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• Finck, Heinrich: Christ ist erstanden

Finck, Heinrich: Christ ist erstanden

for 5 voices or instruments.

Heinrich Finck was born in or around Bamberg in Northern Bavaria in 1445; he died in Vienna in 1527. During his long working life, about which we know relatively little, he worked in Krakow in Poland, Vilnius in Lithuania, and later in Stuttgart and in Bavaria. Although it is clear from contemporary writers that he had a considerable reputation in his lifetime, only a relatively small amount of his music has survived: this may be to do with the fact that spent much of his career in locations a long away from the main centres of music publishing.
These two settings of the German Easter hymn, Christ is erstanden, are very different in their approach, suggesting perhaps that they may have been composed during different periods of Finck´s long life. The first setting, taken from the Codex of Nicolaus Apel keeps the melody in a single part, with contrasting elaborate, somewhat archaic counterpoint in the remaining parts. Against this the second setting, while less elaborate rhythmically, is more complex thematically: it uses both of the tunes associated with the Christ ist erstanden text, often combining the two. The “original” melody is heard in tenor and bassus until bar 26; in the new section the “alternative” melody, which has already made a brief appearance in the opening notes of the cantus, takes over for a bit, until the first melody returns towards the end.
In this edition the original note values have been halved. The first setting has been transposed up a fourth; however, this original version is printed inside the cover, and is available separately (EML 273a). Editorial accidentals are shown in the usual way, that is printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only.