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Bach's Motet: “Singet Dem Herrn”

“Sing Ye to the Lord”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

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Extract

If the submission of yet another study of this monumental work should stand in need of some apology, I must plead the encouragement offered by a remark entered against a famous name in the visitors' book of those who have been before me. “There is something from which one may take a lesson.” I shall hope to show in this paper that that was far truer than Mozart can have dreamed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1937

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References

1 Fugitive Notes on … the Motets of J. S. Bach (Oxford Press, 1924.)Google Scholar

2 Although the hymn had originally possessed its own melody it had been associated with that of “Mach's mit mir Gott” since the publication of the 1709 edition of Cruger's Praxis Pietatis.Google Scholar

3 Schweitzer, vol. II, p. 353.Google Scholar

4 In the harmonisation of the chorale in the Motet Bach has protracted the last line of all.Google Scholar

6 With the second chorale he must read the hymn Wohl dem der sich auf seinen Gott.Google Scholar

7 Unless of course Bach contemplated an exchange of copies between the two choirs. If that did in fact take place, as is highly improbable, the first choir must have sung the fourth chorale verse from their books or from memory since the words were not written in the parts.Google Scholar

8 The Motets, Pilgrim Series, O.U.P., p. 38.Google Scholar

9 “Kleine Bachstudien,” Bach Jahr-Buch, 1933, p. 33.Google Scholar