Abendmusik

(Ger.).
The name given to a particular type of concert held in the
Marienkirche, Lbeck, during the 17th and 18th centuries. The exact
origins of the Abendmusiken were already obscure in the mid-18th
century, but they began as organ recitals, probably during Franz
Tunders tenure as organist (164167), perhaps even earlier. The
original purpose may have been to entertain businessmen who
assembled in the Marienkirche to await the opening of the stock
exchange at noon on Thursdays. However, Tunder already referred
to them as Abendspiele in 1646. It is also possible that the Lbeck
businessmen who financed them were imitating the municipally
sponsored organ recitals in the Netherlands, where Reformed
Church doctrine prohibited the use of the organ during church
services.
Tunders musical offerings later included vocal and instrumental
soloists, but Buxtehude, who succeeded him, added orchestra and
chorus, necessitating the building of four extra balconies in 1669 to
accommodate 40 performers. He also changed the time from a
weekday to 4 p.m. on the last two Sundays of Trinity and the second,
third and fourth Sundays of Advent, a schedule that was maintained
throughout the 18th century. Although as late as 1700 Buxtehude
presented programmes of assorted choral and solo vocal music, he
had much earlier introduced oratorios at these concerts. A libretto for
his 1678 oratorio Die Hochzeit des Lamms survives (published in
Pirro); it is in two parts, presumably performed on two successive
Sundays. Two Buxtehude oratorios advertised for publication in
1684, Himmlische Seelenlust auf Erden and Das Allerschrcklichste
und Allererfreulichstewere each in five parts. Under Buxtehudes
successors, Johann Christian Schiefferdecker (16791732), Johann
Paul Kunzen (16961757), his son Adolf Carl Kunzen (172081) and
Johann Wilhelm Cornelius von Knigslw (17451833), it became
standard practice for the organist to compose and present each year
a new oratorio in five parts, extending over all five Sundays. The
subjects were mainly taken from the Old Testament (see Oratorio,

7).
Only two oratorios survive that are known to have been performed at
the Lbeck Abendmusiken: Adolf Kunzens Moses in seinem Eifer
gegen die Abgtterey in den Wsten (in D-Bsb) and Absalon (in DLh). Wacht! Euch zum Streit, published by Willi Maxton, under the
title Das jngste Gericht, as a work of Buxtehude (Kassel, 1939), is
anonymous in the manuscript source, and its authenticity as a work
of Buxtehude has been the subject of controversy (see Ruhle; see
also Buxtehude, dieterich, 2(viii)). Before World War II manuscripts
of numerous other oratorios by Adolf Kunzen and von Knigslw
were still extant at Lbeck; they are discussed by Stahl but were lost
during the war. They contained chorale settings in addition to the
more usual components: recitative, arias and choruses, both
dramatic and contemplative.
The Abendmusik concerts were financed mainly by the business
community; individual donors were rewarded with a printed libretto
and a good seat, but admission to the church was free, and
disorderly conduct during the performances was often a problem. In
1752 Johann Kunzen instituted the practice of charging admission to
the dress rehearsals that were held on Fridays in the spacious stockexchange hall, and in time these performances became the more
important ones. The free Sunday performances in the Marienkirche
were abolished in 1800, and ten years later the Lbeck
Abendmusiken ceased entirely as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.
The term has since come into general use for concerts in churches
anywhere.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SmitherHO
A. Pirro: Dietrich Buxtehude (Paris, 1913)
W. Stahl: Die Lbecker Abendmusiken im 17. und 18.
Jahrhundert (Lbeck, 1937)
O. Shngen: Die Lbecker Abendmusiken als
kirchengeschichtliches und theologisches Problem, Musik und
Kirche, xxvii (1957), 18191
M. Geck: Die Authentizitt des Vokalwerks Dietrich Buxtehudes
in quellenkritischer Sicht, Mf, xiv (1961), 393415; xvi (1963),

17581
G. Karstdt: Die extraordinairen Abendmusiken Dietrich
Buxtehudes: Untersuchungen zur Auffhrungspraxis in der
Marienkirche zu Lbeck; mit den Textbchern des Castrum
Doloris und Templum Honoris in FaksimileNeudruck (Lbeck,1962)
G. Karstdt: Die Instrumente in den Kantaten und
Abendmusiken Dietrich Buxtehudes, Beitrge zur
Musikgeschichte Nordeuropas: Kurt Gudewill zum 65.
Geburtstag, ed. U. Haensel (Wolfenbttel, 1978), 11121
G. Karstdt: Richtiges und Zweifelhaftes in Leben und Werk
Dietrich Buxtehudes, Musik und Kirche, xlix (1979), 16370
G. Karstdt: Buxtehude und die Neuordnung der
Abendmusiken, Festschrift fr Bruno Grusnick, ed. R. Satzwedel
and K.-D. Koch (Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1981), 11927
K.J. Snyder: Buxtehude and Das jngste Gerichts: a New
Look at an Old Problem, ibid., 12841
S.C. Ruhle: An Anonymous Seventeenth-Century German
Oratorio in the Dben Collection (Uppsala University Library
vok.mus.ihskr.71) (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1982)
K.J. Snyder: Lbeck Abendmusiken, 800 Jahre Musik in
Lbeck, ii, ed. A. Edler, W. Neugebauer and H.W. Schwab
(Lbeck,1983), 6371
K.J. Snyder: Dietrich Buxtehude: Organist in Lbeck (New
York, 1987)
G. Flaherty: Literary Perspectives on the Texts of Buxtehude's
Abendmusiken, Church Stage and Studio: Music and its
Contexts in Seventeenth-Century Germany, ed. P. Walker (Ann
Arbor, 1990), 193203
K.J. Snyder: Buxtehude, the Lbeck Abendmusiken, and
Wacht! Euch zum Streit gefasset macht, ibid., 20528
K.J. Snyder: Partners in Music Making: Organist and Cantor in
Seventeenth-Century Lbeck, The Organist as Scholar: Essays
in Memory of Russell Saunders, ed. K.J. Snyder (Stuyvesant,
NY, 1994), 23355
G. Webber: North German Church Music in the Age of
Buxtehude (Oxford, 1996)

K.J. Snyder: Franz Tunder's Stock-Exchange Concerts: Prelude

to the Lbeck Abendmusiken, GOArt Research Reports, ii
(2000)
KERALA J. SNYDER