Zur Bedeutung der Andachtstexte im Werk von Heinrich Schütz

Abstract

The widely-held opinion that Schütz's setting of devotional and meditation texts is primarily centered around the Cantiones sacrae (1625) cannot be upheld when researched more closely. On the contrary, Schütz constantly made use of such texts until the time of the Zwölff geistliche Gesänge. Questions arise concerning sources that Schütz used. Because so much related material has been published since the late 16th c., the pinpointing of pertinent source materials has become quite difficult. For this reason, and also since these texts influenced the development of music in general as well as the works of Schütz, the general significance of the devotional texts in Heinrich Schütz's time is also discussed. These texts are an expression of an emotional, fervent pietism of the times that stood, at least in part, in conscious opposition to the rationalism of orthodox Protestantism. Schütz's comparatively free relationship with the contemporary liturgy of his church is more to be understood as a form of pietism rather than as the beginning of an emancipatory process of artistic greatness. The devotional texts that he set to music bear witness to his fact.