Dietrich Buxtehude: Das neugeborne Kindelein
Das neugeborne Kindelein, BuxWV 13
Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707)
text by Cyriakus Schneegass (1546-1597)
chorus, strings, continuo
Dietrich Buxtehude was the most influential organist of his day, and as a church music director, he composed dozens of keyboard and vocal works. However, except for a set of sonatas, none of Buxtehude’s music was published during his lifetime. Many of his works were lost, and dating his surviving music is often difficult. Luckily, in the case of Das neugeborne Kindelein (The Little Newborn Child), we have some clues: a visiting organist made a copy of the piece sometime between 1680 and 1685, and the lyrics suggest that it was intended for a New Year’s service.
The text of Das neugeborne Kindelein (also used by Bach in his Cantata BWV 122) was a well-known hymn by Cyriakus Schneegass, a 16th-century Lutheran pastor. The four stanzas celebrate the arrival of the Christ Child and revel in the joy of starting a new year with confirmation of God’s protection against enemies and suffering. Rather than set the text in the strophic (verse) style one might expect of a hymn, Buxtehude treats it like a baroque aria or a Renaissance motet, breaking the lines into fragmented phrases which are examined through repetition and word painting.
Energetic minor-key music from the orchestra introduces the opening melody. As the music progresses, Buxtehude highlights the hymn’s message. When the text tells us that angels “are happy to be among and with us”, the choral lines intertwine and imitate one another. As the angels begin to sing, Buxtehude sets the word “singen” on a beautifully florid melody, and he shifts the music into triple meter, alluding to the “allelujah” section of many Renaissance motets. We hear that the angels “sing freely in the heavens”, and Buxtehude makes that clear by setting their words (“God is reconciled with us”) literally freely in the air, leaping up to sustained, unaccompanied tones.
After this comforting message, the opening music returns, only to seize our attention with a dramatic pause. The music modifies the text so that a conditional clause is heard as a question: “Is God reconciled and our friend?” It’s as though Buxtehude wants to emphasize that this, the only phrase set in such a deliberate and homophonic manner, is the central theme to ponder as we enter the new year. Having planted this in our mind, he adds a twist by expanding the question: “If God is reconciled and our friend, what can the evil fiend do to us?”
For Buxtehude, the answer is clear: the chorus confidently and repeatedly declares with strong articulation and rhythmic clarity that “despite the devil, the world, and the gates of hell, the Baby Jesus is our refuge.”
In one final round of rejoicing, the triple meter returns, and energetic upward gestures invite us to “get up!” and sing along in this new year, for “Jesus turns away all harm!”
Copyright © 2017 Chris Myers. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution or reproduction prohibited.