Ach Gott von | Himmel sihe dar:| ein vndt laß dich | deß Erbarmen |
Iohan: Stepha: Or: | In Luneburg.
Celler Orgeltabulatur, 1601
A persecution psalm par excellence, which Luther’s paraphrase interprets in no uncertain terms as applying to the ‘true’ faithful, i.e. the Protestants, this was one of the first Reformation psalm-
paraphrases. Its hypophrygian tune, though of earlier origin, suits its text well with its constant, plaintive exploitation of the
mi–fa half-
step, and it inspired several particularly fine settings for organ, among them a fantasia attributed to Scheidemann; settings by Haßler and Hanff; and the three variations in Lynar A1 once attributed to Sweelinck; it also appears in the fourth verse of the Magnificat VII. Toni by Hieronymus Praetorius.
The present work represents a genre, today called the ‘chorale-
motet’, cultivated around 1600, in which each phrase of a melody is treated at some length in turn, using snippets of the melody in imitative and motivic writing, not unlike its vocal models. Its composer, Johann Steffens, was organist of St John’s Church, Lüneburg (where, a hundred years later, the teenaged Bach perhaps studied for a time with its then organist, Georg Böhm), 1595–1616, and maintained a high reputation as an organ teacher, organ expert, and composer also of madrigals. Other examples of the chorale-
motet include a setting of ‘Jesus Christus, unser Heiland’ also by Steffens, two works by Hieronymus Praetorius, and several by Michael Praetorius.
A performance practice for the Steffens type of chorale-
motet is not fully established. Steffens’s two works in this genre are in five voices; the interval spans require the use of the organ pedals and the use of a single manual keyboard. Given what is known about the instrument at the composer’s disposal and others like it built or rebuilt in the Brabant style, the possibilities would seem to be a) the large chorus of the main division (to which the pedal was permanently coupled), with or without a probably loud trumpet stop in the pedal; b) the smaller chorus of the Rückpositiv, with (only) the trumpet stop in the pedal; c) a reed combination on one or both secondary manual divisions, with the trumpet stop in the Pedal. The main chorus, however, was best suited (due to its sound and less prominent physical location, and its wind consumption) for slow-
moving and relatively calm textures; in the end I have chosen a reed-
based chorus as coming closest to the sound of the vocal-
instrumental ensemble music of the period. Though the lowest voice need not always be played in the pedal, I have chosen to do so here; a 1' flute in the pedal brings out the phrases of the chorale found in that lowest voice and, like other high-
pitched pedal stops, brings the bass into closer dialogue with the treble in sometimes surprising ways.