That basic conservatism can also be seen in the more elaborate kind of “chorale motet” that ostensibly
sought reconciliation with the international style. In these pieces, each successive line of the chorale was
treated as a point of imitation, so that no one voice could be identified unequivocally as cantus firmus. A
three-part school setting (tricinium) of Ein’ feste Burg (Ex. 18-7) by Sethus Calvisius, the cantor of
Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church at the end of the century, is a good example of the new technique whereby
the polyphonic texture more or less evenly absorbed the chorale tune (“more or less,” because the middle
voice, like an old-fashioned altus, has less tune and more filler than the others). But the setting, however
artful, remains essentially utilitarian, and it hews closely enough to the traditional tune so that no one
could possibly miss it. The art of concealment, so dear to the Netherlanders and even to Josquin, was
essentially foreign to the Lutheran ideal. And so were all “literary” pretensions, radical experiments, or
efforts at rhetorical persuasion. Rarely do the Choralsätze of the first Lutheran century indulge in any
semantic or illustrative play or aspire to any startling or stirring compositional effect.
EX. 18-6A Christ lag in Todesbanden, from Lucas Osiander, Funfftzig geistliche Lieder (1586)