a. Lutheran Chorale
Explanation:
Lutheran composers soon began writing polyphonic compositions on the choirs. In 1524 Luther's chief musical collaborator Johann Walter (1496-1570) published a volume of thirty-eight German choral arrangements, plus five Latin motets; This collection was later expanded, with a greater proportion of Latin motets in later editions, the fifth and last coming to light in 1551. A major anthology of 123 polyphonic choral and motley arrangements was published in Vitember in 1544 by Georg. Rhaw (1488-1548), the leading music editor of Lutheran Germany. Unlike Walter's work, the latter was a compilation of plays by all leading German and Swiss German composers of the first half of the sixteenth century, including Ludwig Senfl, Thomas Stoltzer (c. 1475-1526), Benedictus Ducis (c. 1490-1544) Sixtus Dietrich (c. 1490-1548), Arnold von Bruck (c. 1470-1554) and the Flemish Lupus Hellinck (c. 1495-1541). Naturally, the polyphonic corals of these and other sixteenth-century collections varied considerably in style; some resorted to the older technique of the German Lied, with the melody of the choir, in long notes, in the tenor, framed by three or more voices flowing in free counterpoint, with independent motifs and scant use of imitation; others were similar to Franco-Flemish motets, each phrase being imitatively developed in every voice; still others were simple, almost cordal in style. The first half of the century was marked by a general tendency for this latter type of simplified writing and also for placing the melody on the soprano rather than the tenor.
The polyphonic arrangements of the choirs were not intended for the congregation but for the choir. A current form of interpretation consisted of alternating choir stanzas sung by the choir, sometimes bent by instruments, with stanzas sung in unison by the unaccompanied congregation. In the last third of the century there was a gradual change; With increasing frequency, the choirs began to be published in song style, that is, in entirely hymn-like chord-based compositions of great rhythmic simplicity, with the melody in the loudest voice. In the sixteenth century the singing of the congregation still probably lacked accompaniment; From the 1600s onwards, it gradually became a habit of the organ playing all the voices while the congregation sang the melody. The first collection in this style was F_fzig Lieder und Psalmen (Fifty Corals and Psalms), published in 1586 by Lucas Osiander (1534-1604). The principal composers of early seventeenth-century writing of this kind were H.L. Hassler, Michael Praetorius (1571-1621), and Johan Hermann Schein.
