Schütz als Kompostitionslehrer : Die 'Geistliche Madrigale' (1619) von Gabriel Mölich

Abstract

Schütz encouraged his pupils to compose madrigals, as his own teacher Giovanni Gabrieli had done. The texts for these works were not taken from secular Italian poems but from the German psalms of the Lutheran Bible. As in the Venetian school, the madrigal collections by Schütz's pupils, which were printed in Dresden, were proof of their composers' successfully completed apprenticeship in composition. The first example of a German collection of this kind are the pieces by Gabriel Mö(h)lich. The composer, at the time resident in Florence, dedicated them to the Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony. The 20 pieces (14 for four, and six for five voices) show, in close relationship to the traditional tonal system, a considerable amount of linear polyphonic writing with elaborate fugal and cadential elements. In accordance with the principles of his teacher, Mölich abstained from writing a basso continuo part. The madrigal elements are concentrated mainly in contrapuntal agility rather than in textual madrigalisms. Great emphasis is laid on the element of simultaneous linear contrast, a technique often employed by Schütz himself. Schütz considered the sacred madrigal to be an exercise in composition; his own chamber and sacred madrigals were therefore printed under other titles (Cantiones sacrae, 1625, Geistliche Chormusik, 1648).