The congregational hymn of the German Protestant church service. Typically, it possesses certain formal and stylistic traits appropriate to its lay purposes: simple language, rhymed metrical verse, a strophic musical and textual form and an easily singable melody. Since the Reformation, and particularly during the first 200 years of its existence, the chorale has provided raw material for a variety of compositional forms, including the chorale prelude, chorale motet and chorale cantata (see Chorale settings and Borrowing, §§6 and 8).
2. Pre-Reformation antecedents.
3. The chorale in Luther’s liturgical reform.
10. Post-Reformation period, c1550–c1600.
12. Pietism and Orthodoxy, c1675–c1750.
13. The Enlightenment, c1750–c1810.
ROBERT L. MARSHALL/ROBIN A. LEAVER
During the first decades of the Reformation, Martin Luther and his contemporaries most commonly referred to the individual items in the newly revived genre of congregational, vernacular hymns as ‘geistliche Lieder’ (spiritual songs), ‘Psalmen’, ‘christliche Lieder’ and ‘geistliche’ (or ‘christliche’) ‘Gesänge’ or ‘Kirchengesänge’. In the later 16th century the term ‘Choral’, which had traditionally referred to the melodies of the Latin plainchant repertory, began to be applied to the vernacular church hymn. This was presumably partly because congregational singing in Luther’s time was led by the monophonic chorus choralis (as distinct from the polyphonic chorus musicus or figuralis), and partly because in the Protestant service the congregation and congregational hymn singing assumed the liturgical position and significance occupied in the Roman Catholic service by the chorus (chorus choralis) and by Latin chant (gregorianischer Choral). In modern German ‘Choral’ generally means the tune or simple setting only, while ‘Kirchenlied’ commonly embraces both hymn text and tune. In modern English usage ‘chorale’ can apply either to the hymn in its entirety (text and melody) or to the hymn tune alone. Moreover, following a German practice common in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term is often used to refer to simple harmonizations of the German hymn tune, as in ‘Bach chorales’ or ‘four-part chorales’.
The early Christian church provided a number of opportunities for congregational participation. The Ambrosian hymns were originally intended to be sung by the congregation, and congregational refrains were added to a number of liturgical chants. From the 6th century liturgical singing became the preserve of the cantor and choir. But extra-liturgical songs in the vernacular continued to be written and sung at principal festivals, some saints’ days and, later, in connection with liturgical drama. Throughout the Middle Ages the refrain ‘Kyrieleison’ was sung as part of the litany as well as after the Latin strophes of such hymns as the Te Deum or after the individual verses of psalms. By the Carolingian period, the ‘Kyrieleison’ refrain was frequently extended with short vernacular phrases, and German translations of the Latin hymn strophes themselves began to appear. The oldest surviving example is an Old High German version of the Latin hymn Aurea luce, the so-called ‘Freisinger Petrus-hymnus’, in an early 9th-century neumed manuscript. Such vernacular hymnody was particularly strong in German-speaking regions. Between the 9th century and 1518 over 1400 German vernacular hymns are known to have been written. The hymn of Hussite Bohemia, the English medieval carol and the Italian lauda are comparable repertories of this period.
From the 12th century the principal forms of vernacular singing that developed into the Reformation chorale were German translations of Latin chant, the Leise (German spiritual song) and the cantio (Latin spiritual song). Of all the forms of Gregorian chant, medieval translators understandably favoured the Ambrosian hymn of the monastic Offices with its short strophes, concise and straightforward language and essentially syllabic melodic style. These qualities later made it the most significant Gregorian source for the Protestant chorale writers. Single hymns such as the ‘Petrus-hymnus’ and even entire hymnaries were translated; but during the later Middle Ages hymns for the principal feasts were strongly preferred. Two of the most important German translators of the period, the Monk of Salzburg and Heinrich Laufenberg, set important precedents for Reformation poets with their choice of hymns as well as their translations. Late medieval hymn translations were rarely provided with musical notation, but the fact that they kept the original metrical schemes suggests that they were meant to be sung to the original melodies; the presence of rubrics suggests that they may have been used occasionally in some forms of liturgical worship.
Apart from the hymns, the chants for the Office did not as a group stimulate many translations, but individual antiphons such as Media vita in morte sumus, formerly attributed to Notker Balbulus, and the 11th-century Pentecost antiphon Veni Sancte Spiritus existed in the German versions Mitten wir im Leben sind and Komm, heiliger Geist, Herr Gott from at least the early 15th century. The chants for the Mass having non-strophic texts and relatively intricate melodies did not encourage translation in the pre-Reformation period, particularly since they remained the exclusive province of the clergy and choir. There were isolated translations of some items, however, such as a 15th-century German metrical rendering of the Credo, Wir glauben in einen Gott, which served as one of several sources for Luther’s Wir glauben all an einen Gott. Of the Propers only the sequence assumed considerable, indeed outstanding, importance for the later history of the chorale as the origin of the Leise.
During the late Middle Ages the practice developed of occasionally permitting the congregation to sing German versions of the sequence (itself by this time a metrical, strophic form) during the regular service at the principal feasts of the church year, immediately after the clergy and choir had performed the Latin original. These German strophes typically concluded with the refrain ‘Kyrieleis’ and thus suggested the name Leise for the genre, a name which was soon applied to other refrain songs as well. Most Leisen have a single strophe of four short lines, a simple melody often consisting of repeated motivic formulae and the ‘Kyrieleis’ refrain. Generally a Leise strophe retained the same melody throughout the centuries while the refrain continually received new settings, invariably of the simplest melodic material.
Since the Leise shares stylistic and liturgical elements with the litany, the Kyrie, the hymn, the sequence and the folksong, its origins and development have been a matter of controversy. The picture is complicated by the fact that whereas there was an outburst of production of Leise texts between the 12th century and the early 14th, melodies for them are extant only from the 15th century. The most important and well-known Leisen, those which survive in Protestant chorales, have particularly strong musical and even liturgical connections with the sequence. The chorales associated with the major feasts listed in Table 1, the opening strophes of which existed as Leisen in the Middle Ages, all substantially derive their melodic material from the Latin sequence for the same feast. Chorales included in the standard hymnbook of the present German Lutheran church, the Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG), are cited by their number in that volume.
Most of these Leisen appear with the corresponding Latin sequence in medieval liturgical manuscripts, and because of that they are now thought to have developed as abbreviated forms of the Latin sequence. According to this interpretation the concluding ‘Kyrieleis’ refrain, with its variable melodies, assumes only secondary importance, whereas earlier views suggested that the four-line strophe was appended to the original acclamation.
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TABLE 1 |
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Feast |
Leise |
EG |
Sequence |
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Christmas |
Gelobet seist du, |
23 |
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Grates nunc omnes |
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Jesu Christ (14th |
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reddamus |
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century) |
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Easter |
Christ ist erstanden |
99 |
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Victimae paschali laudes |
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(12th century) |
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(Liber usualis, 780) |
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Pentecost |
Nun bitten wir den |
124 |
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Veni Sancte Spiritus |
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heiligen Geist |
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(Hypolydian version) |
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(13th century) |
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Corpus |
Gott sei gelobet |
214 |
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Lauda Sion Salvatorem |
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Christi |
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und gebenedeiet |
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Liber usualis, 945) |
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(14th century) |
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In addition to these ‘liturgical’ Leisen there were others whose origins were closer to that of folksong, being associated with less formal aspects of medieval religious life such as liturgical dramas, processions and pilgrimages. The best-known is probably the 13th-century crusaders’ Leise In Gottes Namen fahren wir, the melody of which is sung to a hymn of the same title (EG 498) and to Martin Luther’s Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot (EG 231). The melodies of such ‘popular’ Leisen show some preference for the Mixolydian mode.
The cantio, a non-liturgical but sacred Latin unison song that was cultivated from the 14th century, largely in monastic and literary circles, is clearly related both to Latin liturgical hymnody and to the Leise. Cantiones often originated in connection with the liturgical dramas for Easter and Christmas (e.g. In natali Domini, Puer natus in Bethlehem, Surrexit Christus hodie) and were otherwise generally associated with Advent and Christmas. Many cantiones were translated into German long before the Reformation and were frequently sung antiphonally, particularly in Germany and Bohemia, with alternating Latin and German verses. A number of these mixed-language song pairs such as Surrexit Christus hodie – Erstanden ist der heilig Christ (EG 105) and the completely macaronic In dulci jubilo – Nun singet und seid froh (EG 35), with alternate Latin and German lines, were appropriated unchanged into the Reformation hymnbooks and are included in the Evangelisches Gesangbuch in German versions alone. With their major-mode melodies and frequently strong dance rhythms, often in triple metre, the cantiones show the considerable influence of medieval folksong and dance.
Only with the Reformation did the chorale become an integral, indeed central, part of the main church service. By being elevated to liturgical status, the chorale, along with the sermon, helped to effect a fundamental change in the nature of the liturgy. For Martin Luther the church service was no longer a sacramental act alone but also the occasion for the proclamation of the Word among believers: the congregation, united through the act of singing, could participate by responding to the spoken word of the pastor, proclaiming the Gospel and expressing the joy of faith and the praise of God.
Apart from his views on the congregation and vernacular singing, however, Luther’s attitude towards the liturgy was basically conservative. In the Formula missae (1523) he indicated that German chorales could be incorporated into the traditional structure of the Latin Mass – either in addition to the Latin chants or as substitutes for them – in the positions of the gradual, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and after communion. It was not until his Deutsche Messe (1526) that Luther had worked out all the details of a vernacular service which included German equivalents of the introit, gradual, Credo, and (during communion) the Sanctus, Agnus Dei or German hymns. The Graduallied, performed between the readings of the Epistle and Gospel, later became the principal chorale of the service. Versifications of the Kyrie, Gloria and a new German version of the Agnus Dei – Luther’s Christe, du Lamm Gottes (EG 190.2) – were subsequently added to the German Mass, thus completing the translation of the Ordinary into the vernacular and its transference to the congregation.
In 1523, at the same time as he drafted the Formula missae, Luther evidently began to write his first chorales; 24 were written between 1523 and 1524. The active hymn singing of the German branch of the Bohemian Brethren provided Luther with a close model for the restoration of the chorale, but it is possible that his own writing of 1523 was provoked by the appearance in that year of ten German translations of Latin hymns by the mystic radical Thomas Münzer in a form Luther found unacceptable (although some, for example EG 3, found their way into later Lutheran use). In recommending the creation of vernacular ‘spiritual songs’ for the people, however, Luther cited only those of the Church Fathers and the Old Testament psalms.
Luther and the other early Reformation hymn writers and compilers drew on the pre-Reformation Leisen and on the existing German translations of Latin hymns in the interest of maintaining a strong sense of historical continuity and in the hope of securing wide popular support. But they also used other pre-Reformation material, mainly such rarely used items of the liturgical Latin plainsong as the Mass Ordinary and the corpus of secular German folksong and art song. Hardly any early 16th-century Protestant chorale is completely original in both text and music, although the degree of dependence on an earlier source is sometimes slight. (The texts and melodies of Luther’s hymns are listed in Luther, Martin.)
In the variety of their subject matter, Luther’s chorales established almost all the principal literary and theological categories: de tempore, biblical and catechism chorales, chorales of meditation, penitence, praise, comfort, faith and supplication and chorales on death or for the times of day. But irrespective of their sources, topics or the manner of their derivation, his texts have a strongly unified poetic style. His preference for short, often monosyllabic, words, short strophes and short sentences within strophes (often only one line long), and his frequent use of alliteration and of indicative and imperative verb forms evoke an unusually forceful and personal literary presence.
Like other hymn writers of the time, Luther (or whoever was responsible for the melodies of his chorales) generally adapted a complete existing melody to his new text, usually the one associated with the text model. Luther was an unexcelled and unusually resourceful master of this craft, going beyond the simpler practices of contrafactum, whereby one text is mechanically substituted for another without changing the melody. His techniques of adapting complete Gregorian or other monophonic melodies reveal the concern for good text declamation prevalent in the early 16th century: original melismas were removed or underlaid to create syllabic settings, and melodic climaxes were adjusted to correspond with the natural accents of the new texts. A good example of Luther’s procedures is his skilful adaptation of the melody of the hymn Veni Redemptor gentium to three different chorales, Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich (EG 421), Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort (EG 193) and Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (EG 4), so that each was not only ‘correct’ but also had a character of its own. The prayerful and meditative character of the three texts common to most of Luther’s chorales set to Gregorian melodies doubtless prompted their common derivation and justified it aesthetically.
On other occasions Luther adopted another common practice of constructing ‘original’ melodies from melodic formulae and melody types. For example, the melodies of two of his most famous chorales, Vom Himmel hoch and Ein feste Burg (see illustration), with their unambiguous major tonality and controlled descent through the octave from the upper to the lower tonic (melodies considered the quintessence of his personal style), share their structure and a large number of details with the melody of Hans Sachs’s Silberweise, Salve, ich grus dich, which was possibly their immediate model. The same melodic design is also found in Johann Walter’s melody to Johannes Zwick’s All Morgen ist ganz frisch und neu (EG 440); its general outline belongs to a European archetype traceable to the art songs of the troubadours and the Minnesinger. Luther associated this melody type with the texts of his extrovert and enthusiastic Verkündigungslieder (hymns of faith) and normally used it in connection with brisk short-note upbeat patterns, whereas for meditative texts set to Gregorian melodies he used long-note upbeats. Apart from their distinctive upbeat patterns, however, Luther’s major-mode and church-mode melodies are basically isometric in rhythm, facilitating congregational learning and singing, and perhaps betraying their monophonic or Gregorian origins. Conversely, the occasional presence of more complex rhythms within the phrases of a melody suggests a polyphonic origin, probably as the cantus firmus of the popular German Tenorlied of the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
A modal aesthetic in many of Luther’s chorales – the use of Ionian mode for hymns of faith, of Dorian or Hypodorian for meditative texts and of Phrygian for texts of repentance (Aus tiefer Not, Ach Gott vom Himmel) – may reflect the practice of the Meistersinger. Their influence is certainly evident in the preference of Luther and his fellow hymn writers for casting their melodies in the traditional bar form, usually as a seven-line strophe consisting of a repeated two-line Stollen followed by an Abgesang, which is either through-composed, producing the overall design ABABCDE, or which concludes with a return to the end of the Stollen ABABCDB.
The extent of Luther’s role as a composer will probably always remain unclear. Johann Walter (i), Luther’s main musical collaborator, appears to have been largely responsible for a number of the melodies of his chorales (see Luther, Martin).
Luther’s practice was also that of his immediate collaborators, whose chorales appeared with Luther’s in the earliest printed collections, and who together formed the ‘Wittenberg orbit’, named after the centre of Luther’s activities from 1512. Many of their chorales are still sung, notably Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält (EG 297) by Justas Jonas; Es ist das Heil uns kommen her (EG 342) by Paul Speratus; Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (EG 343), sometimes attributed to Johann Agricola (c1494–1566); Johann Walter’s Wach auf, wach auf, du deutsches Land (EG 145); Erasmus Alber’s Christe, du bist der helle Tag (EG 469), based on the hymn Christe qui lux es et dies; Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren (EG 289) by Johann Gramann (1487–1541) and Herr Christ, der einig Gotts Sohn (EG 67) by Elisabeth Cruciger (c1500–35), the first Reformation chorale to draw on the late medieval tradition of Jesus mysticism that became prominent in succeeding generations. (The melody of this chorale is derived from a mid-15th-century secular love song, Mein Freund möcht sich wohl mehren, in the Lochamer Liederbuch, and its text is based on the Christmas hymn of Aurelius Prudentius, Corde natus ex parentis.) Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (EG 179) and O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (EG 190.1) by Nikolaus Decius are important as versifications of the Gloria and Agnus Dei that are set to the original Gregorian melodies. Although Luther, for personal reasons, never included Decius’s chorales in the official Wittenberg hymnbooks, they soon became part of the standard German Mass Ordinary cycle.
Luther may have begun to write church hymns in the vernacular in emulation of the Bohemian Brethren, who had published hymnbooks in Czech in 1501, 1505 and 1519. Luther’s most important contemporary, in fact, was Michael Weisse (c1488–1534), the editor of the first German hymnbook of the Bohemian Brethren, Ein new Geseng Buchlen (1531). This was by far the largest hymnbook to have appeared by that time (157 chorales); it was also the first whose contents were thoroughly and systematically organized by categories, beginning with the church year, followed by chorales of praise, of prayer, on the Christian faith etc. The melodies of the Bohemian Brethren are independent of the Wittenberg repertory; they make almost no use, for example, of bar form. But they are also derived from Gregorian chant and folksong, drawing even more heavily and more literally than the Lutheran chorale on older sources, and adopting a larger variety of Gregorian melodies, including more florid types.
Luther was a friend and admirer of Weisse and was presumably responsible for the inclusion of 12 chorales by Weisse in the Bapst (Babst) hymnbook (1545). Subsequently there were numerous exchanges of hymns between the Lutherans and the Bohemian Brethren. During the 16th century most Passion chorales (the only major genre entirely neglected by Luther) were taken from the Bohemian Brethren hymnbook, for example Weisse’s Christus, der uns selig macht (EG 77).
The presence of Luther made Wittenberg so influential in the development of the chorale that some centres of activity such as Nuremberg, the base for Hans Sachs, Lazarus Spengler and Sebald Heyden, or Königsberg, the base for the Margrave Albrecht of Prussia (1490–1568), Paul Speratus and Johann Gramann, never attained significant independence. In both Strasbourg and Konstanz, however, the Lutheran model was tempered by Calvinist influence emanating from Zürich and Geneva. In Strasbourg for the first time the congregation constituted the sole musical participant in the service, singing not only strophic chorales but also German versions of Gregorian chants. The chorale repertory of the Strasbourg ‘school’, which extended north to Hesse and south to Württemberg and Basle, contained both the Lutheran hymns (sometimes set to local melodies) and its own. The latter, in contrast to those of the Wittenberg tradition, made much less use of medieval models, and, both influencing and reflecting Calvinist practice, consisted overwhelmingly of psalm settings.
While the Strasbourg melodies exploited the common stock of existing formulae, they were in general more elaborate than those of the Wittenberg repertory, perhaps because most of them were probably composed by two accomplished musicians, Wolfgang Dachstein and Matthias Greiter. Two of the most famous Lutheran melodies, those of Greiter for Sebald Heyden’s O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross (EG 76), and for Dachstein’s An Wasserflüssen Babylon (now sung to Paul Gerhardt’s Ein Lämmlein geht, EG 83), show a characteristic Strasbourg preference for long strophes with a three-line Stollen and (as in O Mensch, bewein) for repeating the first line of the Abgesang: ABCABCDDEFGH.
Three Konstanz pastors, Johannes Zwick (c1496–1542) and the brothers Ambrosius and Thomas Blarer (1492–1564 and 1499–1570), were responsible for the Nüw Gsangbüchle (Zürich, 1536), which secured a place for the congregational chorale in the Reformed (Calvinist) Church of Switzerland and south Germany. As in Strasbourg, the Protestant chorale in Konstanz occupied a position midway between Lutheran Wittenberg and Calvinist Geneva; this is evident from the organization of the Nüw Gsangbüchle, which begins in the Calvinist manner with settings from the Psalter before presenting chorales on other subjects or based on other sources. None of the Konstanz chorales was incorporated into the main Lutheran tradition until the 19th century, but several are represented in the Evangelisches Gesangbuch, including Zwick’s All Morgen ist ganz frisch und neu (EG 440) and A. Blarer’s Wach auf, wach auf, ’s ist hohe Zeit (EG 244). On the other hand, the verse-for-verse translation of the Genevan Psalter by the Lutheran Ambrosius Lobwasser (Leipzig, 1573) brought Calvinist melodies into the German tradition at a relatively early date. These were later transferred to other psalm or chorale texts, the best-known being Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele (EG 524) to the melody of Psalm xlii and Paul Eber’s Herr Gott, dich loben alle wir (EG 300) to the melody of Psalm cxxxiv.
The rapid growth of hymnbook publication in the first half-century of the Reformation (during which over 200 were published) provided for the dissemination, continuity and development of the chorale; it also provoked such counter-developments as the production of Catholic hymns. But its most important effect was to establish the German chorale as one of the most vital literary genres of the 16th century.
Following a precedent set by the Bohemian Brethren of printing collections of congregational hymns in the vernacular, and after a number of chorales had appeared in single broadsheets, four significant collections of German chorales appeared within a single year. Their interrelationships shed light on the procedures of the early hymn writers. The so-called Achtliederbuch (Etlich Cristlich Lider), evidently the earliest, was printed in Nuremberg in 1523/4 (despite the imprint ‘Wittenberg./M.D.Xiiij’ on the title-page). It included eight chorale texts and a total of four different melodies. It was followed in 1524 by two publications, both called Eyn Enchiridion oder Handbüchlein and known as the Erfurter Enchiridien, containing a total of 25 hymns and 16 melodies. Luther’s Aus tiefer Not and Ach Gott vom Himmel appeared here for the first time with their melodies; the texts alone had been printed in the Achtliederbuch with a direction that they were to be sung, along with Es spricht der Unweisen Mund wohl, to the melody now reserved for Speratus’s Est ist das Heil.
In the same year (1524) in Wittenberg Johann Walter (i) published a volume of 38 four- and five-voice settings of 35 melodies for 32 hymns, the Geystliches Gesangk Buchleyn, with a foreword by Luther. A monophonic version of Walther’s choral hymnbook, published in Wittenberg two years later by Hans Lufft, was the first true German congregational hymnbook. These early publications established two important precedents. First, there were two basic types of German hymnbook: a monophonic edition of texts and melodies intended to be sung by the lay congregation without any organ or choral accompaniment, and a polyphonic edition intended for the church choir. Secondly, the practice of using the same tune for different texts was established, as was its converse, the association of more than one melody with the same text.
Joseph Klug’s hymnbook (Wittenberg, 1529, with a new foreword by Luther) was the first to have a clear principle of internal organization, one which predominated during the rest of the 16th century and has remained influential. In Klug’s definitive edition (1543, authorized by Luther) an initial section was devoted exclusively to Luther’s chorales arranged in four groups: de tempore chorales for the principal feasts, catechism chorales, chorales based on the psalms and chorales on miscellaneous subjects. The second section included the ‘Lieder der unsern’ (chorales by Luther’s collaborators, including Jonas, Spengler, Speratus and Cruciger). The final principal section was devoted to pre-Reformation German and Latin chorales, including Der Tag, der ist so freudenreich and In dulci jubilo.
With the publication of Valentin Bapst’s hymnbook (Leipzig, 1545), the last to appear during Luther’s lifetime and containing a new foreword by him, an appendix of 40 chorales was added to the central corpus of 80 Reformation chorales. The basic canon, drawn from various regions of north, central and south Germany, remained relatively constant and free of variants for the next 200 years, but the innovation of a regional appendix, which was typical of many subsequent hymnbooks, allowed for variety and for the further growth of the repertory.
Luther’s death was followed by a period of consolidation against the challenge of the Counter-Reformation; this was furthered by rationalizing the liturgical organization of the Reformation chorale repertory. In Johann Eichorn’s regional hymnbook (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1559) the central repertory of Lutheran chorales was arranged according to the utilitarian categories of the Bohemian Brethren, instead of being arranged by author according to the early Lutheran system – a procedure which gave those of Luther great prominence and permanence and kept the others from becoming firmly established in the repertory. An orthodox tradition was further codified by a complete de tempore ordering of chorales for the church year in Johannes Keuchenthal’s Kirchen Gesenge latinisch und deudsch (Wittenberg, 1573) and Nikolaus Selnecker’s Christliche Psalmen, Lieder und Kirchengesänge (Leipzig, 1587).
The conservative tendencies of the period, combined with war, plague and famine in the second half of the 16th century, resulted in a reduction in the number of new chorales and in a shift in emphasis to themes of the Crucifixion and comfort, death and eternal life and the Second Coming, while the conflict with the Counter-Reformation generated chorale texts concerning pure Christian doctrine and the life and work of the church. Accordingly the years from about 1570 to 1648, which include the post-Reformation period and the Thirty Years War, have often been referred to as the age of the ‘Bekenntnis- und Glaubenslied’ (chorales of confession, or creed, and faith).
The most important hymn writer at the beginning of this period was Nicolaus Herman of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, a contemporary of Luther but a transitional figure; his chorales (for which he wrote both the texts and melodies), including Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich (EG 27) and Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag (EG 106), were not published until 1560, and then, significantly, in a one-author collection of home devotions and children’s hymns for the church year. His chorales show the continuing influence of the Meistersinger traditions in their quantitative scansion and use of church modes with existing melodies and melodic formulae, but the folklike simplicity of his texts and his increased use of pure major-mode melodies reflect new tendencies. In the work of a younger generation, Nikolaus Selnecker, Paul Eber (1511–69), Ludwig Helmbold, Bartholomäus Ringwaldt (1530–99) and Martin Schalling (1532–1600), a more personal tone of Lutheran humanism is discernible, particularly in the texts of Helmbold’s Von Gott will ich nicht lassen (EG 365) and Schalling’s Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr (EG 397).
The imagery and poetic style used by Philipp Nicolai in Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (EG 70) and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (EG 147), both published in 1599, belong to the Baroque era. These chorales are perfect expressions of the Baroque ‘Brautmystik’ (the allegory of the soul, church or Mary as bride and Jesus as groom) that unites a medieval mystical tradition, rooted in Psalm xlv and the Song of Solomon, with the tradition of secular love lyrics inherited from the Minnelied and German folksong. Nicolai’s chorales are also typically Baroque in their constantly changing images, the extension of the allegory even to the verbs and adverbs, and the use of such devices as acrostics and optical verse (e.g. strophes laid out on the page in the shape of a grail in Wie schön). But the melodies of these chorales, despite their modern major tonalities, triadic patterns and occasional tone-painting, are still products of the 16th century in their use of existing material: a melody from the Strasbourg Psalter (1538) is the basis of Wie schön; Wachet auf, in the manner of the Meistersinger, and indeed following the model used by Luther, appropriates elements from Hans Sachs’s Salve, ich grus dich.
The history of the chorale in the late 16th and early 17th centuries was not marked by the creation of new melodies, which were few in number, so much as by the rise of the Cantionalsatz, the simple four-part harmonization of a chorale with the melody no longer in the tenor but in the discant. This innovation, first introduced by Lucas Osiander in his Fünffzig geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (Nuremberg, 1586), was intended to facilitate and encourage congregational singing of the tune to the accompaniment of the church choir, presumably in emulation of falsobordone practices and the contemporary Calvinist settings by Claude Goudimel and others. The rapid growth of Cantional publications by 1600 meant that new chorale melodies were usually conceived and published not as monophonic tunes or as Tenorlieder but as the top part of four-part homophonic settings. By the early 17th century chorale texts were increasingly written by professional poets, and their melodies and harmonizations were more and more the work of professional musicians. This development, together with the prevailing historical and theological circumstances and the spread of the doctrine of the Affections in music and literature, led to the growth of the individual devotional song as a vehicle of self-expression. Throughout the 17th century the poems, now autonomous, tended towards being personal statements, and the music, more open to foreign, especially Italian, influences (e.g. monody and balletto), was increasingly modelled on the art song, rather than on the folksong as in the 16th century.
Until the mid-17th century chorale texts and German secular poetry, being written by the same authors, developed similarly. Their style was influenced by the reforms of the new literary societies, which achieved a more natural German scansion within more artful poetic designs, as did Martin Opitz in his Buch von der deutschen Poeterey (Breslau, 1624). New verse forms (other than the ubiquitous four-foot line) often employed ancient or foreign models, such as the Sapphic metre in Johann Heermann’s Herzliebster Jesu (EG 81), the Horatian ode forms in the lyrics of M.A. von Löwenstern and the French Alexandrine verse scheme, which was popular in Germany throughout the Baroque era, and was used in Martin Rinckart’s Nun danket alle Gott (EG 321) and Heermann’s O Gott, du frommer Gott (EG 495).
But the strongest influence on early 17th-century chorale texts was the Thirty Years War, which produced an outpouring of chorale poetry by laymen as well as professional poets. The destruction of German churches and schools during the war also encouraged private devotions rather than formal church services. This in turn heightened the personal and subjective tone of the chorales, which suggested the term ‘Ich-lied’ for 17th-century chorale poetry in contrast to the ‘Wir-lieder’ of the 16th century. It is symptomatic that the works of the most outstanding chorale poets of the time – Paul Gerhardt, whose 134 texts are the greatest in the tradition next to Luther’s, Johann Heermann, Johann Franck and Johann Rist – appeared first in collections of home devotions and not in hymnbooks.
The favourite topics of the period, almost all expressions of the personal piety of the individual believer, were also clearly dictated by the experience of the war. They include the memento mori, yearning for death, and sin and repentance (themes usually associated with Heermann and particularly evident in the newly cultivated genre of Passion chorales, e.g. Heermann’s Herzliebster Jesu and Gerhardt’s O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, EG 85), and deliberately contrasting affirmations of life and optimistic texts of comfort (also characteristic of Gerhardt, e.g. his Wie soll ich dich empfangen, EG 11, Befiehl du deine Wege, EG 361, and Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen, EG 36). Chorales by the prolific and versatile Johann Rist show his preoccupation with the horrors of hell, as in O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort. More traditional chorales resembling those of the post-Reformation period were still produced by lesser-known poets who are sparsely represented in the modern hymnbook: Rinckart’s Nun danket alle Gott (EG 321), Ach wie flüchtig (EG 528) by Michael Franck and Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten (EG 369) by Georg Neumark.
Relatively well-known composers, attracted first by the technical demands of four-part setting and later perhaps by the quality of much of the new poetry, began to publish collections of chorale settings in the early 17th century. The most familiar settings by the principal melodists are Heut triumphieret Gottes Sohn (EG 109), Auf meinen lieben Gott (EG 345) and Befiehl du deine Wege (EG 361) by Bartholomäus Gesius; Gelobt sei Gott (EG 103) by Melchior Vulpius; and the secular tune Mein G’müth ist mir verwirret (1601) by Hans Leo Hassler sung to Christoph Knoll’s Herzlich tut mich verlangen (1605) and later to Gerhardt’s O Haupt (1647, EG 85). Several melodies by Schütz, originally part of his 1628 settings of the German Psalter of Cornelius Becker (a futile attempt to suppress Lobwasser’s popular translations set to melodies of the Calvinist Psalter) are now sung to Lutheran texts.
These trained composers were susceptible to the new Italian harmonic and tonal procedures, and their melodies show a strong harmonic sense, having definite major–minor tonality reinforced by such structural devices as frequent semi-cadences and caesurae on important scale degrees, mostly the dominant. Italian influence is also evident in the strong metrical organization and in the use of such recurrent groupings as alternating 2/2 and 3/2 metres, and rhythmic patterns derived from the early Baroque dance suite.
The most important mid-17th-century chorale composer was Johannes Crüger, Kantor at the Nikolaikirche in Berlin (where from 1657 Gerhardt was deacon) and the principal musical collaborator of both Gerhardt and Heermann; his 70 original melodies include those for Gerhardt’s Wie soll ich dich empfangen (EG 11) and Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen (EG 36), for Heermann’s Herzliebster Jesu (EG 81), and for Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (EG 218) and Jesu, meine Freude both by Johann Franck. They are all distinguished by their fusion of simplicity suited to the congregation with expressive declamation and rhythmic flexibility, the latter being due largely to the incorporation of Calvinist models. As a hymnbook editor Crüger introduced the private devotional hymn (Erbauungslied) that prevailed in the second half of the 17th century; in his first collection, Newes vollkömliches Gesangbuch (1640), which bore the explicit designation ‘for home or church use’, the standard core of Reformation de tempore chorales appeared together with the new Trostlieder of Heermann and others. For the first time chorales were presented as melody and figured bass (instead of four-part harmonizations), a format obviously appropriate for home devotions at the keyboard and for church congregations with organ accompaniment. Organ accompaniment had been introduced in about 1600 but had become widespread only as many church choirs were dissolved in the wake of the Thirty Years War. Crüger modified the traditional Reformation melodies by adding large numbers of leading-note accidentals, which helped to erase the last vestiges of the church mode system in favour of major–minor tonality. The second edition, which appeared as Praxis pietatis melica, contained a larger number of contemporary chorales including 15 by Gerhardt. (Later editions reflected changing tastes, and with the 44th, the Praxis pietatis melica became the most reprinted hymnbook in Protestant history.)
Apart from Crüger the most significant mid-17th-century melodists were his successor at the Nikolaikirche, J.G. Ebeling, who supplied further settings for Gerhardt’s texts including Warum sollt ich mich denn grämen (EG 370), and Rist’s principal collaborator, Johann Schop (i), who wrote the melodies for Sollt ich meinem Gott nicht singen? (EG 325), and Werde munter, mein Gemüte (EG 475).
The chorale reached its artistic maturity in the achievements of Gerhardt, Crüger and their contemporaries. In the late 17th century the genre began to be overdeveloped and to decline in quality; this situation was aggravated to some extent by such external conditions as increasing secularization, but more specifically by theological dissent within German Lutheranism between the Orthodox and the Pietists.
Pietism as a movement is officially dated from the publication in 1675 of Spener’s Pia desideria, but it was the natural outcome of the mysticism and religious emotionalism that had been increasing throughout the 17th century. The efforts of the Pietists to replace the formality of regular church services with private Bible classes and home devotions further transformed the character of the chorale and the hymnbook. By 1700 there were two types of hymnbook: one for the congregation, containing only texts (and the melodies of some new hymns), and the so-called ‘Choralbuch’ for the organist, containing melodies with figured basses and text incipits (the first of this kind was Daniel Speer’s Choral Gesang-Buch, Stuttgart, 1692).
The new Pietist repertory, which grew rapidly with the mass-production of new hymnbooks, placed renewed emphasis on the soul of the individual believer and the experiences of conversion and penitence. The passivity in the texts of the preceding period was replaced by vigorous utterances and strong contrasts, for example Jesu, meines Lebens Leben/Jesu, meines Todes Tod (EG 86); the chorales on death (Sterbelieder), which were numerous during the Thirty Years War, were replaced by combative hymns of faith (Kampflieder). For the first time eschatological topics from the Bible (e.g. the apocalypse) and christocratic theology had special prominence. Paradoxically the Pietists, reacting against traditional dogmatism in the cause of personal piety, made copious use of biblical allusions, and so effected a strong theologizing of the hymnbook. This partly explains why the most significant Pietist poets, Joachim Neander, the author of Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König (EG 317), and Gerhard Teerstegen (1697–1769), who were in fact the greatest chorale poets in the history of the German Reformed Church, were both Calvinists.
Of the numerous Pietist hymnbooks the most typical and influential were J.A. Freylinghausen’s Geistreiches Gesang-Buch (Halle, 1704) and his Neues geistreiches Gesang-Buch (Halle, 1714), which contained 815 texts and 158 melody–continuo settings. Like most late 17th-century hymn tunes, Freylinghausen’s are of two contrasting types. The first represents a retreat from the rhythmically differentiated pattern of the early and mid-17th-century chorales and a return to isometric melodies, but now – unlike those of the 16th century – with a strict and clearly defined metrical organization, as in Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan (EG 372) by Samuel Rodigast (1649–1708). The second, derived from the Italian Baroque aria by way of the contemporary German continuo lied, made extensive use of short connecting ornaments and stereotyped cadences and were frequently in a continuous dactylic metre. Common to both the isometric and the aria-style chorales is the predominance of a major-mode melodic model in which leaps of a 6th and 7th and cadential progressions from the fourth to the third degree are frequent, often contributing a sentimental and sensuous character symptomatic of the personal enthusiasm of the Pietist movement.
The influence of the Pietist or Freylinghausen style extended to Orthodox chorale poets and musicians, notably Benjamin Schmolck (1672–1737) as well as J.S. Bach’s librettists Salomo Franck and Erdmann Neumeister, who both wrote chorale poetry. Orthodox musicians included Bach himself, whose settings of Paul Gerhardt’s Ich steh an deiner Krippe hier (EG 37) and of Johannes Schröder’s Eins ist Not (EG 386) are still in use, Telemann, and his colleague J.B. König, who compiled the largest Choralbuch of the 18th century (the Harmonischer Lieder-Schatz, Frankfurt, 1738) and was the presumed composer of the popular melody of O dass ich tausend Zungen hätte (EG 330).
J.S. Bach’s significance for the chorale is not determined by the few original melodies he evidently contributed but rather by his appropriation of the chorale in an enormous variety of instrumental and vocal compositions. His four-part chorale harmonizations in particular, which mark the culmination of the Cantionalsatz tradition, may be the most important event in the history of the chorale since the Reformation, for they conveyed a sense of the greatness of the chorale heritage to later generations and helped to inspire and influence the restoration movement in the 19th century (see Chorale settings).
The philosophy of the Enlightenment affected religion in the second half of the 18th century as profoundly as it did secular institutions, and was in many ways the obverse of Pietism. It shared the Pietist emphasis on individual belief and also rejected traditional forms, but it substituted reason for the soul as the noblest human attribute and replaced the ideal of the pious man with that of the enlightened man. Enlightenment hymnbooks continued the Pietist arrangement according to categories of dogma such as the characteristics of God, the articles of faith, and so on, but the de tempore organization had by now been almost completely abandoned. The church service of this period centred on the moralizing sermon, and prayer was almost entirely eliminated. Older chorale texts were either rewritten or removed; the number of new hymns was greatly reduced, and the number of melodies was reduced even further, with many texts assigned to as few melodies as possible. Four-part harmonizations printed on two staves replaced arrangements for melody and continuo in organ chorale books as the role of organ accompaniment became more crucial. The increasing use of the organ in the church service from the end of the 17th century was accompanied by increasing slowness in the tempo of chorale performance; this reached its extreme when the pastor and theoretician K.W. Frantz (1773–1857) suggested a tempo of four seconds per melody note.
Apart from C.F. Gellert, whose Geistliche Oden und Lieder (1757) were set by many well-known composers of the late 18th century (notably and most extensively by C.P.E. Bach but also by Haydn, Quantz, Kirnberger and others), the only other important chorale poets of the Enlightenment were Klopstock and Matthias Claudius (1740–1815). The few melodies produced during the period adopt either the restrained pathos of the contemporary empfindsamer Stil or the equally prevalent style of folklike simplicity, as in J.A.P. Schulz’s setting of Claudius’s Der Mond ist aufgegangen (EG 482).
Although a number of new, mainly revivalist, chorales were produced during the 19th century, the most important contributions to chorale history were made by the new disciplines of hymnology and musicology. Research led to the restoration of much of the traditional liturgical structures and the reconstruction of the chorale heritage of the 16th and 17th centuries, and also initiated a movement to implement these restorative achievements by establishing an authoritative, uniform, German Protestant hymnbook. This work was stimulated by patriotic feeling engendered by the wars of independence during the first half of the century, and by the zeal of such individuals as Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860). By 1915 the first all-German hymnbook appeared with the title Deutsches Evangelisches Gesangbuch. It was superseded in 1950 by the Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch, which contained a central core of 394 chorales drawn from every historical period arranged according to the reconstructed liturgical categories followed by a variable regional appendix. Its few contemporary chorale texts (by Jochen Klepper (1903–42), Otto Riethmüller (1889–1938) and R.A. Schröder (1878–1962) and others) were mostly written during the revival of interest in the chorale in the 1930s and manifest a consciously traditionalist attempt to re-create not only the congregational tone and orientation of the Reformation chorale but frequently even to resurrect such 16th-century procedures as the transcription and adaptation of existing biblical and Latin hymn texts. The settings for these new texts, by Fritz Werner, Johannes Petzold (b 1912) and others, are similarly retrospective, occasionally introducing church modes and bar forms.
The 1950 hymnal was succeeded by the Evangelisches Gesangbuch in 1993. While retaining a significant basic corpus of the distinctive German chorale tradition, together with a representative selection of recently written texts and tunes, this hymnal breaks new ground by incorporating self-consciously ecumenical and wide-ranging international hymnody. Like its predecessor, EG offers a core repertory (535 numbered items, although some are subdivided to include as many as 14 individual pieces under one basic number) to which each regional church has appended its own supplement of additional hymns and liturgical pieces. While the newer hymn texts and melodies are thus presented within the context of the basic chorale tradition, it is an open question whether they can be designated ‘chorales’ in the same sense as in earlier Protestant hymnody.
Etlich cristlich Lider Lobgesang und Psalm (Nuremberg, 1523–4/R1957 as Das Achtliederbuch 1523/24)
Eyn Enchiridion oder Handbüchlein (Erfurt, 1524/R1929 and 1983 in Das Erfurter Enchiridion)
J. Walter: Geystliches Gesangk Buchleyn (Wittenberg, 1524, 2/1525/R1979 as Das geistliche Gesangbüchlein ‘Chorgesangbuch’)
J. Slüter: Eyn gantz schone unde seer nutte gesangk boek (Rostock, 1525/R1986 as Ein gar schönes und sehr nützliches Gesangbuch)
Etliche Christliche Gesenge und psalmen (Erfurt, 1525/R1929 and 1983 in Das Erfurter Enchiridion)
Eyn gesang Buchleyn/welche mann yetz und ynn Kirchen gebrauch ist (Zwickau, 1525/R1935 as Das älteste Zwichauer Gesangbuch von 1525)
M. Luther: Deudsche Messe (Wittenberg, 1526/R)
Enchiriridion [sic] geistlicher Gesenge und Psalmen (Zwickau, 1528/R)
Enchiridion geistlicher Gesenge und Psalmen (Leipzig, 1530/R1914 as Das erste Leipziger Gesangbuch)
M. Weisse: Ein new Geseng Buchlen (Jungbunzlau, 1531/R1931 and 1957 as Gesangbuch der Böhmischen Brüder 1531)
J. Klug: Geistliche Lieder auffs new gebessert (Wittenberg, 1533/R1954 and 1983 as Das Klug’sche Gesangbuch 1533)
Enchiridion geistliker Leder unde Psalmen (Magdeburg, 1535/R)
J. Zwick: Nüw Gsangbüchle (Zürich, 1540/R)
V. Babst: Geystliche Lieder (Leipzig, 1545/R1966 as Das Babstsche Gesangbuch von 1545)
L. Lossius: Psalmodia, hoc est, Cantica sacra veteris ecclesiae selecta (Nuremberg, 1553, 2/1561/R)
Les Pseauymes mis en rime francoise par Clement Marto, & Theodore de Beze (Geneva, 1562/R1986 as Les Psaumes en vers français avec leurs mélodies)
D. Vetter: Musicalische Kirch- und Hauss-Ergötzlichkeit (Leipzig, 1709–13/R)
G.P. Telemann: Fast allgemeines evangelisch-musikalisches Lieder-Buch (Hamburg, 1730/R)
G.C. Schemelli: Musicalisches Gesang-Buch (Leipzig, 1736/R) [music ed. J.S. Bach]
ZahnM
G. von Tucher, ed.: Schatz des evangelischen Kirchengesangs im ersten Jahrhundert der Reformation (Leipzig, 1848/R)
A. Knaap: Evangelischer Liederschatz (Stuttgart, 1850/R, many later enlarged edns)
P. Wackernagel: Bibliographie zur Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes im XVI. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1855/R)
P. Wackernagel: Das deutsche Kirchenlied von der ältesten Zeit bis zu Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1864–77/R)
F.M. Böhme, ed.: Altdeutsches Liederbuch: Volkslieder der Deutschen nach Wort und Weise aus dem 12 bis. zum 17. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1877/R)
A. Fischer: Kirchenlieder-Lexikon (Gotha, 1878–9/R)
W. Bäumker: Das katholische deutsche Kirchenlied in seinen Singweisen (Freiburg, 1883–1911/R)
S. Kümmerle: Encyklopädie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik (Gütersloh, 1888–95/R)
J. Julian, ed.: A Dictionary of Hymnology (London, 1892, 2/1907/R)
F. Zelle, ed.: Das erste evangelische Choralbuch (Osiander, 1586) (Berlin, 1903)
A. Fischer and W. Tümpel: Das deutsche evangelische Kirchenlied des 17. Jahrhunderts (Gütersloh, 1904–16/R)
J.T. Müller: Hymnologisches Handbuch zum Gesangbuch der Brüdergemeine (Gnadau, 1916/R)
W. Lucke and others, eds.: D. Martin Luthers Werke, xxxv: Die Lieder Luthers (Weimar, 1923/R)
K. Ameln, C. Mahrenholz and W. Thomas, eds.: Handbuch der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenmusik (Göttingen, 1932–)
Liber usualis with Introduction and Rubrics in English (Tournai, 1934/R)
Graduale Sacrosanctae romanae ecclesiae [Graduale romanum; GR] (Tournai, 1938)
Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch (Kassel, 1950)
O. Schröder, ed.: Sämtliche Werke [von] Johann Walter, i–iii (Kassel, 1953)
Jb für Liturgik und Hymnologie [JbLH] (1955–)
P. Pidoux: Le Psautier Huguenot du XVIe siècle, i–ii (Basle, 1962)
U.S. Leupold, ed.: Luther’s Works, liii: Liturgy and Hymns (Philadelphia, 1964)
K. Ameln, M. Jenny and W. Lipphardt, eds.: Das deutsche Kirchenlied, RISM, B/VIII/1–2 (Kassel, 1975–80)
M. Jenny, ed.: Luthers geistlicher Lieder und Kirchengesänge: vollständige Neuedition (Cologne and Vienna, 1985)
J. Stallmann and others, eds.: Das deutsche Kirchenlied, III: Gesamtausgabe der Melodien aus gedruckten Quellen (Kassel, 1993–)
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E.E. Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds und Kirchengesangs … insbesondere der deutschen evangelischen Kirche (Stuttgart, 1847, enlarged 3/1866 by R. Lauxmann)
J.F. Bachmann: Zur Geschichte der Berliner Gesangbücher: ein hymnologischer Beitrag (Berlin, 1856/R)
J. Bachmann: Geschichte des evangelischen Kirchengesanges in Mecklenburg (Rostock, 1881)
P. Wolfrum: Die Entstehung und erste Entwickelung des deutschen evangelischen Kirchenliedes in musikalischer Beziehung (Leipzig, 1890/R)
P. Dietz, ed.: Die Restauration des evangelischen Kirchenliedes (Marburg, 1903/R)
P. Graff: Geschichte der Auflösung der alten gottesdienstlichen Formen in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands, i (Göttingen, 1921, 2/1937); ii (1939)
W. Nelle: Geschichte des deutschen evangelischen Kirchenliedes (Hamburg, 1904, 4/1962)
A.W. Wilson: The Chorales: their Origin and Influence (London, 1920)
W. Hollweg: Geschichte der evangelischen Gesangbücher vom Niederrhien im 16.–18. Jahrhundert (Gütersloh, 1923/R)
K. Ameln: ‘Lateinischer Hymnus und deutsches Kirchenlied’, Musik und Kirche, vi (1934), 138–48
P. Gabriel: Das deutsche evangelische Kirchenlied (Leipzig, 1935, 3/1956)
R. Gerber: ‘Zu Luthers Liedweisen’, Festschrift Max Schneider zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. H.J. Zingel (Halle, 1935), 26–39
H.J. Moser: Die Melodien der Lutherlieder (Leipzig, 1935)
C. Mahrenholz: Das evangelische Kirchengesangbuch: ein Bericht über seine Vorgeschichte, sein Werden und die Grundsätze seiner Gestaltung (Kassel, 1950)
E. Liemohn: The Chorale through Four Hundred Years of Musical Development as a Congregational Hymn (Philadelphia, 1953)
H. Glahn: Melodistudier til den lutherske salmesangs historie, fra 1524 til ca. 1600 (Copenhagen, 1954)
H.J. Moser: Die evangelische Kirchenmusik in Deutschland (Berlin, 1954)
K. Ameln: ‘Das Achtliederbuch vom Jahre 1523/24’, JbLH, ii (1956), 89–91
S.H. Moore: Sursum Corda, being Studies of some German Hymn-Writers (London, 1956)
W. Blankenburg: ‘Geschichte der Melodien des Evangelischen Kirchengesangbuchs: ein Abriss’, Handbuch zum evangelischen Kirchengesangbuch, ed. C. Mahrenholz and O. Söhngen, ii/2 (Göttingen, 1957), 45–120
P. Gabriel: ‘Geschichte der Kirchenliedes: ein Abriss’, ibid., 5–44
I. Röbbelen: Theologie und Frömmigkeit im deutschen evangelische-lutherischen Gesangbuch des 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1957)
U. Aarburg: ‘Zu den Lutherliedern im jonischen Oktavraum’, JbLH, v (1960), 125–31
W. Blankenburg: ‘Der gottesdienstliche Liedgesang der Gemeinde’, Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen Gottesdienstes, ed. K.F. Müller and W. Blankenburg, iv (Kassel, 1961), 559–660
M. Jenny: Geschichte des deutschschweizerischen evangelischen Gesangbuches im 16. Jahrhunderts (Basle, 1962) [see also ‘Ergänzungen zur Liste der Zürcher Gesangbuchdrucke im Reformationsjahrhundert’, Zwingliana, xiii (1969), 132–43]
W. Reckziegel: Das Cantional von Johann Hermann Schein: seine geschichtlichen Grundlagen (Berlin, 1963)
K. Ameln: The Roots of German Hymnody of the Reformation Era (St Louis, 1964)
C. Bunners: Kirchenmusik und Seelenmusik: Studien zu Frömmigkeit und Musik im Luthertum des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1966)
G. Birkner: ‘Zur Chronologie und Abhängigkeit der ältesten Quellen des deutschen evangelischen Kirchenliedes’, JbLH, xii (1967), 118–40
J. Riedel: The Lutheran Chorale: its Basic Traditions (Minneapolis, 1967)
O. Bill: Das Frankfurter Gesangbuch von 1569 und seine späteren Ausgaben (Marburg, 1969)
J. Grimm: Das neu Leipziger Gesangbuch des Gottfried Vopelius (Leipzig 1682) (Berlin, 1969)
K. Ameln: ‘Das Klugsche Gesangbuch, Wittenberg 1529: Versuche einer Rekonstruktion’, JbLH, xvi (1971), 159–62
D. Wölfel: Nürnberger Gesangbuchgeschichte (1524–1791) (Nuremberg, 1971)
W. Blankenburg: ‘Johann Walters Chorgesanbuch von 1524 in hymnologischer Sicht’, JbLH, xviii (1973–4), 65–96
W. Lipphardt: Gesangbuchdrucke in Frankfurt am Main vor 1569 (Frankfurt, 1974)
R.A. Leaver: The Liturgy and Music: a Study of the Use of the Hymn in Two Liturgical Traditions (Bramcote, Notts., 1976)
K.C. Thust: Das Kirchen-Lied der Gegenwart (Göttingen, 1976)
D. Gojowy: ‘Kirchenlieder im Umkreis von J.S. Bach’, JbLH, xxii (1978), 79–123
E. Schmidt and others: Das künftige evangelische Kirchengesangbuch: Überlegungen zur Konzeption und Erarbeitung eines neuen Gesangbuches (Kassel, 1980)
G. Hahn: Evangelium als literarische Anweisung: zu Luthers Stellung in der Geschichte des deutschen kirchenlichen Liedes (Munich, 1981)
G. Bosinski: ‘Joachim Slüter und Luthers Gesangbuch von 1529’, Theologische Literaturzeitung, cviii (1983), 705–22
M. Jenny: ‘Luthers Gesangbuch’, Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546, ed. H. Junghans (Göttingen, 1983), 303–21, 825–32
C. Bunners: ‘Philipp Jakob Spener und Johann Crüger: ein Beitrag zur Hymnologie des Pietismus’, Theologische Versuche, xiv (1985), 105–30
M. Rössler: ‘Württembergische Gesangbuch-Geschichte zwischen Reformation und dem Dreissigjährigen Krieg’, Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, lxxxv (1985), 28–82
A. Dürr and W. Killy, eds.: Das protestantische Kirchenlied im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1986)
P. Veit: Das Kirchenlied in der Reformation Martin Luthers (Stuttgart, 1986)
R.A. Leaver: ‘“Then the Whole Congregation Sings”: the Sung Word in Reformation Worship’, Drew Gateway, lx (1990), 55–73
R.A. Leaver: ‘Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes’: English and Dutch Metrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove, 1535–1566 (Oxford, 1991)
R.A. Leaver: ‘The Chorale: Transcending Time and Culture’, Concordia Theological Quarterly, lvi (1993), 123–44
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