[This text is quoted from the CD’s »Johannes Weyrauch – Geistliche Vokalmusik« booklet.]
The Leipzig composer Johannes Weyrauch studied music at the conservatory in his home town under S. Karg-Elert and S. Krehl. His first compositions – mainly chamber music – were still written under the spell of late romantic expressiveness.
He then came into contact with the German Youth Movement of the 1920’s, whose striving for a musical Renaissance echoed his efforts to find a »new essence« in music. He began employing clear diction on a tonal basis, refraining from bizarre melodies, harmonic stimulation and fascinating rhythms.
Slowly but surely, sacred music came to the fore in his work. His initial large organ works took a back seat as Weyrauch was appointed to church office and consequently had to devote his time to vocal music. In addition to numerous smaller compositions to be performed during services, he wrote several vocal masses, the Passion of St. John, cantatas, motets and his late work – a didactic song based on a text by Guardini. At this early stage of his sacred works, a certain meditative element can be detected which increasingly manifested itself in his later ckmpositions.
Weyrauch’s »Musical Legacy« (1966) contains the following passage: »Music is a language. It stimulates, it gives comfort and courage, it can herald, explain and reveal. It is not only sound, nor does it merely produce a feeling or a mood: in its perfection and its highest form it can surpass the word – even the biblical word – and can make the ultimate truth and reality transparent«.
This recording features sacred vocal compositions where Weyrauch’s »leon« style culminates, starting with the »Magnificat« – music arising from meditation and leading to worship. »Lord Christ, the only Son of God« (1950), also known as Nicodemus’s Motet, reveals the influence of Heinrich Schütz. The individual verses are reminiscent of polished woodcuts. In the motet »The Great Banquet« (Luke 14,15–24; 1956) the composer uses an antiphon as introduction, middle piece and cadence – with a subsequent melismatic filigree-like »Amen«.
A powerful, archaic, sixvoice hymn (Notker of St. Gall) frames the motet »On the road to Emmaus« (Luke 24,13–35; 1961). Weyrauch rarely included solos in his sacred compositions – only when they seemed necessary for the dramatisation of events, such as in the case of the two disciples Cleopas and the Other.
When the report from the Gospel in the motet »The Transfiguration of Christ« (Matthew 17,1–9; 1964) becomes a concrete event, sensitive listeners may feel the hymnic polyphony flooding over them like a powerful source of light. Weyrauch created a special style which appeared to compress the words into musical notes.
Later works like the »Cantata of the Kingdom of God« (based on the New Testament and lyrics by J. Weyrauch, 1969) and the »Cantata of Love« (based on 1 Corinthians 13 and words of St. Francis; 1971) impart Weyrauch’s tireless striving for »positive belief«, for »the light of the world«.
Weyrauch wrote his last sacred vocal composition, the didactic song based on a text by Romano Guardini entitled »The Last Days of the World« (1972), at the age of 75. Only somebody very mature who understands that Christian culture has reached a watershed could have set this text to music, giving it an accompaniment so simple and unsophisticated that any further arrangement would be inconceivable.
Dr. Wolfgang Orf