n ic O lau S Bruhn S
Sämtliche Orgelwerke cO mplete Organ wO rk S
herausgegeben von | edited by Harald Vogel
Zur fraglichen Überlieferung gehört außerdem ein kleines Stück, das unter dem Titel im Husumer Orgelbuch von 1758, erhalten ist.19
Diese Sammlung mit „Praeludien, Fugen und Concerten für die Orgel mit Pedal“ wurde von Bendix Friedrich Zinck (1715–1799) angelegt. Zinck stammte aus Schwabstedt, dem Geburtsort von Nicolaus Bruhns, wo sein Vater als Organist wirkte. 1742 wurde er Stadtmusiker in Husum und 1771 Organist am Schleswiger Dom. Die Nähe zu den Wirkungsstätten der Organistenfamilie Bruhns macht es wahrscheinlich, dass die Zuschreibung „Adagio/di Nicolaij Bruhns“ im Husumer Orgelbuch korrekt ist. Fraglich ist allerdings, ob es sich hier um ein Fragment eines nicht erhaltenen Orgelwerks von Nicolaus Bruhns handelt. Auch die Transkription eines rezitativischen Abschnitts aus einem nicht bekannten Instrumentalwerk ist denkbar.
Die Nähe der Organistenfamilien Bruhns und Zinck ist eine Erklärung für strukturelle, rhythmische und figurative Übereinstimmungen in Werken von Nicolaus Bruhns und einigen Stücken zu Beginn des Husumer Orgelbuchs. So entspricht das Adagio im Anschluss an eine Werkgruppe von Hinrich Zinck20 dem ‚DurezzeStil’ mit Vorhaltsketten in langen Notenwerten, der bei Bruhns vor allem im kleinen Praeludium in e vorkommt.21 Hinrich Zinck wurde 1677 ebenfalls in Schwabstedt geboren, in noch größerer zeitlicher Nähe zu Nicolaus Bruhns. Er war der Onkel des Schreibers des Husumer Orgelbuchs, wirkte u. a. bis 1723 an Arp Schnitgers letztem Orgelneubau in der St. Laurentiuskirche in Itzehoe und war wahrscheinlich der Übermittler der Kompositionen zu Beginn des Husumer Orgelbuchs, zu denen auch das Adagio von Bruhns gehört.22
Für hilfreiche Anregungen und Diskussionen sei Dr. Michael Belotti (Freiburg), Prof. Dr. Konrad Küster (Freiburg), Rüdiger Wilhelm (Braunschweig) und Dr. Peter Wollny (Leipzig) sehr herzlich gedankt.
Osterholz-Scharmbeck, Frühjahr 2008 Harald Vogel
1Vgl. Das Husumer Orgelbuch von 1758, Sammlung Benedix Friedrich Zinck, eingeleitet und herausgegeben von Konrad Küster, Stuttgart 2001.
2Johann Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte, Hamburg 1740, Neudruck hrsg. von Max Schneider, Berlin 1910 (Nachdruck Kassel 1969).
3Mattheson, Ehren-Pforte, Vorbericht S. XI. Im Falle des Artikels über Bruhns stammten die biographischen Informationen wahrscheinlich von Georg Bruhns, der als Nachfolger seines Bruders bis 1742 in Husum wirkte.
4Mattheson, Ehren-Pforte, S. 26f.
5Vgl. Martin Geck, Nicolaus Bruhns – Leben und Werk, Köln 1968, S. 9.
6Vgl. Greta Moens-Haenen, Deutsche Violintechnik im 17. Jahrhundert, Graz 2006.
7Vgl. Heinz Kölsch, Nicolaus Bruhns, Kassel 1958. Anna Dorothea war die Enkelin des Lübecker Marienorganisten und vermutlichen Sweelinck-Schülers Peter Hasse (um 1585–1640).
8 Alte Meister des Orgelspiels, Leipzig 1904 (mit den „Ausdrucksmitteln der modernen Orgel“) und Alte Meister des Orgelspiels – Neue Folge, Leipzig 1929 (mit Registrierungen für die Hamburger Jacobi-Orgel).
9 Nicolaus Bruhns – 3 Praeludien und Fugen, hrsg. von Max Seiffert, Lippstadt o. J. 10Hans-Joachim Schulze, Studien zur Bach-Überlieferung im 18. Jahrhundert, Leipzig/ Dresden 1984, S. 30–56; Inventar in: Keyboard Music from the Andreas Bach Book and the Möller Manuscript, hrsg. von Robert Hill, Harvard Publications in Music, Vol. 16, Cambridge (Mass.) 1991, S. XXIX–XXXVII.
11Vgl. Weimarer Orgeltabulatur. Die frühesten Notenschriften Johann Sebastian Bachs, hrsg. von Michael Maul und Peter Wollny, Documenta Musicologica, 2. Reihe, Bd. XXXIX, Kassel 2007.
12Vgl. Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach, Frankfurt am Main 2005, S. 72f.
13Vgl. Hermann Zietz, Quellenkritische Untersuchungen an den Bach-Handschriften P801, P802 und P803 aus dem “Krebs’schen Nachlass” unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Choralbearbeitungen des jungen J. S. Bach, Hamburg 1969; Inventar von P 802: S. 15–37.
14Vgl. Michael Belotti, Die freien Orgelwerke Dieterich Buxtehudes, Frankfurt am Main 1995, S. 144–160; Inventar in: Dieterich Buxtehude, The Collected Works, Vol. 15,Part 1, Section B, hrsg. von Michael Belotti, New York 1998, S. 21f.
15Das Praeludium in G und die Choralfantasie von Bruhns bilden einen eigenen Faszikel am Ende der Handschrift, die davor 11 Orgelwerke von Buxtehude enthält. Die Notation der freien Orgelwerke von Buxtehude und Bruhns erfolgt auf zwei Systemen, wobei die Pedalstimmen jeweils mit roter Tinte geschrieben sind; bei der auf drei Systemen notierten Choralfantasie von Bruhns sind nur die Manualbezeichnungen mit roter Tinte angegeben.
Klaus Beckmann hat als erster in der Bruhns-Ausgabe von 1972 (Edition Breitkopf 6670) eine Edition der Fassung von Walther vorgelegt und damit einem besseren Verständnis für den geringen Anteil an Verzierungen im choralgebundenen norddeutschen Repertoire den Weg bereitet.
16Inventar in: Vincent Lübeck, SämtlicheOrgelwerke, hrsg. von Klaus Beckmann (Edition Breitkopf 6673), Wiesbaden 1972, S. 66.
17Quellenbeschreibung in: Vincent Lübeck, Senior und Junior, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Orgel- und Clavierwerke, hrsg. von Siegbert Rampe, Kassel 2003, Bd. I, S. VII–IX.
18Vgl. Anm. 5, S. 41f. In einem Beitrag von Dietrich Kollmannsperger (Ars Organi, 54.Jg.,Heft 1,2006,S.30f.)undeinerzustimmendenReaktionvonKlaus Beckmann (Ars Organi, 54. Jg., Heft 2, 2006, S. 111f.) wurden gute Argumente für eine Zuschreibung des Werkes an den Celler Organisten Arnold Matthias Brunckhorst (ca. 1670–1725) vorgebracht, dessen Praeludium exE. m[oll] in der Sammelhandschrift Ms.II.2.51 der Musikbibliothek Leipzig viele Parallelen aufweist.
19Vgl. Anm. 1.
20Vgl. Edition von Küster (Anm. 1), S.6–15: Praeludium, Fuga, Adagio und Chaconne. 21Vgl. Praeludium in e, T. 10–16, 39–46, 85–89 und 111–119.
22Auffällig sind die Übereinstimmungen des zu Beginn des Husumer Orgelbuchs eingetragenen anonymen Praeludiums in c mit den im Pedal gespielten repetierenden Oktaven im einleitenden Teil des kleinen Praeludiums in e von Bruhnsund die Verwendung des verminderten Septakkords in der Schlusskadenz. Es ist nicht ausgeschlossen, dass es sich hier um ein Werk aus der Unterrichtstradition von Bruhns in Husum handelt. Ebenso kann die folgende Fuga eine Kontrapunktübung gewesen sein, in der die Themen im doppelten Kontrapunkt und in Engführung erscheinen.
Preface
This volume contains the four authentic organ works by Nicolaus Bruhns as well as an appendix comprising two pieces of uncertain authorship. Just as with the transmission of the organ works of Dieterich Buxtehude, Johann Adam Reincken, Vincent Lübeck and Georg Böhm, no autographs of Nicolaus Bruhns have survived.
Among the uncertain works is the Praeludium in g, whose authorship could just as plausibly be attributed to Arnold Matthias Brunckhorst, as well as one short work from the Husum Organ Book 1
Similarly to the editions of the Tabulatura nova by Samuel Scheidt (Edition Breitkopf 8565–67) and the works for keyboard instruments by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (Edition Breitkopf 8741–44), we present here a practical source edition intended to make the content of the sources accessible to the user.
This new edition thus exploits the resources of modern staff notation by closely basing itself on the original, taking into consideration the transmitted note values, time signatures, lengths of measures, voice-leading, distribution of the hands and pedal indications, as well as a flexible concept in the transcription of the source texts to three or two staves.
The facsimile of the Praeludium in e (see pp. 10–15) in original letter tablature is intended to contribute to a deeper understanding of the notation as a reflection of the playing process. In this edition, we have refrained from making any editorial additions (such as slurs or adaptations of analogous passages) that have an interpretative character.
him to Copenhagen, where he spent several years. He was then called to Husum to become the organist of the town church there.
As he was very proficient on the violin, and was able to play the violin with double stops, so that it sounded as if there were three or four [instruments], he had the custom of varying his performance every now and then by playing the violin accompanied solely by a skillfully executed pedal part, which produced a most pleasant sound.
Three months after his election, the city of Kiel sought to win him as its organist, but since the Husum authorities and municipality held him in such high esteem and increased his annual salary by one hundred thalers, he remained in that town, where he passed away in 1697. He was 31 and a half years old.”
Nicolaus Bruhns was raised in a family of musicians whose members – similarly to the Bach family in Thuringia – cultivated a network of professional relationships as organists and instrumentalists. Nicolaus’ grandfather Paul Bruhns was lutenist to the Duke of Schleswig at Gottorf Palace until 1639.5 He later worked as lutenist to the Lübeck town council and took part in performances of the “Abendmusiken” at the Marienkirche led by Franz Tunder, together with his father-in-law Nicolaus Bleyer, the founder of the Lübeck violin school. The playing technique of the Lübeck violinists was characterized by double stops and multiple-voice playing, and exerted a great influence on instrumentalists in the 17th century.6 Paul Bruhns had three sons, of whom the eldest (Friedrich Nicolaus) later became the music director of the cathedral and of the Hamburg town council; the middle son (Paul the Younger) possibly studied with Franz Tunder and assumed the post of organist in Schwabstedt in 1665; and the youngest (Peter) was active as a violinist for the Lübeck town council from 1655.
The first biography of Nicolaus Bruhns can be found in Johann Mattheson’s Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte2, published in 1740. Mattheson obtained his information from “original reports” and “credible manuscripts.”3 The report on Bruhns reads: 4
“Nicolas Bruhns (or Bruhn) was born in Schwabstädt, in Schleswig, in 1665. His father, Paul Bruhns, was the organist there, and it is with him that Nicolas learned the art of music and thrived to such a degree that he was not only able to play well, but also to write excellent music for keyboard and voice. When he was sixteen, his parents sent him to his brother [= uncle] Peter Bruhns, a musician of the town council in Lübeck. He then acquired great proficiency on the viola da gamba, and especially on the violin, and was held in great honor and esteem by all musical cognoscenti of the time who knew him. In his keyboard playing and in composition, he endeavored in particular to emulate the celebrated Dieterich Buxtehude, the organist at the Lübeck Marienkirche. He achieved such a degree of perfection that Buxtehude, upon his request, recommended
Nicolaus Bruhns was born in Schwabstedt in 1665, the son of Paul Bruhns the Younger. In 1681 he was sent to Lübeck to study the violin with his uncle Peter and organ with Dieterich Buxtehude. The relations between the Bruhns family, the Schnittelbach family of violinists and the Hasse organist family led to many connections in the Baltic Sea area and enhanced the reputation of the young virtuoso Nicolaus Bruhns. Upon entering his new post in Husum, he married Anna Dorothea Hesse, herself a member of the widely ramified Hasse (or Hesse) family of organists and musicians.7
There is no doubt that the reports about Bruhns’ simultaneous playing of the violin and organ are based on fact. The violin parts in his cantatas take their place among the technically most demanding examples of violin playing in North-German music, and permit us to draw certain conclusions on the playing technique of the ‘Imitatio violinistica’ in his organ works (see p. 57).
Nicolaus Bruhns belonged to the last generation of North-German organists who grew up in a professional musical environment and attracted the public’s attention in their early years through their outstanding achievements as
instrumentalists and composers. It is important to note the virtually unbroken reception of his organ works on the basis of copies from the circle of organists around Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Gottfried Walther, as well as from the Berlin organists of the 18th century (see the Kritische Bemerkungen, p. 68) to the publications of the 19th century (Franz Commer, 1839; Gotthilf Wilhelm Körner, c. 1850; Josef Rheinberger, 1882; William Thomas Best, 1885) and up to the interpretative editions of Karl Straube (1904/1929)8 and the text-critical editions of the 20th century (beginning with Max Seiffert, c. 1925).9
This tablature script is one of the most important examples of organ music notation from the period around 1700 due to its elegant calligraphy, its exact depiction of complex polyphonic and rhythmic structures, the creative expansion of the limited supply of notes in letter tablature (through the “invention” of the letter for A-sharp) as well as through its function as a bridge between the Northand Middle-German organ traditions.
Also important is the collection compiled primarily by Johann Gottfried Walther and his pupil Johann Tobias Krebs in Weimar, which is identified by its shelfmark number P 802. 13 This manuscript contains the Bruhns chorale fantasia in staff notation.
An important focus point for the transmission of the late 17th-century NorthGerman repertoire, and thus of Nicolaus Bruhns’ organ works as well, can be localized in the circle around Johann Sebastian Bach. The two collections compiled by Johann Sebastian’s older brother Johann Christoph Bach and known as Möller Manuscript and Andreas Bach Book contain works of Middle-, North- and South-German composers, as well as French and Italian music and pieces from the young Johann Sebastian himself.10 Of particular relevance to the Bruhns inheritance here is the , written in letter tablature, for which the Möller Manuscript is the sole source.
The comparison of the letter tablature in the handwriting of Johann Pachelbel, of the Pachelbel pupil Johann Christoph Bach, and of the young Johann Sebastian Bach, shows up a remarkable correspondence in the writing and appearance of the tablature notation among the three men. Indeed, each pupil carefully borrowed the forms of the letters of his respective teacher. It only became possible to make this comparison thanks to the Weimar Organ Tablature, which was discovered in 2005 and contains writing examples of the 15-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach.11 The two Bruhns preludes in the Möller Manuscript display precisely this type of writing and can be traced back to Johann Sebastian’s period of study with Georg Böhm in Lüneburg. Johann Sebastian apparently had access to major organ works by Reincken, Buxtehude and Bruhns in the Böhm home (1700–1702). The Weimar Organ Tablature is the most important document for the assessment of the professional environment and musical abilities of the 15-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach, who was already familiar with the leading masterworks of the North-German organ school at this early age. It is possible that he passed on some of these significant North-German compositions to his brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf upon his return from Lüneburg in 1702.12
The Bruhns preludes are the sole two works in letter tablature in the Möller Manuscript. The other transcriptions of North-German organ music are in the staff notation customary for Johann Christoph Bach. The transcription of the two Bruhns preludes in the Möller Manuscript is probably a carefully-made copy of Johann Sebastian Bach’s tablature script, whereby it cannot be excluded that Bach himself was involved in the transcription process.
Another important source can be found in the Agricola Manuscript, which is also written in staff notation (after 1741). It was compiled by the Bach pupil Johann Friedrich Agricola and is located today in Brussels.14 It contains the only complete version of the . The version of the chorale fantasia transmitted there, however, holds a spurious, additional layer of ornaments. These additions are not found in the copy made by Johann Gottfried Walther in the manuscript P 802, which was written in Weimar a generation earlier, around 1712. Walther’s music text, which is notated on three staves, also constituted the basis for the Agricola Manuscript 15
Only one single North-German source contains an organ work by Bruhns: the manuscript originally held in Berlin under the shelf mark Mus. ms. 40295 and now located in Cracow, and which is known under the name Schmahl’s Organ Tablatures. It comprises works by Buxtehude, Lübeck, Bruhns and Leyding.16 Here the is notated in letter tablature. It is one of the few extensive collections of North-German pedal preludes in the original tablature notation. At the same time, it contains the largest stock of free organ works by Vincent Lübeck, who was the organist of the large Schnitger instrument at Hamburg’s St. Nicolaikirche from 1702, and whose circle of students was responsible for the copies found there.17
The , transmitted with an incomplete identification of the author, has been attributed to Bruhns ever since the publication of Martin Geck’s Bruhns biography.18 It is found in the Berlin manuscript Mus. ms. 30381 compiled around 1730 by Johannes Ringk. In addition to the Praeludium in g by “Mons. Prunth” (No. 6), it also features works by Pachelbel, Buttstedt, Werckmeister, Buxtehude (No. 5) and Böhm (Nos. 7–9).
Among the works of questionable authenticity is one little piece penned in the Husum Organ Book of 1758 under the title 19 This collection of “Preludes, Fugues and Concertos for Organ with Pedal” was compiled by Bendix Friedrich Zinck (1715–1799). Zinck was a native of Schwabstedt, the birthplace of Nicolaus Bruhns, where his father was organist. In 1742 he was appointed town musician in Husum and in 1771 organist at the Schleswig Cathedral. His proximity to the sphere of activity of the Bruhns organist family speaks for the correctness of the attribution “Adagio/
1 Praeludium in e Nicolaus Bruhns herausgegeben von Harald Vogel