# "Tragic" Baroque Sacred Music Recommendations



## Bxnwebster

I've been listening a lot recently to melancholy/tragic (at least in my own perception) Baroque sacred music. What are some of your favorite tragic Baroque sacred works, especially those similar to the pieces I have listed below?

The pieces I have been enjoying are:
- Bach: Nach dir Herr verlanget mich, BWV 150
- Biber: Requiem
- Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri, BuxWV 75
- Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
- Vivaldi: Stabat Mater
- Zelenka: Lamentationes Jeremiae prophetae pro hebdomada sancta, ZWV 53 (although not all of it is tragic)
- Zelenka: Miserere (also not completely tragic)


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## Allegro Con Brio

Interesting that you chose BWV 150 as a Bach representative, a very youthful and disjointed work that is by no means bad but it is not even accepted to be by him in some scholarly circles. Besides the passions of course, try BWV 12, 13, 23, 55, 56, 101, 125, 127, 199...for starters.


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## hammeredklavier




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## FastkeinBrahms

Not sacred music in the narrow sense but a tragic religious theme: Just listened to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's Händel aria album. "Lord to Thee each night and day" from Theodora is particularly moving.


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## FastkeinBrahms

Addendum to previous post : Maybe even more touching: "As with rosy steps the morn" - the music clearly depicts the tragic theme of Theodora and is almost in contrast with the message of hope in the text.


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## Rogerx

BWV 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit 'Actus tragicus' 
If this in not tragic, what is?


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## Tasto solo

Christoph Graupner did "tragic" in his own unique style. An excellent example is his cantata reflecting on the story of the Widow of Nain (18:55 in the video) 



.

Also his 10 cantata passion cycle of 1741 contains some wonderfully desolate music. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3sKkO9k9hHQSOrs8aU0Aww


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## RICK RIEKERT

Rogerx said:


> BWV 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit 'Actus tragicus'
> If this in not tragic, what is?


The earliest surviving manuscript, in the hand of Christian Friedrich Penzel, was copied in 1768 after Bach's death. It introduced the title _Actus tragicus_. The work was intended for a funeral and is sober and calm, but does not strike me as particularly tragic as the text expresses Christian belief in eternal life, juxtaposing and contrasting eternity ("God's time") with the temporal. Bach makes a stark contrast between the earthly death of the Old Testament (everyone must die) and the joys of eternal life to come in the light of Christ's redemption. It starts with a joyful and confident chorus: 'God's time is the very best time (to die)' for 'With peace and joy I travel there as God so wills. My heart and mind are confident, Peaceful and calm.' The spiritual journey of the whole cantata is a slow descent towards death followed by an ascension leading to the light and joy of resurrection through Jesus Christ: 'May godly strength make us triumph through Jesus Christ, Lord, Amen.'


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## elgar's ghost

Handel - _Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline: The ways of Zion do mourn_.


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## Kreisler jr

A. Scarlatti stabat mater, lamentations
D. Scarlatti stabat mater
Durante lamentations
Couperin lecons tenebres 
Charpentier dito
The tenebres or tenebrae are also settings of the lamentations of jeremiah, performed in holy week. Like the zelenka piece mentioned above

Two rather mild requiem settings that are moderately famous are by Campra and Gilles. A great German funeral music is musikalische exequien by Schütz. Purcell also has funeral music for queen Mary and Blow wrote a funeral ode for Purcell. Among Handel's chandos anthems there is a miserere Lord have mercy and the famous As pants the Hart is also melancholy.
There is an abundance of such stuff. It was both a melancholy and pious age; the 17th century more than th 18th.


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## Bruckner Anton

Most Passions, Requiems and Stabat Maters are a bit tragic, sad or dark.


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## guyseid

Purcell - Funeral Music For Queen Mary - Canzona - makes me shiver ...


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## TubaInsonet

Erbarme dich, from BWV 244.


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## Eriks

I think you will like Buxtehude's cantata "Jesu meines lebens leben"






Here is the chorale melody in a setting by Bach:





Here is Buxtehude's piece again, but in a more beefy way


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## Eriks

And don't forget Telemann's "Du aber Daniel":


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## Chatellerault

Not baroque, but still 18th century and interesting in the way they show a darker side of Haydn, quite different from his humorous symphonies and most of his sonatas. Both are quite late Haydn, written during the wars after French Revolution, when Vienna might be sieged any time and when Mozart was already dead:

Haydn: Missa "In tempore belli" (in times of war) - known in German as "Paukenmesse" due to the dramatic use of timpani (pauken)
Haydn: "Nelson Mass" (autograph name: Missa in angustiis) his only mass in a minor key


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