Melchior Franck

Melchior Franck composed over 600 pieces of music. He wrote 40 different collections of a variety of sacred vocal, motets, madrigals, and instrumental dances. Franck's music was reserved but highly characteristic of the early Baroque. He extended the use of melismatic music to give expression to certain textual idiomatic words and phrases such as `fountain' and `south wind blowing'. Variances in his musical forms was surpassed only by the different musical characteristics he carried to each form. Dances were often written homophonically structured often AABBCC. Secular songs contained homorhythmic patterns, primarily syllabic textual settings, and harmonic patterns employing strong key-relations (i.e., major, dominant, major). For sacred music, voice parts ranged from one to twelve but most often were scored for four to eight voices. The sacred music was antiphonal, occasionally written for two choirs, with well developed counterpoint. Some of his cited pieces include the pastroal play "Von der Zerstorung Jerusalems," the "Musicalischer Bergkreyen" and "Melodiae sacrae," a collection of motets. Most of his vocal music, per Franck's instructions, could be perfromed by voices or instruments. ~ Keith Johnson