The German Baroque Tradition –vocal works by Schütz, Buxtehude & Bach
德國巴洛克聲樂演唱會──由許滋至巴赫
Hong Kong City Hall Theatre
June 3rd, 2019 8:00pm
Ticket: $200, $160 （available at URBTIX outlets）
In this Concert, the New Chamber Choir（NCC） and Excelse Cantantes （ExC）will be performing Bach’s Missa in A（BWV 234）, Cantata BWV 61 （Nun komm der Heiden Heiland）and many of the vocal ensemble（one voice to a part） pieces of Schütz and Buxtehude. Many of these are premier performance in Hong Kong.
Heinrich Schütz（1585 -1672）
Cantate Domino canticum novem（Sing ye to the Lord）SWV 41（SATB）
Selig sind die Toten（Blessed are the departed）SWV 391（SATB）
Domine, ne in furore tuo arguas me（O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger）
SWV 85（SATB）
Quoniam non est in morte（For in death there is no）SWV 86 （ATB）
Discedite a me（Depart from me）SWV 87（SATB）
Dieterich Buxtehude（1637-1707）
Missa Brevis BuxWV 114（SSATB）
Jesu, meines Lebens Leben（Jesus, life of my life）BuxWV 62 （SATB）
Cantate Domino canticum novem（Sing ye to the Lord）BuxWV 12（SSB）
Singet dem Herr ein neues Lied（Sing to the Lord a new song）BuxWV 98
（solo soprano and solo violin）
J.S. Bach（1685-1750）
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland（Now come, saviour of the gentiles）BWV 61
（STB soli and choir）
Missa in A Major BWV 234（SATB soli and choir）
Excelse Cantantes（ExC）
HK New Chamber Choir（NCC）
Schütz & Buxtehude vocal ensemble soloists: singers from ExC
Bach soloists: Rosaline Pi & Gladys Ho（soprano）, Enico Luk（counter-tenor）,
Samson Chow（tenor）, Andrew Leung（baritone）,
Edmund Kwan（bass）
Instrumental ensemble from the HK Soloists（HKS）
Solo violin: Ni Lan
Conducting from the harpsichord/organ: Michael Ryan
Below is a live recording singing Kyrie from Bach’s Missa in A taken from our recent rehearsal.
-->Crossing from Renaissance to Baroque:
Tonality in Renaissance was modal. The notes in the modal scale carry no differential importance towards the making up of the scale. Hence, the concept of a melody line and of harmonic progression did not exist in Renaissance music. Major/minor tonality arrived in the Baroque period. Since the notes there do carry differential importance, there is expectation on how a melody should progress in the music. To make it more interesting, the melody can be harmonized. Hence, harmonic progression is a musical concept that made great sense in Baroque music: it tells how the melody harmonically progresses in the music.
We can say that the two elements that music in the Baroque period could not do away with were: the conceiving of something called a highlighted melodic line （the origin of concertante style of writing）and the harmonic progression of this melodic line.
There are basically four main ways harmonic progression can be written in music. All these four ways need the melody as the carrier. （1） The melody is written at the top line harmonized directly with underlying chords （homophony）; （2）Use the musical structure basso continuo to clearly mark in the bass line the harmony in the music while the solo voice sings on top; （3）with the melody itself sung by the solo voice, the harmonization is provided by the total effect of the other accompanying musical lines（the concertante style of writing polyphony）; （4） a mixed way of homophony and concertante. In Baroque vocal music, chorales handle harmony in homophonic writing; recitatives are usually accompanied by basso continuo; in the solo arias, it is concertante writing（polyphony）; and choruses are written in the mixed way.
However, to harmonically progress in music along the melody line was mainly the Italian way of writing music in the Baroque period. This was not the Germanic way. In short, the concertante style of writing was not the main writing style in the German Baroque tradition. If there were indeed sketches of melodies in the music, these were passed among the different musical lines.
But the non-concertante style of music writing in German Baroque is not just a different style of writing music: the contrapuntal writing, the ultimate technique in polyphony writing, can only be developed from the non-concertante style of writing. In contrapuntal writing, the different musical lines are equally important musically（none is to just accompany or harmonize the other lines）and the melody sketches in the music modulate freely from one line to the next.
Bach’s unique contribution to music – the contrapuntal style of writing polyphony music:
Bach’s unique contribution to Baroque music was: he did not begin with a melody and wrote music which was harmonic progressions of it; instead, he intuitively “saw” the harmonic progression rules themselves and wrote music that exhausted ways music could harmonically progress within the major/minor tonality. Furthermore, in using the right accidentals, this allowed him to freely modulate in the music in legitimate（mathematically correct）and ear-friendly ways. And when modulation in music was done in ways that modulations crossed freely between musical lines, he was laying the ground of contrapuntal writing in music.
This “German Baroque Tradition” concert:
In this “German Baroque Tradition” concert, we are featuring Bach and his predecessors Schütz（1585-1672）and Buxtehude（1637-1707）. The purpose of this concert is NOT that it will eventually lead us to Bach’s music. The concert explores the other（often neglected）root of Baroque music: the German root which is non-concertante in style. And it is the non-concertante approach to music writing that eventually gave rise to the idea of contrapuntal writing that Bach formally theorized.
The non-concertante style of writing was the Germanic response to handling harmonic progression with the arrival of the major/minor tonality: music harmonically progresses in the absence of a carrier （the melodic line）. We found this way of non-concertante style of writing music way back in music of Schütz and Buxtehude – Bach’s predecessors.
文藝復興期音樂的調性是教會調式，調中各音對調子的形成，重要性分別不大。作曲時，一個音其之後該是個怎樣的音，教會調式並不能給予作曲者任何啟示。故在文藝復興期的音樂中，並沒有「旋律」及「和音進程」可言。相對而言，在巴洛克時期興起的大小調調式，調中各音對調性的形成有輕重之分，故音樂中有「旋律」及「和音進程」之說，後者是前者在和音下的進程。
以旋律主導，再配上和音，是巴洛克時意大利作曲的主要手法。那麼，旋律又是如何配上和音？方法主要有四種 ：
(1) 在主旋律之下直接配上和音（homophony）；
(2) 在主旋律下用持績低音（basso continuo）的手法記下當刻的和音；
(3) 在主旋律下，其他樂器齊奏出當刻的和音（此種作曲法稱為concertante作曲法）；
(4) 同時運用homophony及concertante作曲法。在巴洛克音樂中，聖詠（chorale）用的是homophony，宣敘曲（recitative）多用持績低音，詠歎調（獨唱歌曲）用的是concertante作曲法，合唱歌曲（chorus）混合地使用homophony及concertante作曲手法。
不過，以旋律為主導，再配上和音的作曲法並不是巴洛克時期德國作曲家主要的作曲手法。可以說，德國巴洛克的作曲手法是非concertante式的，就算曲中偶現旋律，此旋律亦會片斷地出現在不同聲部。
非concertante作曲法不單只是各作曲手法中其中的一種，多聲部（polyphony）作曲法最高境界的對位法（counterpoint），就只可能是延申自非concertante作曲法。對位法中各聲部有同等的重要性，無一部只是其他聲部的和音或伴奏，音樂的旋律轉調（modulate）後，會再出現在不同聲部。
巴赫對音樂獨特的貢獻就是他作曲時不是始於旋律再加和音，他直覺性地感知到音樂中的和音進程，並盡情地在其音樂中用盡大小調中在數學計算下有可能的和音進程，這些有理論基礎的和音進程，定亦會是悅耳的，加上他很有技巧地運用臨時音（accidental）去幫助轉調（modulate），當音樂能在各不同聲部間自由、盡情地轉調，這就造就了對位法的形成。
非concertante作曲法並不始於巴赫，它是德國在走出文藝復興期，對其主導的多聲部（Renaissance Polyphony）作曲法的一種回應，故非concertante作曲法早就是主導德國巴洛克早期作曲家如許滋（Schütz）及布克斯烏德（Buxtehude）作曲的手法。
今次的「德國巴洛克聲樂演唱會 ─ 由許滋至巴赫」音樂會就是在探索追尋一個多被遺忘的巴洛克音欒之傳統：在意大利之外的德國巴洛克音欒之傳統，一個把音樂帶領到巴赫的音樂的傳統。
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