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An Wasserflüssen Babylon (Reincken)

An Wasserflüssen Babylon is a chorale fantasia for organbyJohann Adam Reincken, based on "An Wasserflüssen Babylon", a 16th-century Lutheran hymnbyWolfgang Dachstein. Reincken likely composed the fantasia in 1663, partly as a tribute to Heinrich Scheidemann, his tutor and predecessor as organist at St. Catherine's Church, Hamburg.^[3] With its 327 bars, it is the most extended repertoire piece of this kind.^[4][5] Reincken's setting is a significant representative of the north German style of organ music.^[5][6]

The text of Wolfgang Dachstein's "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" (By the Rivers of Babylon) is a paraphrase of Psalm 137 (Super flumina Babylonis), Jews lamenting their Babylonian captivity. Its hymn tune is in bar form:^[10][11][12]

The hymn was published in 1525, and was adopted in several major German hymnals by 1740.^[10]

Heinrich Scheidemann can be considered the inventor of the chorale fantasia for organ, and, based on over fifteen attributable compositions, the most prolific contributor to this genre.^[13] It was an expansion of the Fantasia genre as developed by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.^[5] Around the mid-1650s Reincken was, probably in about the same period as Dieterich Buxtehude, Scheidemann's pupil for a few years, after which he returned to the Netherlands.^[14] Called back by his former teacher in 1659, he became his assistant as organist at the St. Catherine's ChurchinHamburg.^[14] Around 1660 the stylus fantasticus was the dominant style among the organists in Hamburg, of which the chorale fantasias by both Reincken and Buxtehude bear the mark.^[5]

In 1663 Scheidemann died and Reincken succeeded him as organist of the St. Catherine's Church.^[3][14] Allein zu dir, a late chorale fantasia by Scheidemann, shares many characteristics with Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon, so it is assumed that Reincken composed his setting around the same time, as masterpiece to conclude his schooling,^[5] or, most likely, when he assumed his position as successor of Scheidemann at St. Catherine's.^[3] Reincken's chorale setting appears not to have been intended for liturgical use, neither as a prelude to a sung chorale, nor for alternatim performance, but rather as a model for improvisation, showing several techniques.^[15]

In his An Wasserflüssen Babylon, Reincken covers all of the techniques of the chorale fantasia: cantus firmus, fugue, echo, figurative writing, and embellished chorale.^[4] The composition presents itself as a compendium of the north German style of organ music.^[5][7] The verses of Dachstein's chorale are in ten lines.^[4] Lines three and four are sung to the same melody as the first two lines, which is the Stollen of the chorale tune, thus lines one and two can be indicated as first Stollen, and the next two lines as repeat of the Stollen.^[5] Following Sweelinck's scheme for a fantasia, Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon has three sections, "Exordium" (exposition), "Medium" (middle section) and "Finis" (finale):^[5]

Exordium

• bars 1–81, lines 1–2 of the hymn.^[5]
• bars 82–107, lines 3–4 of the hymn.^[5]

Medium

• bars 108–235, lines 5–8 of the hymn.^[5]

Finis

• bars 236–327, lines 9–10 of the hymn.^[5]

In the『An Wasserflüssen Babylon』hymn, the Stollen is the tune for two lines of text, here represented by two bars:^[5][16]

The first two lines of the hymn text, or the first Stollen, are the subject of the first 81 bars of Reincken's chorale fantasia.^[5] The melody of the first line of the hymn is recognisable as a cantus firmus in the tenor voice in the first six bars of the composition:^[17][18]

The first Stollen section develops as a monody (played by the right hand) over a fugal setting, which is a technique typical of Scheidemann's chorale preludes. Thus, according to Pieter Dirksen [nl], this first Stollen episode can be seen as Reincken's tribute to Scheidemann.^[3][5]

The two lines are each treated with a dense counterpoint, which is similar for both lines. Over-all the figuration recedes in favour of a motet-like polyphony.^[5]

The repeat of the Stollen, lines three and four of the hymn text, follows in bars 82 to 107. The repeat of the Stollen is shorter than the first Stollen, and introduces an element of virtuosity. In the third line the left hand plays, with imaginative embellishments in the tenor voice, up to the highest notes on the keyboard, while the fourth line is characterised by ornamentation of the treble voice.^[4][5]

Lines five to eight of the hymn tune have this melody, each line represented by a bar:^[12]

With its 128 bars this is the most extended section of the chorale fantasia, and treats, consecutively, lines five to eight of the chorale. The section has a symmetrical build: the outer episodes (lines five and eight) both elaborate a similar canzona-like theme, and the central episodes (lines six and seven) both have dotted rhythms and use the echo technique.^[5]

Although the last section of the chorale fantasia elaborates only the remaining two lines of the『An Wasserflüssen Babylon』hymn, it is nonetheless in four episodes, like the preceding section.^[5]

The penultimate line of the chorale tune,^[12]

is elaborated twice in bars 236–290:^[5]

• First as a stylistically archaic canon, ending with an augmented cantus firmus in the pedal.^[5] The double diminution in this passage is similar to a passage in Scheidemann's Allein zu dir, bars 87ff.^[19]
• Next as a dramatic interaction that seems inspired by vocal forms such as the Geistliches Konzert.^[5]

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The last line of the chorale tune,^[12]

is, from bar 291, first treated in a dialogue-like echo setting, followed by an extended virtuoso coda which also uses the echo technique.^[5] These final passages of the chorale fantasia, starting with fast melody lines in both hands imitating each other almost as a canon, are very close to how Scheidemann's Allein zu dir ends.^[3]

The end of the coda,^[20][21]

shows an unusual gesture: the melody line descends in a scale to the end note.^[20]

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According to an anecdote in Johann Gottfried Walther's Musicalisches Lexikon (1732), Reincken sent a copy of his An Wasserflüssen Babylon, as a portrait of himself, to a great musician in Amsterdam who had commented on his recklessness to succeed such a famous man as Scheidemann. This copy is lost: a copy of the work surviving in Amsterdam was sent there in the 19th century, based on a Berlin manuscript.^{[5][22][23][24]}

As reported in his obituary, published in 1754, Johann Sebastian Bach knew Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon chorale setting.^[11][25][26] Two and a half centuries later it became clear that Bach had known the piece since he was a teenager.^[1][27] When he was studying in northern Germany in the early 18th century, Bach visited Hamburg several times to hear Reincken play.^[28] The earliest known versions of Bach's organ setting of Dachstein's hymn, BWV 653b and 653a, originated in his Weimar period (1708–1717).^[29] In the early 1720s Bach improvised for nearly half an hour on『An Wasserflüssen Babylon』at the organ of St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg, a performance which was attended by the ageing Reincken.^{[11][25][26][27][30]} When the concert was concluded, Reincken commended Bach for this improvisation: "I thought this art was dead, but I see that it survives in you."^{[11][25][26][27][30]} In the second half of the 1740s, Bach reworked his An Wasserflüssen Babylon chorale prelude to the BWV 653 version included in the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, adding a seven-bar coda:^[20][31]

This coda ends with a descending scale reminiscent of the one that ends Reincken's setting (see above): Russell Stinson interprets this as a musical homage to Reincken.^[20] He writes, "It is hard not to believe that this correspondence represents an act of homage."^[20] Despite being composed in Leipzig within the traditions of Thuringia, however, Bach's contemplative "mesmerising" mood is far removed from his earlier improvisatory compositions in Hamburg and Reincken's chorale fantasia: the later chorale prelude is understated, with its cantus firmus subtly embellished.^[32][33]

In the first part of his Bach biography, published in 1873, Philipp Spitta recognises that Reincken's chorale fantasia received some extra lustre through the anecdote involving Bach, adding that it is nonetheless a work worth to be considered in its own right.^[27][34] Writing in the next decade, August Gottfried Ritter is less favourable about the composition, describing its artificiality as disconnected from liturgical praxis.^[27]

In 1974 Breitkopf & Härtel published Reincken's organ works, including An Wasserflüssen Babylon, edited by Klaus Beckmann [de].^[18][35] Two extant copies of Reincken's composition were known at the time of publication, both of them deriving from the lost Berlin manuscript.^[36] Beckmann's edition of the work for Schott was published in 2004.^[37] Pieter Dirksen provided a new edition for Breitkopf: in the preface of this 2005 publication he describes the chorale fantasia as being transmitted via a single source.^[17][38]

Around 2006 Michael Maul and Peter Wollny recovered the Weimarer Orgeltabulatur, containing a previously unknown organ tablature version of Reincken's An Wasserflüssen Babylon.^[39] This copy of the chorale fantasia had originated in the late 17th century in the circles of Georg Böhm: an endnote on the manuscript, in Johann Sebastian Bach's hand, dates it to 1700.^[1] After having published a facsimile of this manuscript in 2007, Maul and Wollny published an edited score of the same in 2008.^[2][40]

• Complete Organ Works (Reincken, Johann Adam): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project