witnessed before in the city of Husum.^[13]

The city of Husum is located in southwestern Schleswig-Holstein on the Husumer Au, a rivulet or drainage canal which empties into the North Sea. The city was chartered in 1603 and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a prosperous commercial center. Husum has since suffered a decline and today is known only as a livestock trading center and as a minor port of call in the North Sea shipping trade. The descriptive title of “The Still, Gray Town on the Sea,” which has been given to Husum in modern times, vividly reflects the twilight in the importance of this once flourishing and prosperous city.

The musical traditions of the Husum Stadtkirche had been firmly established by Matthias Ebio, who served as Kantor of the Stadtkirche for fifty-seven years (from 1616 to 1673).^[14] Ebio was known as a composer of numerous vocal works in the Venetian style, many of which were published at the expense of the city of Husum. He also assembled a collection of the finest contemporary church music for the library of the Husum Stadtkirche during his Kantorat. Ebio was succeeded on June 24, 1673, by Georg Ferber, who was an accomplished musician and gifted with an exceptionally beautiful bass voice.^[15]

In 1687 Ferber left Husum to become Kantor of Schleswig, a city located directly west of Husum, midway between Husum and Kiel. It is very possible that Ferber remained in contact with the Husum Stadtkirche and knew Bruhns, who came to Husum in 1689, two years later. The extreme difficulty and highly individualistic style of Bruhns’s bass cantatas indicates that they were written for a specific singer. Knowing Ferber’s reputation as a singer, we may conjecture that Bruhns had Ferber in mind when he wrote them. Ferber’s successor in Husum was Petrus Steinbrecher (1659–1702), a skilled musician and gifted teacher who was educated in Lübeck and Kiel. He very probably collaborated with Bruhns in the performance of many of his colleagues vocal and instrumental compositions.

Shortly after his arrival in Husum, Bruhns married Anna Dorothea Hesse, the stepsister of his uncle, Peter Bruhns. She bore him five children, one of whom entered the ministry. With his home now established and with the security which his position as organist of the Husum Stadtkirche provided him, Bruhns remained in Husum for the rest of his short life, bringing fame in a small way to this small, once proud city near the bleak shores of the North Sea.

Already Bruhns had enough of a reputation as musician to cause competition for his service. Pastor Krafft, writing in 1723, relates how Bruhns was approached by the city of Kiel only a few weeks after assuming his position at the Stadtkirche in Husum. The ensuing oral negotiations resulted in Bruhns accepting the position of organist of the Nikolaikirche in Kiel “under certain conditions” on July 22, 1689. Apparently Bruhns was even urged by the city fathers of Kiel to attempt a cancellation of his contract with the city of Husum. This brought to a head the jealousy and intrigue which had flared up between the two cities on the matter. The indignant Husum deputies severely criticized the city of Kiel for attempting to secure the services of Bruhns and to force upon them another organist in his place. They did their utmost to retain the services of Bruhns. It was decided that an annual stipend of 100 thalers for life be added to his established salary of 400 thalers, in consideration of his accomplishments as a musician and to insure the right to retain him as their organist. It was expressly stated that this increase in salary should apply only to Bruhns and in no way to his successors.^[16]

The account given by Pastor Krafft of this episode, brief as it is, graphically reflects the determination of the city fathers of Husum to retain the services of the gifted young musician who promised to bring honor and musical distinction to their city. Their willingness to accommodate Bruhns in a financial way in order to insure his loyalty and service was but a reflection of the respect that Bruhns evoked as an artist from those who knew his work and heard him perform.

No records or documents concerning Bruhns’s musical activities in Husum aside from Pastor Krafft’s account have come down to us. It is likely, however, that an organist of his reputation would have been invited to perform in the palace of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. In the Husum Stadtkirche, Bruhns served in the traditional role of organist for the Lutheran church service. Since the Kantor of the Husum Stadtkirche was charged with the responsibility of providing for the choral and instrumental music used in the service, Bruhns, being the organist of the Stadtkirche, played a subservient role in the composition of concerted church music in Husum. His cantatas and spiritual concerts were probably written to be performed on special occasions, and in some cases we may assume that they were written out of an inner artistic compulsion.

Bruhns’s life was cut short in his thirty-first year on March 29, 1697. He was succeeded in April of the same year by his brother, Georg Bruhns.^[17] His early death, coming at a time when his great genius was just beginning to blossom forth, was a loss of considerable importance. As we shall see, he held every promise of carrying on the great traditions of the North German School which were so firmly embodied in the works of Buxtehude. In the composition of concerted church music he had few rivals in North Germany. Extended acquaintance with Bruhns’s music causes one to regard him as one of the most highly endowed German musicians of the seventeenth century, a composer who commands our attention and respect by virtue of the beauty, originality, and power of his ideas and their expression.

II

For an artist whose fame rested primarily on his gifts as a composer of organ music and his facility as an organ virtuoso it is unfortunate, and somewhat strange, that so little of Bruhns’s organ music has survived. Only four of his organ works are extant.[18] Three of them are episodic preludes and fugues in the free style of Buxtehude, and the fourth is a complex and lengthy fantasia based on the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. Yet their great variety and musical merit is sufficient to give us an insight into the gifted composer’s music style and personality. They also earn for him a high place in the company of his great teacher, Dietrich Buxtehude, and the other distinguished organists of the North German School, including Matthias Weckmann, Johann Adam Reinken, Vincentius Lübeck, and George Böhm.

In speaking of the organ music of the North German School, Philipp Spitta makes the following observation:

This school was in great danger of squandering its strength in mere ingenuity of external elaboration, but its peculiarities could be turned to account for delightful ornamentation when wielded by an artist of deep feeling and learning.^[19]

But Spitta also points out that we are dealing here with a style of music that grew not only out of a virtuoso and improvisatory style but one which allowed the organist to show off the organ in all its beauty, versatility, and grandeur. The chorale-fantasias and organ chorales of the North Germans lent themselves very well as musical forms to the rich and varied tonal resources of the baroque organ. In the same manner, the chaconne, the toccata, and the organ prelude were forms which were closely related to the organ as their performing medium. Pedal points, echo effects, brilliant manual and pedal virtuoso flourishes, rambling chromatic-arioso-recitative interludes, majestic cadences, and full-bodied climaxes all fall into a logical pattern of musical expression when transferred into the living sound of the baroque organ.

We cannot be sure to what degree the organ of the Husum Stadtkirche approached the tonal resources of the Lübeck organs, yet the specifications listed by Klotz of two other organs designed by Gottfried Fritzsche, who designed the Husum Stadtkirche organ, clearly suggest that Bruhns had a more than adequate instrument at his disposal in Husum.^[20]The Husum Stadtkirche organ had 36 stops, three manuals, and a pedal board and dated from the year 1629.

Though only a very few of Bruhns’s organ works have survived, we may probably assume that they show his organ style as it was in many other compositions that have been lost or which perished in improvisatory performance. “They show him,” writes Dufourcq, “still searching for his way. But he said enough in them to show to what extent the muse had brushed him.”^[21] But besides relating them to his North German musical and artistic heritage, we must consider Bruhns’s organ works as highly personal expressions, for a very persuasive musical personality is revealed in them, a personality that commands our attention on stylistic grounds as well as the realm of the organization of musical ideas. Bruhns’s use of conventional imitative techniques, baroque keyboard devices, and conventional functional harmonic progressions gives the impression of a man working with materials still fresh and exciting. He finds delight and wonder in them and for the present seems preoccupied mainly with exploiting them within a limited framework and with all of the joy and freedom that comes from the first feelings of command and assurance.

Bruhns’s most important organ composition is the “Great” Prelude and Fugue in E minor. The designation “Great” is used to differentiate the work from a shorter prelude and fugue in the same key. The Prelude and Fugue in E minor shows almost every characteristic of Bruhns’s musical and expressive style. It is in many ways his masterpiece and one of the most important organ works of the seventeenth century.

In the opening measures of the Prelude we are introduced to one of the most characteristic elements of Bruhns’s musical style, namely, his tendency to confine his expression to a series of short episodes which flash by in quick succession.

Andre Pirro has made an interesting observation about a possible personal motivation behind Bruhns’s episodic style of composition as revealed in the Prelude and Fugue in E minor:

If he lavished here impassioned secrets and seeks to dissipate his goods without waiting the time to see them mature, it is perhaps that he had a presentiment that he must hasten to tell his secrets such as they were. He delivered thus, a little confusedly, the promises of beautiful poems that death prevented him from writing, for there is enough substance in the composition the Prelude and Fugue in E minor to fashion several different works.^[22]

Bruhns’s Prelude and Fugue in G major is in many ways as significant an organ composition as the Prelude and Fugue in E minor. It resembles very closely the latter work, but it also contains many stylistic traits of the North German school not found in the Prelude and Fugue in E minor. Furthermore, its formal structure is more logical and clearly defined. In this it shows the influence of the multipartite preludes and fugues of Buxtehude, where the divisions between the main episodes are more clearly drawn, the internal structure of the episodes more closely knit, and the musical ideas more fully developed.

The initial fugue offers us a superb example of Bruhns’s exploitation of the double pedal. This fugue places the most extraordinary demands on the ability of the organist to co-ordinate his hands and feet as they play on the manuals and pedal. The double-pedal writing in this fugue also makes it easy to understand how important it was in North German organ music for the pedal organ to be as completely independent from the manuals as possible.

A short prelude and fugue in E minor referred to above represents the third and last of Bruhns’s surviving organ compositions in this form. It is beautifully conceived in terms of the tonal resources of the organ. The way in which Bruhns uses the time-honored clichés and idiomatic figurations of seventeenth-century German organ music and gives them new life and meaning in this work is particularly revealing. It is an ideal study piece for the young organist because of its simplicity and great variety of texture, tempo, and musical idea.

The fourth surviving organ work of Nicolaus Bruhns is a chorale-fantasia based on the chorale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland. With the exception of a very brief chorus in his Easter cantata Hemmt eure Tränenflut and the chorale cantata Erstanden ist der heilige Christ, this fantasia is the only example we have of Bruhns using a chorale as the melodic basis of one of his compositions.

The fantasia Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland is divided into four main sections, each section corresponding to one of the four lines of the chorale melody. There seems to be no attempt to relate the text of the chorale to the fantasia. We gain the impression that Bruhns has simply taken the melodic ideas of the chorale and coldly and analytically set about to construct a free-style fantasia based on them. Unfortunately, there is little conviction to the work as a whole, although the third section is one of great beauty and profundity. The fantasia otherwise seems labored and uninspired. It catches fire only when Bruhns allows his improvisatory keyboard style to take hold, especially in the brilliant closing measures of the fourth section.

To witness in art the budding of genius can often be a most rewarding and stimulating experience, for it sets the imagination at work in an attempt to evaluate the potential of an artist who shows signs of constant growth. While the exact nature of a young artist’s potential must necessarily remain conjecture, we can observe in retrospect the potential achieved by mature artists who showed great promise in their youth. Although the organ works of Nicolaus Bruhns do not always give complete artistic satisfaction, they are of historical interest as a record of an aspiration after a goal. But more important, they document the genius of one of the most extraordinarily gifted composers in Germany during the seventeenth century.

To compare Bruhns with the Bach of Arnstadt and Mühlhausen is inevitable. One cannot help wondering what Buxtehude’s thoughts were when he met the young Sebastian Bach for the first time in 1705. It is possible that Bach reminded Buxtehude of his former pupil, Nicolaus Bruhns, who died before realizing the full possibilities of his great genius. We know that Bach came to know the organ works of Bruhns along with those of Froberger, Pachelbel, Buxtehude, and Böhm by secretly copying them by hand from a well-guarded collection of clavier music owned by his brother, Johann Christof Bach. Selecting what was acceptable to him, and rejecting the uncongenial, Bach would have had much to draw from in the organ works of Bruhns.

It is remarkable how forcefully Bruhns’s musical personality reveals itself in his organ music and in the all-too-meager accounts of his life and work which we have from his contemporaries. Indeed, we would almost be inclined to hold suspect such a vivid picture were it not for the fact that his twelve surviving cantatas and geistliche Konzerte reveal similar high qualities of style and expressive power. Though the treasure of his vocal music may indeed be small, nevertheless it is of great importance and enduring value.

The majority of Bruhns’s vocal compositions are contained in a manuscript collection of church music known as the Bokemeier-Sammlung, Mus. ms. 30 101 of the Prussian State Library.^[23] The Bokemeier-Sammlung is named after Heinrich Bokemeier (1697 to 1751), the Kantor of Wolfenbüttel, who served as Kantor of the Husum Stadtkirche from 1712 to 1717. Although credit must be given to Bokemeier for preserving the Bruhns manuscripts in his library, the man who actually copied most of the manuscript was Bokemeier’s teacher, Georg Oesterreich, Kantor of the Cathedral of Braunschweig.^[24] Bokemeier is known to have studied with Oesterreich while the latter was Kantor of the Martinkirche in Braunschweig (1704–1712). It was during his study with Oesterreich that Bokemeier obtained the manuscripts, and he mentions them specifically in his correspondence with Johann Gottfried Walther. Oesterreich probably had come into contact with Bruhns earlier, when he served as Kapellmeister in the Royal Chapel in Gottorp and Schleswig from 1689 to 1702. The chapel was located a short distance from Husum.

Bruhns’s vocal compositions fall into three general categories. The first of these is the sacred concert (geistliches Konzert), a through-composed composition on a text taken directly from the Scriptures, in which each textual idea receives a distinct musical setting.

The second category, which we shall call the number cantata, includes works divided into separate numbered sections. They were set either to Biblical texts or paraphrases of Biblical and chorale texts. These compositions are usually framed by choral numbers and include arias, duets, and trios with instrumental ritornelli interspersed among them.

Our third category is the chorale cantata, a type of vocal composition based on the German chorale. The Easter cantata Erstanden ist der heilge Christ is Bruhns’s only surviving composition in this form.

Bruhns’s choice of Biblical texts was uniformly excellent and assured his vocal compositions, particularly his sacred concerts, a dignity often lacking in the sacred music of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The matter of the bad taste and poor literary quality of most of the late baroque German cantata texts needs no comment here. The most interesting aspect of Bruhns’s choice of texts is that they were very largely subjective personal expressions by Old Testament writers. Bruhns treated the sacred concert as a vehicle for the individual’s religious expression.

The texts of Bruhns’s vocal compositions have two central themes constantly reappearing in them. The first is his mystical awareness of approaching death, his longing for it, and the release it offers from worldly sorrow and care. The second theme is a seeming contradiction of the above. It is centered on the joy of Christian living and the offering of praise and thanksgiving for temporal and spiritual blessings. Here we encounter the expression of Bruhns’s affirmative philosophy of life and the delight that his creative activity brings to him. The expression throughout is highly personal and colored by Bruhns’s strong orthodox Lutheran faith. Even when his texts deal with the themes of death and mortal suffering, his treatment of them graphically reflects the Christian’s affirmative pronouncement of faith.

The sacred concert posed the special problem of providing one continuous musical setting to a lengthy Biblical text. The episodic style typical of the sacred concert shows in the practice of giving each new phrase or verse of the text a new episode or musical idea that was marked either by a change in style, texture, tempo, or meter. A kind of dramatic unity was achieved by maintaining the basic mood of the composition, or more specifically, by an adherence to the expressive implication of the central idea of the text. As the text unfolds, a variety of ideas or shades of meaning are given to its central theme. In this way unity was achieved more along dramatic and rhetorical lines.

Yet as a group the sacred concerts give the impression of formal weakness, as his organ works do from being overburdened with too many musical ideas in a succession of short episodes. The longer ones seem to become lost in a maze of episodes so numerous that they elude the grasp of the listener. Bruhns did not always exercise the proper sense of selection in determining the length of his texts or how much he would break them up to comply with the formal demands of the sacred concert. All of his sacred concerts have strong opening episodes and even stronger and more affirmative closing ones, but many of them are confused and diffuse in the middle. Even though the separate episodes and musical ideas in them are handled brilliantly, the unfolding of many of his sacred concerts often leaves the listener with an impression of formal weakness and lack of direction.

On the other hand, the sacred concert Die Zeit meines Abschieds really profits by its episodic style. Here the changes of mood are musically and dramatically convincing, and there is only one climax, at the end, toward which every episode is directed. Form and content are completely reconciled, and the work emerges with the artistic balance of a truly great work of art. It should be regarded as one of the greatest German sacred compositions of the seventeenth century.

The disposition of instruments and voices in the sacred concert and the early solo cantata was extremely varied. A sacred concert for solo voice or vocal ensemble would be accompanied either by a five-voice orchestra or a combination of solo string instruments. The string trio, consisting of two violins and basso continuo, was by far the most popular instrumental combination in the solo cantata, and vocal trios and duets often received the same instrumental support. Bruhns cannot be said to have favored any one type of instrumental disposition in his sacred concerts. It is clear, however, that he thought of the sacred concert in terms of chamber-music combination and conceived his number cantatas with larger vocal and instrumental forces in mind.

As a group, Bruhns’s sacred concerts may be considered his most important vocal compositions. His basically subjective and romantic approach to composition and the originality and freedom of his musical language were ideally suited to the form of the multipartite, through-composed sacred concert. The sacred concert served his special musical needs. It could absorb the fertile outpouring of his musical imagination and indulge his predilection for dramatic contrast and sudden change of mood. Finally, the emotional range of the sacred concert was very wide. It extended from a plane of highest exaltation to the depths of spiritual dejection. From moments of the most lyrical quality, full of tender beauty, Bruhns will plunge us, without warning, into a restless sea of energy and drive.

The mature style and expression of Bruhns’s sacred concerts leads us to wonder whether he would have developed the form further or have turned his attention solely to the number cantata, as Bach did.

To the modern listener, used to the formal designs of the late baroque, especially in the cantatas and Passion settings of Bach, the number cantatas of Bruhns are more readily understandable. With their arias, ariosos, choruses, and instrumental ritornellos, they anticipate to some extent the composite structure of the late baroque cantata. The various movements or clearly defined numbers of the cantata give the listener definite points of reference that he can use in orientating himself to the over-all form of the work. Unfortunately Bruhns’s number cantatas are much more uneven works than his sacred concerts. The self-contained numbers, such as the continuo aria, the accompanied arioso, and the instrumental ritornello, with few exceptions, did not offer him the freedom of expression that was vital to him. Occasional lapses of musical inspiration in these numbers contribute to a lessening of the musical and dramatic impact of the cantata as a whole. Yet in many of these numbers we can find moments of great beauty and expressive power. In a moment of inspiration Bruhns seizes upon a musical idea and turns out a miniature masterpiece. A conductor is tempted either to extract the episode or movement from the cantata or perform the entire work merely to bring the inspired passage to life in the proper context.

The choruses of the number cantatas are all impressive and effective, however. For the most part they are written in fugal style, but extensive passages in homophonic style are also characteristic of them. The choruses are episodic and similar in form to his sacred concerts, although their texts are much shorter. As a result there are usually only one or two tempo or meter changes in a chorus and as many new musical ideas and episodes as may be required by the text. The choruses are accompanied by a five-voice string orchestra and organ continuo. In the cantatas Muss nicht der Mensch and O werter heil’ger Geist two clarinos are used to give added support and color to the ensemble.

The ritornelli and opening symphonias are uneven in quality. In the better-integrated cantatas they serve as very effective and moving episodes which tie the various movements of the cantata together. They are usually self-contained compositions, but in some instances they move directly into the succeeding movement of the cantata. The transitions between the various movements of the great Easter cantata Hemmt eure Tränenflut are especially well worked out. In this cantata Bruhns makes a special effort to move smoothly from the luxuriant texture and style of the instrumental ritornelli to the vocal solos with their thinner texture and contrasting musical style. Bruhns was influenced by the style of Buxtehude’s continuo arias, principally from the master’s Abendmusiken cycles and elaborate number cantatas. Unfortunately Bruhns’s continuo arias are of only passing interest. We look in vain for the genius of the sacred concert and the free-style prelude and fugue in them. Yet when he assigns an instrumental accompaniment in his arias, it takes on the musical distinction of his other vocal and instrumental music.

The texts of the number cantatas are drawn either directly from the Scriptures or are paraphrases of Scriptural or chorale texts. The exception to this is found in the Easter cantata Hemmt eure Tränenflut, which is a subjective interpretation by an anonymous poet of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ. The text is both didactic and reflective and closely resembles the form and poetic style of the texts of Buxtehude’s number cantatas and Abendmusiken cycles. The text of the cantata O werter heil’ger Geist is a direct paraphrase of Martin Luther’s Komm, Heiliger Geist, which was the Reformer’s version of the Latin hymn Veni Sancte Spiritus.

The form of the chorale cantata Erstanden ist der heilge Christ is dictated by the chorale text. In this cantata Bruhns uses three stanzas of the chorale and subjects the chorale melody to a series of variations. The text Erstanden ist der heilge Christ dates from the twelfth century and is set to the melody Surrexit Christus hodie from the fourteenth century. The work opens with a very dramatic symphonia, and a short ritornello for two violins and continuo is inserted between the second and third stanzas of the chorale. The cantata is probably an early work, for it shows unmistakably the influence of Buxtehude, especially in the unpretentious style of its imitative counterpoint and the simplicity and directness of its expression.

Cited References and Notes

1. Fritz Stein’s comprehensive biography of Nicolaus Bruhns is published in his foreword to the complete edition (CE): Nicolaus Bruhns (1665–1697), Gesammelte Werke, Bearbeitet von Fritz Stein (Braunschweig: Henry Litolff Verlag, 1937). The complete edition of the works of Nicolaus Bruhns was published as the first two volumes of the Landschaftsdenkmale der Musik, Schleswig-Holstein und Hansestädte. Stein’s foreword is contained in Vol. I, pp. v–viii.
2. The town musicians, Ratsmusikanten, of Lübeck during the seventeenth century are listed by Wilhelm Stahl in his Franz Tunder und Dietrich Buxtehude (Leipzig: Kistner und Siegel, 1926), pp. 76–79.
3. J. W. von Wasielewski, Die Violine und ihre Meister (Leipzig, 1910), p. 236.
4. Johann Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte (Hamburg, 1940), p. 27. “. . . da er denn auf der Viola da gamba, und vornehmlich auf der Violine, solche Fertigkeit erlangte, dass er von allen damahls lebenden Musikbeflissenen, die ihn kannten, sehr werth und hochgehalten wurde.”
5. Bruhns (CE), I, 73–84.
6. Mattheson, Ehrenpforte, p. 27. “Well er sehr stark auf der Violine war, und solche mit doppelten Griffen, als wenn ihrer 3. oder 4. wären, zu spielen wusste, so hatte er die Gewohnheit, dann und wann auf seiner Orgel die Veränderung zu machen, dass er die Violine zugleich, mit einer sich dazu gutschickenden Pedalstimme ganz allein, auf das annehmlichste hören liess.”
7. Referring to the spires of the five Gothic churches of Lübeck. As these churches were constructed of red brick, their roofs and spires took on a rich golden cast from a distance.
8. See Wilhelm Stahl, Geschichte der Kirchenmusik in Lübeck (Lübeck: Otto Guitzow Verlag, 1931).
9. Philipp Spitta, J. S. Bach, trans. Clara Bell (London: Novello & Co., 1884–85), I, 267 f.
10. Mattheson, p. 27.
11. Mattheson, p. 27.
12. H. J. Moser, Musik-Lexikon (Hamburg: Sikorski, 1951), p. 648.
13. Pastor J. M. Krafft, Ein zweyfaches zweyhundertjähriges Jubelgedächtnis . . . dem beygefügt eine zweyhundertjährige Husumische Kirchen und Schulgeschichte (Hamburg, 1723), p. 318. “. . . durch allgemeine Zustimmung, da vorher seines-gleichen vom Komposition und Traktierung allerlei Arten von Instrumenten in dieser Stadt nicht gehöret worden.” Quoted by Stein, p. vi.
14. Mattheson, p. 57.
15. Mattheson, p. 60.
16. The episode is related by Stein, p. vi, based on the account in the Husumsches Jubelgedächtnis of Pastor Krafft, p. 318.
17. Mattheson, p. 28. See also W. Stahl, Geschichte der Kirchenmusik in Lübeck, p. 100.
18. The collected organ works and critical remarks concerning their sources are found in the Bruhns Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, pp. 157–190. An excellent edition of the preludes and fugues was prepared by Max Seiffert: Organum, Vierte Reihe, Orgelmusik (Leipzig: Kistner und Siegel), Heft 8, pp. 3–25. The chorale-fantasia “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” is published also in Karl Straube’s Alte Meister des Orgelspiels, Neue Folge, Vol. I.
19. Spitta, J. S. Bach, I, 195 f.
20. H. Klotz, Ueber die Orgelkunst der Gotik, der Renaissance, und des Barock, pp. 82 ff.
21. Norbert Dufourcq, Jean-Sebastien Bach, le maitre de l’orgue (Paris: Librairie Floury, 1948), p. 163.
22. Andre Pirro, “L’Art des organistes,” Encyclopedie Lavignac (Paris, Delagrave), Part II, Vol. II, p. 1329.
23. See “Kritischer Bericht,” Bruhns Gesammelte Werke, I, 129.
24. See A. Soltys, “Georg Oesterreich (1664–1735), sein Leben und seine Werke,” Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 4 (1922), pp. 169 ff.

1. Through-Composed Sacred Concerts
   1. Die Zeit meines Abschieds ist vorhanden. Sacred concert for four-voice chorus, strings, bassoon, and basso continuo, (Werke I, pp. 3–20)
   2. Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Welt. Sacred concert for solo tenor, two violins, bassoon, and basso continuo. (I, 33–52)
   3. Der Herr hat seinen Stuhl im Himmel bereitet. Sacred concert for solo bass, strings, bassoon and basso continuo. (I, 21–32)
   4. Mein Herz ist bereit. Sacred concert for bass solo, violin solo, and basso continuo. (I, 73–84)
   5. De profundis clamavi. Sacred concert for bass solo, two violins, and basso continuo. (I, 53–72)
   6. Paratum cor meum. Sacred concert for two solo tenors, bass solo, violin solo, two viola da gamba, and basso continuo. (I, 99–126)
2. Number Cantatas
   1. Wohl dem, der den Herrn fürchtet. Cantata for two solo sopranos, bass solo, strings, bassoon, and basso continuo. (I, 85–98)
   2. Ich liege und schlafe. Cantata for four-voice chorus, four solo voices, strings, and basso continuo. (II, 3–18)
   3. Ich habe Lust abzuscheiden. Cantata for four-voice chorus. (II, 19–26) (Textual adaptation of the music for Ich liege und schlafe)
   4. Muss nicht der Mensch auf dieser Erden in stetem Streite sein. Cantata for four-voice chorus, four solo voices, strings, two clarini, and basso continuo. (II, 27–76)
   5. O werter heil’ger Geist. Cantata for four solo voices, chorus, strings, two clarini, and basso continuo. (II, 77–114)
   6. Hemmt eure Tränenflut. Easter cantata for four-voice chorus, four solo voices, strings, and basso continuo. (II, 115–140)
3. Chorale Cantata
   1. Erstanden ist der heilge Christ. Chorale cantata for two tenors, two violins, and basso continuo. (II, 141–156)

Books

Dufourcq, Norbert, Jean-Sebastien Bach, le maitre de l’orgue (Paris: Librairie Floury, 1948).

Eitner, Robert, Biographisch-Bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten, 10 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1900–1904).

Frotscher, Gotthold, Geschichte des Orgelspiels und der Orgelcompositionen (Berlin: 1935–36), 2 vols.

Gerber, Ernst Ludwig, Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler (Leipzig: A. Kühnel, 1812).

Klotz, Hans, Ueber die Orgelkunst der Gotik, der Renaissance und des Barok (Kasel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1913).

Krafft, J. M., Ein zweyfaches zweyhundertjähriges Jubelgedächntnis . . . dem beygefügt eine zweyhundertjährige Husumische Kirchen und Schulgeschichte (Hamburg, 1723).

Pirro, Andre, Dietrich Buxtehude (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1913).

Spitta, Philipp, Johann Sebastian Bach, trans. Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller Maitland (London: Novello and Co., Ltd., 1899), 3 vols.

Stahl, Wilhelm, Franz Tunder und Dietrich Buxtehude (Leipzig: Kistner und Siegel, 1926).

Stahl, Wilhelm, Geschichte der Kirchenmusik in Lübeck (Lübeck: Otto Quitzow Verlag, 1931).

Articles

Kölsch, Heinz, Eine Nicolaus Bruhns-Kantate: Die Zeit meines Abschieds ist vorhanden, in Die Musikwoche, Nos. 5 and 6 (1936).

Kölsch, Heinz, Nicolaus Bruhns, in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. F. Blume (Kassel: Bährenreiter Verlag, 1951).

Moser, Hans J., Der schleswig-holsteinische Tonpoet Nikolaus Bruhns, in Die Musikwoche, Vol. 42 (1935).

Pirro, Andre, L’Art des organistes, in Encyclopedie da la musique et dictionnaire du conservatoire, ed. Albert Lavignac, 11 vols. (Paris: Librairie Delagrave, 1926), 2nd part, II, 1181–1374.

Schünemann, Georg, J. G. Walther und H. Bokemeier, in Bachjahrbuch (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1933).

Soltys, A., Georg Oesterreich (1664–1735), sein Leben und seine Werke, in Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, Vol. 4 (1922).

Wolffheim, Werner, Die Möllersche Handschrift: Ein unbekanntes Gegenstück zum Andreas Bach-Buch, in Bach Jahrbuch (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1912).

Music Collections

Bruhns, Nicolaus, 3 Präludien und Fugen, ed. Max Seiffert (Leipzig: Kistner und Siegel), Organum, Vierte Reihe: Orgelmusik, Vol. 8 (1936).*

Nicolaus Bruhns, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Fritz Stein (Braunschweig: Henry Litolff Verlag, 1937), 2 vols. I and II, Landschaftsdenkmale der Musik, Schleswig-Holstein und Hänsestätte.

Straube, Karl, ed., Alte Meister des Orgelspiels, neue Folge II, Teil I (Leipzig: C. F. Peters, 1929).

*Available through Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo.

From The Musical Heritage of the Church, Volume V (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 1959). Copyright Concordia Publishing House. Printed by permission. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Concordia Publishing House.