De tempore czy per occasionem? Kantata noworoczna Friedricha Christiana Mohrheima i jej typologiczna osobliwość

The article describes the cantata entitled Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn by Friedrich Christian Mohrheim, who was the Kapellmeister at St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk in the years 1764–1780, and raises a question regarding its affiliation to the group of occasional musical compositions (per occasionem) and compositions connected with liturgical year (de tempore). On the basis of annotation of cantata’s manuscript marked Ms. Joh. 60, which is kept at the Polish Academy of Science Gdańsk Library, one may say that the work was created in 1762. The author of the libretto was Barthold Brockes, Hamburg councillor, and it was published in the fi nal version in 1724 in the first volume of the work Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott… (2nd edition). The poem, glorifying the new year 1717, was republished 17 years later in Harmonische Himmels=Lust im Irdischen… This time Brockes proceeded the libretto by new year’s excerpt from Ovid’s Fasti and added information that music to the poem was composed by George Philipp Telemann. From lections which were then presented during new year’s service in Lutheran Church, only the excerpt of Gospel about circumcision of Jesus and giving him the name (Lk 2,21) had its refl ection in the text of this composition, however, still only allusively in glorifying of God and his name for all good that happened in the previous year. The dramatic events, whose description one may fi nd in the text of the cantata for the new year 1717, seem to concern the tragedy of the Great Northern War which took place in the times of Brockes. By using the text from over 40 years ago, the Kapellmeister from Gdańsk put it in different context, namely in his current times of the Seven Years’ War events which were widely commented in those times in Gdańsk. The fact that the described events from society’s life, so up-to-date to his times, (celebration of the beginning of calendar year and referring to the Seven Years’ War) were added to the composition destined to the ceremony resulting from the liturgical year, allows to state that one may fi nd here a unique hybrid: the cantata per occasionem and the cantata de tempore.