Musical Delights by Kindermann

By his own account, Erasmus Kindermann was pressured by friends into
setting poems by Martin Opitz to music and did so in works such as his
Opitianischer Orpheus. The poems that he chose for the most part were
selections from the Bücher Deutscher Poemata. The texts of the songs mostly
focus on themes taken from ancient models: »carpe diem« and »memento mori«
as well as love’s joy and love’s grief. Poems with moral and religious
content and for special occasions and entertainment are also represented,
and the pastoral idyll often provides the scenic background. The
instrumental preludes and interludes consist of only a few measures but
very skillfully render the character of the particular song and underscore
its textual message. In the subtitle of his Opitianischer Orpheus
Kindermann terms his poem settings »Musical Delights,« in this way clearly
emphasizing his intention not to compose laments on sad times but instead
to convey joy, intellectual stimulation, and pleasure. Instead of designing
the music for the poems in his Opitianischer Orpheus as an opulent work in
multiple voices for a larger concert setting, Kindermann very deliberately
chose chamber music as his medium. He presumably had in mind, both in view
of the performers and the audience members, a group of music lovers with
literary ambitions who had received a humanistic education and met for
social gatherings in order to present songs or to listen to their recital.
The composer intentionally refrained from including broad melismas in the
song melodies. As a result, the individual songs develop a
characteristically strong succinctness that continues to resonate and
invites listeners to sing and play along in enjoyable social settings.