Schutz: Sinfonia Sacrae III (II)

Wo der Herr nicht das Haus bauet (SWV 400): Setting of Psalm 127. This is a strange piece, it took me two listenings to really get a hld of it. I think the enigma of the work lies mainly in the psalm which speaks of having the Lord as the foundation of a proper family using the metaphor of a night watchman for the husband - if the Lord isn't there, the night watchman will scan the skies in vain: the Lord gives sleep, the Lord gives children. He who has children is like the armed man with a quiver of arrows, he shall fear no enemy. So Schutz divides the setting basically into two parts, the first a gentle three with the singers in thirds, repeating a head motive on "Wo der Herr" the second part introduces the Bass voice and eventualy moves into a stile concitato ala Monteverdi to refer to the enemies at the gate. I think Schutz does a good job foreshadowing the nightwatchman/war motive with the pictoral use of the wathcman's call in the first half, which then returns in the vocal parts toward the end. Second, he has a good time painting out "sleep" and an interesting use of playing off "kinder" against "Siehe" mixing, in effect, the head motives of the two halfs - thus somehow uniting this disparate somewhat disparate Psalm.

Mein Sohn, warum hast du uns das getan? (SWV 401): Conflation of the story from Luke of Jesus at the temple combined with prasie from the 84th Psalm: How beautiful is thy dwelling place. Set in four parts: after a quiet, solemn symfonia the begins low and moves high there is first a "dialogue" of Mary and Joseph looking for Jesus slow and with a low tessitura, the second the child Jesus accompanied by the two violins, a much higher tessitura, a choir praise, more dialogue followed by an interaction of the soloists and the tutti. Tender work.

O Herr, hilf, o Herr, laß wohl gelingen (SWV 402): A small amalgam of two texts, apparently an expansion and filling out of a one of the Kleine Geistliche Konzerte, praising the Lord and asking for prosperity. In three parts with an introductory symphonia. Alternation of duple and triple meter - rhapsodic pleas in duple, triple meter for praise, ending with an almost hocketing between the vocalist and instrumentalists. Interesting the tonal movement of the final repetitions of praise - begun always with the tenor, first starting on D, then C, then Eb, then F. So there is an overall ascent to the larger melodic line, but with that jog downward which keeps it interesting. Otherwise, relatively unremarkable.