Early Baroque Church Music from Europe.
Perhaps the most comprehensive exponent of the English Baroque anthem was the genius of Henry Purcell. The composition that springs to mind as being the most beautiful example straight from the heart is Hear My Prayer. It was originally much longer and only a fragment of it, namely the chorus section has survived so far as we know but it’s incredible. It boasts Germanic romantic harmony such as a Dominant Minor 9th at the end that wouldn’t have been out of place in a piece by Schubert at the beginning of the 19th Century.
The piece was said to have been composed after Purcell had been seen copying Tomkins’s anthem When David Heard form the late Renaissance out for his choir by hand and the part entries are identical, if unintentionally so.
Also a favourite of his has proven to be the so called Bell Anthem or Rejoice in the Lord Alway, which consists of two brief choruses for choir interlaced with luscious verse parts for solo trio including a countertenor which I sang at school on the Edinburgh Tour of 1996 as a soloist with the school choir.
Also beautiful, which I have been known to sing with Eton Choral Courses at Kings College, Cambridge with Sir Stephen Cleobury in an evensong in 1995 is the anthem from the famous Funeral Music from Queen Mary Thou Knowest Lord, The Secrets of Our Hearts.
Also by by the same composer is the haunting Remember not, Lord thine Offences.
Over in Germany there before the time of Johann Sebastian Bach was Heinrich Schütz with his wonderful anthem that is arranged later by Brahms for the first and final movements of his Ein Deutsches Requiem. The.original anthem by Schütz is equally as amiable, here’s the two most beautiful arrangements.
Feel free to compare two arrangements here. Schütz left Brahms on the right. The Brahms has slightly different lyrics.
Tragen, Brahms
Then he re-arranges it again for the final movement with the original lyrics. I performed this with Lexden Choral Society in 2016 when we’d just decided to pull out of Europe.
So we can see the Baroque influence on Romantic Music sometimes.
In Italy at the same period you have the Neapolitan School of Church Music the most famous piece to come out of that is probably Pergoleisi’s Stabat Mater. Here is the opening movement to compare with Bach’s B Minor Mass opening movement. I’ve performed Pergolesi Stabat Mater as a soloist at college in Germany.
Alessandro Scarlatti also wrote a nice Magnificat, even though he was most famous for his opera there were rich pickings to be made composing church music in Naples at that time as composers to compare with Bach’s later arrangement in D.
Then there is Bach’s predecessor as Cantor of the Leipzig St Thomas’s Church – Johann Herman Schein. It clearly shows the influence of Claudio Monteverdi.
See you in part two of the Baroque section