Thüringer Motetten aus der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Vol. 1

When Max Seiffert published more than 90 motets of the Thuringian school of motets of the early 18th century in volume 49/50 of the Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst in 1915, he explicitly wrote in the preface of his edition that it meant an offer for practice: " ... a collection of such motets ... can therefore be offered to our ... church choirs for their use." Apart from a few Christmas motets edited by Hugo Holle, not much use has been made of this offer. In part, this may have been due to the fact that this volume of memorials was published during the First World War. The fact that no practical editions were published after the war is probably also connected with the awakening of the singing movement: it oriented its musical ideal to the typical vocal declamation principle, so that the motets of the 17th century, above all Heinrich Schütz, became its model. The motets of Liebholdt, Niedt, T opff and other contemporaries, however, are more a preliminary stage of vocal-instrumental music-making, which was then brought to perfection by Johann Sebastian Bach. Now that this sound ideal has also been recognized as valid, a selection of corresponding motets should mean an expansion of the repertoire especially if, on the one hand, it provides material for choirs for which Bach's motets are too difficult and, on the other hand, can be used by all choirs as a preparatory course for Bach's motets.