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Juno Orchestra: Challenge - Chorale on a Theme by Leo Hassler
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Chorale on a Theme by Leo Hassler (1601) by American-then-Swiss composer George Templeton Strong. Composer and serious painter, Strong moved to Switzerland in 1912, convinced that both American audiences and critics, by their fascination with all things European, did not adequately respect American composers. The seven-minute work is a study on a tune most of us might recognize as O Sacred Head Now Wounded, used to remarkable effect by J.S. Bach. Strong’s exploration seems related to the practice often employed by Bach—that of framing and reframing. So, might you be surprised to learn that what Leo Hassler actually created in 1601 was a rather jaunty love song (the lyrics, when translated, read: I’m all mixed up)? It was 50 years later that the German theologian, Lutheran minister, and hymnologist Paul Gerhardt, pondering a medieval Latin text, reframed Hassler’s tune, and set it on the trajectory many audiences are familiar with today.
