ABSTRACT
The semi-dramatic vernacular settings that people discusses shortly, in contrast regarded as an abominable secularization by the Pietists. Ever since the sixteenth century certain Lutheran composers had interleaved' the canticle with sections of non-biblical text, sometimes in order to connect the work to a particular ecclesiastical season and sometimes with the aim of exegetical interpretation. People will shortly witness, at the end of the northern German organ tradition, an attempt at a distinction between the tonus peregrinus canticle-tone and the equally non-strophic vernacular Meine Seele erhebt den Herren. This style, which people have already seen applied to the tonus peregrinus, may be what was meant by contrarius in the Arnstadt proceedings, since the criticism was not based on the tonus peregrinus, but on Bach's playing of it. The use of strict cantus firmus was more pervasive in the tonus peregrinus settings covered in this chapter than it was in Roman Catholic tonus peregrinus settings of the same period.
