Geistliches Gesangbüchlein by Johann Walter (1524) – the beginnings of polyphonic Lutheran music

Abstract

The article presents the profile and creative output of Johann Walter (1496-1570), who worked closely together with Martin Luther and Philip Melanchton, and who was called the first evangelical cantor and is in modern times regarded as the creator of institutional, aesthetic and theoretical bases of reformation music. Walter’s work entitled Geistliches Gesangbüchlein, first published in Wittenberg in 1524 and including a preface by Martin Luther, was the first ever collection of polyphonic chorale arrangements for Lutheran church using polyphonic patterns of Franco-Flemish school and German tenor songs. During the composer’s lifetime the collection was published six times in a form of books of voices and its subsequent editions gradually grew bigger: the last edition of 1551 consisted of 74 arrangements of German songs and 47 Latin motets!The article presents both the main assumptions of Lutheran “music theology” based upon what Luther and Walter said (compiled from different theoretical writings) as well as the possibility to use Geistliches Gerangbüchlein as the source of repertoire for modern instrumentalists and singers, especially the ones specialising in historical performance of Renaissance polyphony. A particularly interesting aspect for the author is the possibility to use Walter’s polyphonic arrangements by organists drawing inspiration from 16th century techniques (intavolation, diminutions), the patterns of which are included e.g. in The Organ Tabulature of John of Lublin, which was written almost in parallel to the reformation publications from the Wittenberg circle and which used them as well. Among the performance-related topics touched on in this article, the extensive fragment of Walter’s poem of 1564 entitled Lob und Preiss der Himmlichen Kunst Musica is what deserves special attention as it is devoted to polyphonic music and presents the characteristics and hierarchy of functions of each voice described in the following order: Tenor, Discantus, Basus, Altus and Vagans (in reference to 5-voice compositions that constitute a substantial portion of Geistliches Gerangbüchlein after all).The author of the article also points out that, apart from practical importance, Geistliches Gerangbüchlein today has a great hymnological value and constitutes the earliest source of many chorale melodies which have become part of a “canon” of a sort and are mostly used today in the liturgy of Protestant churches.