Osiander was not a professional musician, and his primitive harmonizations of psalm tones and
chorale melodies may seem to have little artistic value, but they were the first recognizable “four-part
chorales” (or Cantionalsätze, “hymn-settings,” as they were officially called) of the kind that remained
standard for congregational singing (and not only for congregational singing but for basic harmony
instruction) for centuries—indeed, into our own time. Within two or three decades there would be dozens
more published Cantionalsatz collections, reaching an early culmination in the one—or rather, the three
—by an indefatigable Lutheran musician named Michael Praetorius, whose work ethic is reflected in his
magnum opus, called Musae Sioniae, an encyclopedic compendium of Lutheran music in nine volumes, of
which the last three (published in 1609–1610) contained 742 choral harmonizations, based on 458 hymn
texts. Ex. 18-6 contains Cantionalsätze of Christ lag in Todesbanden by Osiander and Praetorius for
comparison.
The basic texture of these settings seems to have been adapted from the Calvinist psalters, but the
melody is placed consistently in the soprano part rather than the tenor, so that a listening congregation
could the more easily sing along by ear, as the title recommends. The idea of transposing the cantus firmus
to the soprano may have merely been an obvious solution to a practical problem, but it may also reflect
the influence of the villanella or other Italian song styles that were making their way in Germany thanks to
the book trade. In any case, Osiander’s were the first “Bach chorales.” They not only show the
antecedents of the practice that J. S. Bach would bring to its stylistic peak a century and a half later, but
they also give some idea of the extreme utilitarianism and stylistic conservatism of the atmosphere in
which Bach would work his compositional miracles.