Understanding the Italian Trumpeters’ Method

The trumpet ensemble contribution to Heinrich Schütz’s polychoral setting of Psalm 136 à 13 “mit Trometen vnd Heerpaucken” (SWV 45) may be employed as a lens through which the final flowering of the Italian style trumpet ensemble repertory of sonata, intrada and rotta may be explored. The work was first performed on 2 November 1617 during the Jubelfest – the Reformation Centenary – and was subsequently published in the collection Psalmen Davids in 1619, and it made its appearance at a critical time when the introduction of trumpets and timpani into concerted music increasingly challenged its mostly unnotated performance practice. This process had begun tenuously at Munich in 1587, was being followed at Graz from 1611 and at Wolfenbüttel by 1614, and would reach its logical conclusion at the Imperial court in 1618 when Giovanni Valentini introduced a “nuovo modo di concertare le Trombe” in which every trumpet part was notated (the timpanist was expected to follow the lowest trumpet part) [1] and by controlling what the ensemble performed completed the transition of its instruments from ceremonial usage to purely musical engagement.

“Danket dem Herrn, denn er ist Freundlich” (SWV 45) is set for three essential choirs, two four-part favorito choirs and a five-part Capella, plus basso continuo, together with an optional second Capella for trumpet ensemble. All of the parts are included for the three essential choirs. By contrast, the trumpet ensemble is only given a single part, which is found in the Capella IIII partbook, fols. Eijv–E[iv]r. A copy is available at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München with shelf number 4. Mus. Pr. 2680, online at https://stimmbuecher.digitale-sammlungen.de/view?id=bsb00089783 (19 Nov. 2020). This part includes a trumpet part at the ensemble entries which are indicated for “Trommeten” or “Trom.” (use of the C1 clef and the range c', e', g', c', d'' and e'' verifies that this is a Principal trumpet part) [1] and the bass line for the rest of the piece which is indicated for “Continuus” or “Cont.” (the F4 clef is used for these passages). The trumpet ensemble contribution is restricted to some passages which treat the refrain “Denn seine Güte währet ewiglich”; they also play at the Clausula finalis but no music is given for this embellishment.

Various trumpet ensembles have been proposed for SWV 45: Hans Joachim Moser proposed massed unison trumpets in 1936, [2] Wilhelm Ehmann added two lower trumpet parts and timpani in 1954, [3] Don Smithers’ suggested “probably two more” unspecified trumpet parts in 1973, [4] Detlef Altenburg in 1973 proposed the addition of between four and six trumpets and timpani, [5] as did Reine Dahlqvist in 1988, [6] three additional trumpet parts and timpani written in a late 17th-century style were used in a recording by the Dresdner Kreuzchor in 1980, [7] and Manfred Schmidt proposed the use of five additional trumpet parts (two Clarin, Alter-Bass, Volgan and Grob) and timpani (using church kettledrums in g and c) and a total of thirteen players (two six-part trumpet ensembles and one timpanist) in 1991. [8] For my own part, in 1983 I proposed the addition of four trumpet parts (Clarin, Alter-Bass, Volgan and Grob) [9] and timpani. Clearly there is an issue to be resolved and it is best achieved by understanding the Italian style itself before applying the knowledge to SWV 45.

“Italian” trumpets (which were lower in pitch than their predecessors which were often referred to as “German” trumpets) and their associated timpani are known from the first half of the 16th century. The first good information about the Italian style dates from 1557 when King Christian III of Denmark asked Elector Augustus of Saxony for Italian trumpeter-musicians and for examples of their trumpet music. Elector Augustus’ predecessor, Elector Moritz, had lured six Italian trumpeter-instrumentalists and their music away from Cardinal Madruzzi at Trento in 1549 – Antonio Scandello, Cerbonio Besutio, Mathias Besutio, Gabriel de Tola, Benedict de Tola and Quirino de Tola. Scandello and the Besutio brothers had previously been “tubicines” and “cornicines” at the cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo since 1541, Cerbonio Besutio was also an observant diarist, and Gabriel and Benedict de Tola were also accomplished painters. The Italians were paid excessively by comparison with the other court musicians, singers and trumpeters, and the resultant unrest led to their return to Bergamo at the start of 1557. Some returned to Dresden, where Scandello rose to the position of Kapellmeister, and others made their way to the Bavarian court at Munich. At any rate, the Danish king was sent notated music for the entire trumpet signal code and for one trumpet ensemble sonata and was advised that “[your] trumpeters will know what to do” to perform the sonata. Three Italian trumpeters – Kilian Fassert, Jacob Fassert and Leon Debo – were obtained for the Danish court in June 1559. [10]

Italian style music is found in Cesare Bendinelli’s manuscript Tutta l’arte della trombetta (two copies from 1614, one at the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona, Ms. 238 and the other at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, Cod. 10819), [11] in the manuscripts by Hendrich Lübeckh (dated 1598 with later additions in a different hand; copy in Det kongelige bibliotek in Copenhagen, Gl. kgl. Saml. 1874, 4o) and Magnus Thomsen (begun before 1596; copy in Det kongelige bibliotek in Copenhagen, Gl. kgl. Saml. 1875a, 4o) [12] in Girolamo Fantini’s printed Modo per imparare a sonare di Tromba (Frankfurt: Daniel Vuastch, 1638) [13] and as isolated items in composed works by others.

1. The Italian style has two components:

1. A) The first component that is typified by its exclusively monophonic nature and by its structural employment of what I have termed a “rhythmical variation” technique that is designed to interfere with the basic metre of each piece. It includes
2. 1) two codes of functional signals each with an introductory piece named the Toccata – an old French (probably Burgundian) code for “Boots and Saddles”, “Mount Up”, “March” and “To the Standard”, and a related and mostly higher-sounding Italian code for “Mount Up”, “March” and “Retreat”.
3. 2) a newer group of “Alarm” signals with employ an introductory piece named the Chiamata
4. 3) three types of unassociated monophony, the Toccata, Sennet (which was reserved for the highest officers of state) and the newer Chiamata, all of which were suited to ceremonial use.

1. B) The second component that is typified by its essentially homophonic ensemble sonority and by its structural employment of a rhythmical diminution technique that respects the basic metre. It originally included three pieces – an Intrada, a Sonata and a Rotta – which were performed in the order Intrada-Sonata-Rotta-Intrada. As a general rule only the second highest Principal part was notated (there are a few exceptions) and a fixed set of performance rules was applied to produce the other parts from it.

The second component only is of interest in connection with SWV 45. It is convenient to consider the three pieces in the order intrada, rotta and sonata, particularly since sonatas tend to be performed today without the two other pieces.

The Principal part only of the intrada is found in Bendinelli’s Tutta l’arte della trombetta and in Fantini’s Modo per imparare a sonare, and it is also found as the second highest part of the fully-notated, five-part trumpet ensemble Toccata to Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo favola in musica (Venice: Ricciardo Amadino, 1609/r. 1615). [14] Example 1 shows the intrada music found in the two early sources. (Fantini’s music is not included since it post-dates SWV 45 by twenty-one years.)

The three sources present versions of a single Ur-piece. In Example 1 it can be seen that the Toccata to l’Orfeo presents a shortened and simplified intrada. Bendinelli explains that the players join in gradually (although without clarity) and it seems that the Clarino only enters at the point where the Principal part abandons a lively triadic engagement and concentrates on a rhythmic articulation of the pitch e', known as the mezopunto/mezzapunto. The Toccata to l’Orfeo includes the five trumpet parts throughout (the timpani part is not printed), possibly since it superimposes the Principal part of the intrada above an actual toccata in the third highest part, and it also allows some insight into the nature of the Clarino melody. No intrada is found in the Danish books.

The Rotta is a formal ‘breaking-off’ piece from a given Sonata and it begins after the ‘bridging system’ has been employed. The surviving sonatas normally conclude with incipits only of the rotta. Lübeckh, Bendinelli and, later, Fantini also supply complete Rotta pieces. These again indicate an origin in a single Ur-piece (see Example 2). The rotta is usually performed without the participation of the Clarino player – Bendinelli’s confused attempts to include Clarino parts help explain why. It is also possible for the player of the Principal part to rest, however, the written Principal part still controls the other lower parts.

A complete Rotta contains seven sections, each of which has its own motif. The sections occur in a slightly different order in the versions given by Lübeckh and Bendinelli, in each of the first six sections the motif is subjected to diminution until it produces the stock “Rotta theme” which had triggered performance of the rotta itself, while the seventh section gradually slows down to the sustained final note c' in preparation for the return of the intrada.

Sonatas are the only variable piece in the intrada-sonata-rotta-intrada complex. Disregarding post-1617 sources, over eight hundred sonatas survive with approximately equal numbers in common-time and in triple-time; a few sonatas include change of mensuration. The Tactus symbol varies and the quarter note, half note and whole note, dotted as appropriate, are all used; a small group of sonatas is in 12⁄4. Varying degrees of notational orthodoxy are found between different sonatas and even within single pieces. The surviving manuscripts include groups of sonatas that have been copied from other trumpet books, and the existence of many concordances between the two Danish sources and, especially, between the Danish and Bavarian manuscripts calls into question the meaning of what Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria meant when he told Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria on 25 August 1584 that “dasselbig ist nit geschribenn, vndmachens nur aus dem synn”: his trumpeters may have performed from memory, but they practised the sonatas with reference to written – and codified – Principal parts. Table 1 summarises the sonata content in the sources of Italian style trumpet music.

A sonata is typically based on an eight-measure unit called a “Post”’. Each Post includes two standard components: a single-measure “half-close” figure (sometimes a replacement is used), initially in measures 2 and 6, and later in measure 4, and a single-measure “close” figure, initially in measures 4 and 8, and later in measure 8. The sole variable constituent is the single-measure ‘sonata motif’ that is first presented in measure 1 of the first Post and is then developed by a controlled, progressive increase in its rhythmic activity until it metamorphoses into the single-measure “Rotta theme” (sometimes a similar replacement is employed). The usual notation of these components is given in Table 2. Each Post may be repeated – this is particularly the case when two or more trumpet ensembles perform a given sonata - although the sources differ on this point and this may indicate that such repetition was being abandoned by the turn of the seventeenth century.

Once the Rotta theme has appeared and has spread across the entire second half of the final Post a transition to the rotta itself begins. A four-measure unit called “Rotta 1” presents the Rotta theme three times and follows it with the “close” figure, a two-measure unit identified as “Rotta 2” then presents the Rotta theme followed by the “close” figure, and a “link measure” supplies the first half of the Rotta theme together with a “close” figure that has had its note-values reduced by 50%, before the rotta follows. Examination of the entire sonata repertory shows that the occasional replacement Rotta themes tend to recur in groups of sonatas and this fact may then be used to identify the work of individual trumpeter-composers or potentially the individual courts from which the pieces have been obtained.

The detailed application of diminution is found to be very regular in the sonatas. The largest group of sonatas follows the following “type 1” musical form, ignoring any repetition of the Posts themselves:

Where “close” represents the close figure, “half-close” the half-close figure, “motif” the sonata motif, “variant 1” the result of the first application of diminution, “variant 2” the result of the second application, and “(‘)” indicates the possibility of a minor adaptation to a given motif or variant (generally its presentation one partial higher). Note that the musical phrases are initially two measures long and that the change to four-measure phrases in the second half of Post 2 causes the transfer of the half-close to measure 4 of the subsequent Posts.

In the second largest group of “type 2” sonatas the move to four-measure phrases is delayed until the second half of Post 4, after which further development follows that found in the type 1 sonatas:

The type 1 and type 2 sonatas together account for the vast majority of the surviving sonatas, almost 70% of the total. When the sonatas that further delay the appearance of four-measure phrases until the second half of either Post 5 or Post 7 are also considered, then 85% of the total number of sonatas are accounted for. The rest are simply more individual adaptations of the standard form, including some pieces based on Christmas hymns and folksongs. Knowledge of this formal structure of the notated Principal parts to the sonatas is an essential pre-requisite to any attempt at performance and is particularly important when realising the pieces that are presented in musical shorthand by Lübeckh and Bendinelli.

It was noted earlier that there is no intrada found in either of the Danish books. Instead, Thomsen’s and Lübeckh’s manuscripts contain many short pieces termed Aufzüge that are also performed by a trumpet ensemble. Since it shared the same functional role as the intrada, it is likely that the Aufzug was specifically devised to replace the older piece. This seems to have been accomplished in Denmark at an early stage given that some Aufzüge are attributed to Marcus von Alsenn who left the Danish royal court trumpet ensemble in 1589. Given the strong Saxon influence on the Danish court trumpet ensemble, the process may have begun in Saxony. For example, the electoral Saxon head trumpeter Ambrosius Günther was commissioned by King Christian IV of Denmark to take charge of the trumpeting aspect of the ceremonial events that culminated in his coronation on 29 August 1596; and both Lübeckh and Thomsen were obtained for Danish court service by the Saxon court administration and they both participated in the same coronation proceedings under Günther’s direction. This is hinted at by the naming of some of the Danish pieces as “Dresdner Aufzugk”. The Aufzug must then be viewed as a later addition to the Italian style that replaced the single intrada with many different trumpet ensemble pieces. It also more-or-less replaced the older sonata by the middle of the seventeenth century, probably on account of its very compact musical form that ranges from six to sixteen measures in length.

A novel feature of the early Aufzug is the function of the Principal part and, by extension, the other lower parts: they act as a support for a written Clarin melody that acts as the musical focus. Magnus Thomsen placed staves for the Clarin part above those for the Principal part in all of his Aufzüge although he only entered the Clarin parts for nine of them, possibly since he had difficulty understanding standard musical notation and developed his own tablature system instead. The form is also essentially homophonic but the Clarin melodies found in the Aufzug are more lively and lighter than the surviving equivalent parts in the sonatas. Some of the Aufzüge are attractive trumpet ensemble miniatures and they are particularly worth exploring since they demonstrate that rare thing, early Clarin melody. It also is the piece that was in mind when composers began to call for an “Intrada zum Final” in their concerted works. For example, Michael Praetorius presents the upper trumpet parts of a trumpet ensemble Aufzug for use at the end of each of the two halves of his bombastic polychoral setting In dulci jubilo à 12. 16. & 20. Cum Tubis found in the collection Polyhymnia Caduceatrix & Panegyrica (Wolfenbüttel: Elias Holwein for the author, 1619). Schütz also expected the same in SWV 45 since the Parte per le Trombette concludes with the note “Darauff wird stracks eine Intrada zum Final geblasen”. This then requires the development of a suitable Aufzug for use at the end of the composition.

In his letter from 1557 Elector Augustus of Saxony informed King Christian III of Denmark that the sonata he was sending was “played in six parts according to the Italian trumpeters’ method” (“nach Jrenn Sechs stimmen vnnd fellen, auf đ welschen Drompett_ gerichtett”). It is unlikely that he included the timpani part in the reckoning so that the early ensemble included six trumpet parts – from the highest Clarin part, through the Principal, Alter-Bass, Volgan and Grob, to the lowest Fladdergrob part – together with timpani, where available. While this ensemble was still being employed at some conservative north German courts well into the seventeenth century, the Fladdergrob part (which employed only the fundamental pitch C and was best sounded using a trombone mouthpiece) was already being abandoned by the 1580s elsewhere: Bendinelli, Lübeckh, Thomsen and Fantini, and composers of early concerted music with trumpet ensembles all employed the ensemble of five trumpets and timpani. While other changes were made to the trumpet ensemble they only began to happened in the 1640s and they are not then relevant to the performance of SWV 45 in 1617.

The situation at the electoral Saxon court in Dresden in the first half of the seventeenth century may be established with reference to two slightly later trumpet ensemble pieces that were composed for and performed by the court trumpeters. The first is the anonymous Intrada Der Trommeter (Leipzig: Gregor Ritzsch, 1627) that was composed for the ceremonial entrance to Dresden of Princess Sophie Eleonora and Landgrave George of Hesse-Darmstadt after their wedding at Torgau. [15] The subtitle “Aria der Intrada auff Trommeten” specifies the piece as an instrumental aria and the accompanying twenty-two stanza acrostic poem may be sung to the melody found in the highest trumpet part. It is set for five trumpet parts which are indicated as Clarin. 1, Clarin. 2 (which includes the earliest recorded use of the sixteenth partial, c'''), Quinta, Alto e Basso and Basso, respectively; timpani may double the Basso part. Note the absence of a Volgan part, which has been omitted to preserve the five-part texture. The second piece was written on the occasion of the wedding of Princess Magdalene Sibylle to Duke Frederick Wilhelm of Saxe-Altenburg in 1652. This Sonada (Dresden: Wolffgang Seyffert, 1652) [16] was composed by the Saxon head trumpeter Johann Arnold and it is also an instrumental aria since the accompanying seven stanza poem may be sung to the melody found in the highest part in the third, and final, Post. It is also set for five trumpet parts and these are indicated as Clarino (which includes the notes a', b' and g#'' as stressed, melodic pitches), Principal, AltenPass, Volgan and Gröbe, respectively. Timpani may again perform on the basis of the Gröbe part, there are some curious polytonal passages, and the sonata contrasts Solo passages for a single ensemble with Tutti passages for multiple ensembles.

Saxon court trumpeters in the first half of the seventeenth century stubbornly retained the traditional five-part ensemble even as they explored different combinations of trumpet parts within the ensemble. When taken together with the evidence of the earlier use of the five-part ensemble at courts that were heavily influenced by Saxon court practice, such as the Danish royal court, this strongly indicates that a five-part trumpet ensemble, with timpani, was employed in SWV 45. Indeed, the use of a Capella [II] comprising five-part trumpet ensemble (Clarin, Principal, Alter-Bass, Volgan and Grob), with timpani, also provides a logical balance with the five-part Capella [I], with continuo, that is included the polychoral composition. Multiple trumpet ensembles may have participated at the Jubelfest in 1617 but these would have merely doubled the music of the essential five-part ensemble.

Table 5 summarises the Principal trumpet music for SWV 45 as presented in the printed Parte per le Trombette. It is immediately apparent that the part has been extracted from the Principal part of an actual trumpet ensemble sonata. The first entry includes a single-measure motif followed by a single-measure half-close, or the first quarter Post of a common-time – or “Vortanz” – sonata, and it is presented as six isolated entries. The second entry is another quarter Post and it contains a single-measure variant of the motif followed by a single-measure variant of the half close, all of which is presented five times without break and ends the first section of SWV 45. Note that both variants are written in the low melodic register, or high Principal range. The third entry presents eight isolated repetitions of the single-measure sonata motif alone. The fourth entry then presents a half Post unit, three presentations of the sonata motif followed by another variant half-close, which is presented twice without break and ends the second section of SWV 45. The fifth and sixth entries then restate the musical content of the fourth entry, but this time the half Post is presented as a triple-time – or “Nachtanz” – sonata. The sixth entry concludes the third and final section of SWV 45 and it is followed by the printed note that “Darauff wird stracks eine Intrada zum Final geblasen”, although no music is given for it.

The musical content of Entry 2 is a critical feature. Only five sonatas have Principal parts that rise above c'': Thomsen’s sonatas Nos. 167 and 251 rise to d'', Bendinelli’s sonata No. 322 includes a jump from c'' to e'', and Thomsen’s related sonatas Nos. 47 and 259 rise by step from c'' to e'' and fall back again by step to c''. Example 3 reproduces the first four Posts of Thomsen’s sonata No. 259, a modified type 1 sonata that is based on the song Rusticus amabilem – Es bat ein Bawr ein Meidlein fein. Comparison of Example 3 with Table 5 shows that the sonata motif in Thomsen’s piece is a slightly modified version of the motif employed in SWV and that the variant that is anticipated in measure six of Post 2 and then introduced in measure even of Post 3 is so close to the music found in Schütz’s Entry 2 that both must have a common origin. Moreover, since the trumpet music in SWV 45 originates in an existing Italian style trumpet ensemble sonata it must then have been performed with a five-part trumpet ensemble, plus timpani. SWV 45 is an actual example of Michael Praetorius’ method of including trumpets in concerted music in which “sie nur allein jhre gewöhnliche Sonaden, mit proportionen vnd Tripeln, auch ohne dieselbe, nach dem der Concert-Gesang gesetzt ist, auff eine, zwey, halbe oder viertel Post führen vnd also mit einstimmen”. [17]

It has been shown that the Parte per le Trombette supplied by Schütz for SWV 45 has been extracted from the Italian style sonata repertory. As a result, rather than attempting to match the music found in the other vocal-instrumental choirs also found in the composition (which is self-defeating since the same Principal trumpet content may variously accompany swift or sluggish movement in the rest) the Italian style trumpet ensemble performance practice should be applied. This means that all of the unwritten trumpet parts are subservient to the notated Principal part (normal range c', e', g' and c'' with the rare addition of g below and d'' and e'' above) and must be regulated by its melodic outline and rhythm.

The Alter-Bass (normal range g, c', e' and g' with the rare addition of c below and c'' above) is very easy to reconstruct since it must follow the Principal part at the interval of one harmonic below with a single exception: on the rare occasions when the Principal rises to d'' the Alter-Bass should remain two harmonics lower, on g'. [18] The player of the Alter-Bass was considered to be an expert player as a result of the employment of this adaptation of vocal fauxbourdon technique.

The Clarin part (normal range c'', d'', e'', f'' and g'' with occasional use of g' and the feigned passing-note b' below and a'' above) is also governed by the music found in the Principal part. There are two additional restrictions: at the half-close its melody must include a rise from e'' to g''; and at the close there should be a fall from e'' to c''. The standard Clarin part half-close and close figures are notated in Table 2 (sometimes similar replacements may be found). Since any Clarin melody must merge seamlessly with its half-close and close music this requirement then substantially restricts the shape of any Clarin part in SWV 45. In Entry 2 the Principal part contains a low Clarin register melody and this forces the Clarin player to sound a third above the Principal music and this supplies its music for the entire entry. As a bonus, the Clarin part in Entry 2, like the Principal part, must contain the variant and the modified variant’ of its initial melodic motif which indicates that it should begin with a rise followed by a fall. The Saxon court trumpet ensemble was a leading establishment and its Clarin player(s) were “erfahrnen Musici”, or trumpeter-instrumentalists, so it is likely that the Clarin players would have followed Bendinelli’s encouragement to avoid parallel octaves with the rest – “Clarino il quale schiui le ottaue, ᵽ che dissonano, et non si usano tra intendenti di musica”. Praetorius gives the same advice – “Und dieweil gar gebreuchlich, daβ die Quinta vnd Clarien, sonderlich wenn sie Choral oder andere Arten, in jhren Sonaden führen, meistentheils in Octaven miteinander gehen, welches dann einem erfahrnen Musico frembd vorkompt” – and adds that the Clarin player should embellish the melody with artistry – “vnd exorniret denselben… auffs beste er kan vnd vermag”. [19]

The Volgan (single pitch g until around 1630 when c' and e' were added) and Grob (single pitch c until around 1627 when g was occasionally added) parts may be considered together. We are told that the Volgan and Grob also follow the Principal part but does this include following its rhythmical content? It seems that the Volgan and Grob parts originally supplied a drone bass that was articulated on the underlying tactus alone, with the exception of those sonatas in which the motif in the Principal part began with an up-beat which would also be articulated in the lowest parts. Bendinelli seems to indicate a change in some exercises on the pitches c, g and c'. [20] These pieces are described as “un modo di sonare da Alto a Basso come si usaua ᵽ il passato, buono ᵽ imparar a menar il Barbozzo et esercitare la lingua in tutte le sonade et bono in cose di Guerra”, the first exercise follows the form of a sonata, and this suggests rhythmical articulation of the drone bass in the sonatas, at least at the Bavarian court. By contrast, the Vulgano and Basso simply reiterate the tactus in the slightly earlier Toccata to Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo.

By the 1580s a change to greater rhythmical articulation of the drone bass may have begun at the southern courts as composers began to experiment with the musical inclusion of the trumpet ensemble in their music. At the Bavarian court Bendinelli added a trumpet ensemble postlude to Jacob Regnart’s five-part, counter-reformation hymn Fit porta pervia in 1587 in which the overall strong trochaic rhythm and closing iambic cadences of the vocal piece are considered. At the Archducal court at Graz Raimundo Ballestra’s Laudate Dominum à 12 Cum Tubis ac Tympano from the collection Sacrae Symphoniae (Venice: Angelo Gardano, 1611) and its two parodies that were composed by 1613 – the Missa à 16 Con le tronbe and the Magnificat à 20 Con le tronbe – all share a single refrain on a sustained D Major harmony that invites the addition of a trumpet ensemble sonata half-Post. (D major implies the use of muted trumpets, as was certainly later practice at Graz.) The trend was completed when Giovanni Valentini proclaimed a new way of incorporating the trumpet ensemble in concerted music – “nelle quali mi affaticai d’inventare questo nuovo modo di concertare le Trombe, con Voci, & Istromenti” – in the Messa, Magnificat, et Jubilate Deo a sette Chori, concertati con le Trombe (Vienna: Mattheus Formica, 1621) (the Magnificat was composed in 1618). One of the two surviving part books is the Grob trumpet part, which is rhythmically active throughout and contains music that is neither based on word rhythms (which is usually the case in polychoral music of the time) nor on trumpet signals (as others mistakenly claim today). Christof Straus(s)’ Missa “Veni sponsa Christi”, 13 Voc. cum Tubis ac Tympanis from the posthumous collection Missae (Vienna: Mattheus Formica, 1631) completely exemplifies the new method: the five trumpet parts are equally active rhythmically throughout.

The northern courts seem to have been less receptive to change. Michael Praetorius’ setting of Epithalamium – ‘Nun lob mein Seel’ den Herren’ (Wolfenbüttel: Fürstliche Druckerey [Elias Holwein], 1614) announces the participation of a trumpet ensemble participation but does not include their music although it clearly contributes quarter- and half-Post units based on the chorale melody, and in his setting of In dulci jubilo in Polyhymnia Caduceatrix & Panegyrica (Wolfenbüttel: Elias Holwein for the author, 1619) it is simply stated that the Volgan, Grob and Fladdergrob parts follow the upper parts – which are printed – in the usual manner. (Praetorius acknowledges the varied use of five- and six-part trumpet ensembles in the north. He also adds an additional part for second Clarin in In dulci jubilo although this expansion to the ensemble was not adopted by others at the time.) In the anonymous Intrada der Trommeter (1627) there is no Volgan part (it is replaced by a second Clarin part) and the Grob part deviates from the tactus only at changes of harmony and at phrases that begin with an up-beat. In Johann Arnold’s Sonata (1652) the Volgan is triadic in nature and is as active rhythmically as the higher parts, while the Gröbe mostly supplies the tactus, apart from a Solo passage in Post 3 where it moves at the half-tactus level. Despite this, Andreas Hammerschmidt’s Lob- und DanckLied (Freiberg in Sachsen: Georg Beuther, 1652) from the same year includes a five-part trumpet ensemble (two Clarin, Principal, Alter-Bass and Grob parts) in an old-fashioned refrain on a sustained C Major harmony in which its Grob part is as rhythmically active as the rest.

The question must be asked: do the Volgan and Grob parts in SWV 45 simply present the tactus? The evidence from the Saxon court at Dresden suggests that in 1617, while they were keen to participate in polychoral music, they did so in a manner that allowed them to retain their traditional performance practice. Therefore, it is most likely that they merely articulated the tactus.

The timpani part by nature of the instrument is necessarily a rhythmically active part. There must have been a tendency for timpanists to be over-enthusiastic in their performance so that Bendinelli warns the timpanist to follow the beat – “Vsi dilligenza il Taballero in saper quell che si sona acio batti [a tempo]” – and the same is echoed by later composers. It is lucky that the earliest known timpani parts survive in Michael Altenburg’s collection Gaudium Christianum (Jena: Johann Weidner, 1617). [21] The two drums are pitched at c and G, respectively, and are not then “church kettledrums” that came to be used later in the seventeenth century in, particularly, Lutheran churches and that were pitched at g and c. Altenburg’s timpani parts must be approached with care since they exemplify a quite mature village players’ style, not a court practice. Yet it is interesting to find that G is occasionally sounded by the timpanist where the harmony suggests c, that c otherwise predominates, and that both drums are often struck together at section ends which then prevents any inclusion of drum-rolls at the Clausula finalis (which is unfortunately popular in modern “historically-aware” performances). In Christof Straus’s Missa “Veni sponsa Christi” the timpanist mostly follows the part for Tuba Basson o Gröb – “Cum hac Tuba Tympanista simul consonare debet” – and substitutes the pitch G when g is met in the Grob part (the part includes both c and g since it reproduces the root pitches at V-I cadences in C major), although at the start of the Credo it accompanies a solo for the Tuba chi sona il Mezapunto, or Principal part, and follows much of its presentation of a complete Cavalry March signal to do so. The timpani part, then, should be rhythmically active, although not excessively, the pitch c should predominate, and both drums may be struck at section ends.

If these aspects of the Italian style performance practice are applied to SWV 45 then a period-sensitive trumpet ensemble contribution may be made to this Jubelfest setting of Psalm 136 Danket dem Herrn denn er ist Freundlich. This avoids many of the problems associated with the simple copying of the composed highest line to produce a Clarin part since, while this can include some useful contrary motion with the Principal part it does so by adding unfortunate parallel octaves with the Alter-Bass. In the case of Entry 7 for which Schütz supplies no music it is possible to adapt the intrada music (actually the start of an Aufzug) found at the end of Praetorius’ In dulci jubilo a 12. 16. & 20. Cum Tubis [& Tympanis] for an ensemble of five trumpets, with timpani. Example 4 includes suggestions for the seven entries in SWV 45 that are presented with the reminder that they supply a solution to the problem, not the only solution.

• Altenburg, Detlef, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Trompete im Zeitalter der Clarinblaskunst, Regensburg: Bosse 1973, 3 vols.

• Altenburg, Michael, Gaudium Christianum, das ist Christliche musicalische Freude (1617), ed. Peter Downey, Lisburn, County Antrim: Downey 2018.

• Bendinelli, Cesare, Tutta l’arte della Trombetta 1614, ed. Edward Tarr, Vuarmarens: BIM 2009.

• Dahlqvist, Reine, Bidrag till trumpeten och trumpetspelets historia Från 1500-talet till mitten av 1800-talet: med särskild hänsyn till perioden 1740–1830, Göteborg: Musikvetenskapliga institutionen 1988, 2 vols. (Skrifter från Musikvetenskapliga institutionen, Göteborg: 17).

• Downey, Peter, “A Renaissance Correspondence Concerning Trumpet Music”, in: Early Music 9 (1981), 325–329.

• Downey, Peter, The Trumpet and its Role in Music of the Renaissance and Early Baroque, PhD dissertation, The Queen’s University of Belfast 1983.

• Downey, Peter, “Michael Altenburg, the Trumpet Choir, and Sacred Music-Making in the Towns and Villages of Early Seventeenth-Century Saxony and Thuringia”, in: Historic Brass Society Journal 25 (2013), 1–20.

• Fantini, Girolamo, Modo per imparare a sonare di tromba, ed. Edward Tarr, Vuarmarens: BIM 2009.

• Moser, Hans Joachim, Heinrich Schütz, sein Leben und Werke, Kassel: Bärenreiter 1936, repr. 1954.

• Moser, Hans Joachim, Heinrich Schütz, His Life and Work, St. Louis (Mo.): Concordia 1959 (translation by Carl Friedrich Pfatteicher).

• Praetorius, Michael, Syntagma musicum III: Termini musici, Wolfenbüttel: Elias Holwein 1619.
  
• Schütz, Heinrich, Psalmen Davids. Teil 4: SWV 44-47, ed. Werner Breig, Kassel: Bärenreiter 1994 (Heinrich Schütz. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke 26).

• Schütz, Heinrich, CD/Audio recording of: Psalmen Davids vol. 2, in: Lebendiges Barock – Living Baroque, Philips 1980 (9502 047)
  

• Schmid, Manfred Hermann, “Trompeterchor und Sparchvertonung bei Heinrich Schütz”, in: Schütz-Jahrbuch 13 (1991), 28–55.

• Smithers, Don L., The Music & History of the Baroque Trumpet before 1721, London: J. M. Dent & Sons 1973.

Peter Downey served as head of music at St Mary’s University College in Belfast until he retired in 2015 and was choir director at Clonard Monastery in Belfast from 1982 until 1996. As an active music researcher, he published a number of monographs, musical editions and articles on various subjects, including the early use of the trumpet and timpani in Thuringia, the role of Edward Bunting in developing folk musicology, the deciphering of the ‘Nendrum rune stone’ (c. 700 CE) as well as the music of Abraham Megerle.