“Unus fons, unus spiritus, una fides”: Römisch-evangelische Choräle auf dem “deutschen” Kapitol

Abstract

With the establishment in 1823 of a Protestant Chapel in the Prussian Embassy in Rome, the Capitoline hill became not only an important Evangelical religious center, but also the hub of a number of diverse interests pursued by the Prussian ambassador to the Holy See, Christian Carl Josias von Bunsen. His activities also extended to musical matters, and he became known as a reformer of church music. His outlook in this area was guided by the ethos of interconfessionalism, which held that the intrinsically Catholic and intrinsically Protestant are not contradictory. The article examines chorale works extant in diverse handwritten as well as printed sources of Capitoline church music practice. Among these are an exquisite choir book presumably crafted by the Nazarene painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, and most significantly, musical compositions found in annexes to the Nachtrag zur Kirchen-Agende des Jahres 1822 (1828) and in Bunsen’s songbook of 1833. What is unique to some of these chorales is that their melodic elements draw on Old Catholic tradition. This influence was transmitted to Bunsen via Giuseppe Baini’s arrangements in the collection Tentamen renovationis. By comparing the Protestant chorals with Baini’s collection and its transcriptions, including one from the pen of Fortunato Santini, seven contrafacta were identified. These constituted the “Roman-Protestant” core of the Capitoline repertoire and contributed to the realization of Bunsen’s ideal of a liturgical renewal enriched by the traditions of a variety of churches.