Joseph Ignatz Schnabel (1767–1831) i jego twórczość religijna w kontekście najnowszych badań
Joseph Ignatz Schnabel (1767–1831) and His Sacred Music in the Context of Latest Research

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to present selected results of the most recent research into the musical output of the German composer, conductor and teacher Joseph Ignatz Schnabel (1767–1831), Kapellmeister at the Breslauer Dom (now St John the Baptist’s Cathedral in Wrocław). His extensive and well-preserved oeuvre comprises more than 250 works, including settings of nearly all genres of Catholic liturgical music (such as Mass and Vespers cycles, Requiems, parts of the Proper, hymns, antiphons, responsories and songs). Stylistically this repertoire represents high classicism, but it also displays individual solutions elaborated by the composer himself. Schnabel’s music, conceived to embellish the liturgy, is characterised by concise and simplifed formal design, lucid textures and interesting orchestration. One of the key principles he implemented was to prioritise the clarity of the verbal text. This undoubtedly played a crucial role in the way he shaped his choral parts, which are homophonic with occasional imitations adding variety to the texture. Schnabel resolutely avoids any spectacular displays of skill, virtuosity and excessive expression. Instead, he employs sophisticated harmonic narration, which, along with the use of dynamics and appropriate instrumentation, serves the aim of adequately emphasising the type of expression proper to sacred music. Te music of the Breslau Kapellmeister represents an undoubtedly successful return to the ideals of an appropriate treatment of the church style (Kirchenstil), the principles of which had been formulated over the preceding centuries. Schnabel’s compositions are a novelty in this respect, at least in Silesia, where the concertato style was heavily exploited in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Te composer’s little-known oeuvre may be performed in an artistically rewarding manner even by small ensembles. Its artistic qualities make it attractive, while it does not present excessive difculties in performance.

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