2. Origins and consolidation (1523–80).
3. Confessionalism and Orthodoxy (1580–1680).
4. Pietism and Enlightenment (1680–1800).
5. Restoration and conservation (1800–1914).
6. Rebirth and incorporation (after 1914).
ROBIN A. LEAVER
Lutheran church music is rooted in the flowering of Franco-Flemish polyphony during the later Renaissance. The contrapuntal techniques associated with cantus-firmus and Tenorlied compositions of this period were exploited by the composers writing for the emerging Lutheran Church.
Martin Luther’s protector Friedrich der Weise, Elector of Ernestine Saxony between 1486 and 1525, was an astute politician. On becoming Elector, Friedrich began the systematic development and consolidation of his political influence in Germany from his various residences, notably in Wittenberg and Torgau. After Maximilian I was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1493, this process was intensified when Friedrich pursued a political agenda that made him second only to Maximilian. Indeed, on the latter’s death in 1519, Friedrich der Weise was seen as the natural successor. In the event, Charles of Spain became the emperor, but Friedrich nevertheless continued to command a powerful political influence throughout the German states, especially since Charles was essentially an absentee ruler.
Saxony had been divided in 1485: Albertine Saxony in the south encompassed the ducal residence in Dresden and the university of Leipzig (founded 1409); Ernestine Saxony in the north was without a court of the stature of Dresden and had no university at all. Thus, Friedrich addressed both deficiencies. In 1502 he founded Wittenberg University, and his court chapel of All Saints effectively doubled as the university church. Modelled on the university of Tübingen, the new university was centred on theology, philosophy, law, medicine and the arts. Its professors, who generally favoured the new learning of humanism, included Luther, who arrived in the winter of 1508–09, and Philipp Melanchthon, who was appointed in 1517. During the same period Friedrich intensified and expanded the liturgical and musical traditions of his court chapels, especially in Wittenberg and Torgau, so that they rivalled Maximilian’s Hofkapelle. Between 1508 and 1520 the provision for music in the liturgy of the Schlosskirche, Wittenberg, increased twofold, from 40 singers and instrumentalists to 81. The polyphonic repertory sung at the daily Masses and Offices was extensive and included music by such prominent composers as Josquin, Isaac and Obrecht (Heidrich, 1993; Duffy, 1994). It was against this background that Luther, with others, created the environment that fostered the development of various forms of worship music in Wittenberg, and thus provided the foundation for the Lutheran tradition of liturgical music.
See also Luther, Martin.
This period is bounded by the Formula missae (1523), Luther’s first reform of the Mass, and the Formula concordiae (1577), the document that defined Lutheran confessional theology (published in German in the Konkordienbuch of 1580).
Lutheran church music, §2: Origins and consolidation (1523–80)
Luther’s liturgical reforms, which included both radical and conservative elements, preserved a continuity with existing liturgical music, while at the same time fostering new developments, particularly those related to the congregational chorale (see Choraleand associated articles). In the Latin Formula missae Luther retained the traditional structure of the Mass, including Ordinary and Propers, which continued to be performed either as plainchant or polyphonically (see Table 1). This meant that mass settings by Catholic composers were still sung in the new evangelical liturgy and that Lutheran composers wrote new settings of the traditional Ordinary. But the theology of the Mass was radically reinterpreted: Luther, instead of viewing the Eucharist as a ‘sacrificium’, that is, an offering to God, understood it as a ‘beneficium’, a gift from God. By removing all elements that spoke of sacrifice, he effectively eliminated the Offertory and most of the Canon. The Verba testamenti (Words of Institution) were retained, but Luther regarded them as proclamation, not prayer, and preferred that they be sung rather than remain, as in the Roman Canon, mostly inaudible. Towards the end of the Formula missae Luther expressed the desire for congregational German hymns to be sung after the gradual, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, although at this stage only the Leisen (older vernacular folk-hymns; see Leise) were available for such use.
Three years after the Formula missae Luther issued the Deutsche Messe (1526), designed for use by congregations in smaller towns and cities. Other evangelical masses in the vernacular had already appeared in print, such as those of Caspar Kantz (1522) and Thomas Müntzer (1523/4), but Luther’s was to have much the greatest influence. Music is fundamental to the Deutsche Messe – of its 39 pages following the preface, 31 include musical notation that frequently fills the page. For this Mass, Luther collaborated with two of Friedrich der Weise’s leading musicians, Conrad Rupsch, the aged Kapellmeister, and Johann Walter (i), Rupsch’s younger colleague and eventual successor. The structure, while generally following the traditional Mass, represents a simplification of the traditional order (see Table 1): a simple threefold Kyrie replaced the ninefold form of the Latin Mass; the alleluia, gradual, sequence, Sursum corda and Preface were omitted; the prose Credo was replaced by the credal hymn Wir glauben all an einen Gott; the Lord’s Prayer with its introductory ‘paraphrase’ was brought forward to appear in the position of the traditional Preface; the Sanctus was expanded within a vernacular form that included the biblical context of Isaiah vi, Jesaja dem Propheten das geschah, and moved to the distribution of Communion, where it became an optional item along with the German Agnus Dei. The other music of the Deutsche Messe included (in sequence): in place of the introit, either a prose psalm (sung to a psalm tone) or a hymn; a collect (tone 8); the Epistle (tone 8), chanted to specific melodic formulae; the hymn Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist, sung in place of the gradual (hence the term Graduallied); the Gospel (tone 6), chanted to its own melodic formulae modelled on the Holy Week Passion tones; the Verba testamenti, similarly sung to the Gospel melodic formulae (tone 6) (see Leaver, 1995); the German Sanctus, Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (Luther’s reworking of the Latin communion hymn attributed to Jan Hus), and the German Agnus Dei, sung as musica sub communione, that is, during the distribution of Communion.
Although the Deutsche Messe did not include a version of the Gloria in excelsis Deo, its use is confirmed by later practice. The omission from the Deutsche Messe in 1526 is almost certainly to be explained by the fact that the document was drawn up in December 1525, that is, during Advent, when the Gloria was customarily omitted. The vernacular translation by Nikolaus Decius, Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (1523), quickly became the hymnic version in universal use. The Deutsche Messe thus established the principle of congregational, hymnic alternatives to the traditional liturgical Ordinary. After the German version of the Kyrie fons bonitatis appeared in 1537, the following were the primary liturgical hymns: ..\Frames/F921689.htmlThese chorales formed the basis of much of the liturgical music of virtually every generation of Lutheran composers, encompassing a wide variety of genres and forms of choral, vocal, organ and other instrumental music, a notable example being the first group of chorales in part 3 of J.S. Bach’s Clavier-Übung (1739).
Luther’s two liturgical forms were not mutually exclusive; neither was the later vernacular order intended to replace the Latin evangelical Mass. Latin was actively encouraged in the churches of towns and cities where there were Latin schools and/or universities. A substantial part of Luther’s strategy for the consolidation of the reforming movement was in a specific educational programme. The pre-existing Latin schools were reformed, and basic evangelical theology was taught alongside subjects such as grammar, rhetoric and music, the last being given high priority. Both the theoretical and practical aspects of music were addressed, and the repertory that formed the basis of the teaching was also sung in the church to which the school was attached. The choir of school pupils (Kantorei), led by their music teacher (Kantor), who was also director of music in the church (see Rautenstrauch, 1907), sang the polyphonic liturgical music and led the congregation in singing the chorales. In this educational reform Luther provided the fundamental theology of music and Melanchthon the pedagogical principles and curricula; Johann Walter, who in 1529 became the first Lutheran Kantor in Torgau, composed much of the repertory; and Georg Rhau, in collaboration with Luther, Melanchthon and Walter, published a steady stream of music and music theory for church and school – 60 imprints appeared in the period 1528–48 (see Mattfield, 1966, appx III).
Many of the numerous Lutheran church orders of the 16th century were based on conflations of Luther’s two liturgies. The first part of the eucharistic rite (Hauptgottesdienst), the Ministry of the Word, in general approximated more closely to that of the Formula missae, being mostly in Latin, and the later part, the Ministry of the Sacrament, to that of the Deutsche Messe, being mostly in German. These macaronic liturgies frequently duplicated the Ordinary, whereby the German hymnic form, sung congregationally, would follow the Latin version sung by the choir. For example, Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr was sung after the Latin Gloria in excelsis Deo, or Wir glauben all an einen Gott after the Latin Credo. This admixture of Latin and German encouraged composers to integrate the texts and melodies of German hymns into their settings of both Ordinary and Proper, such as Christ ist erstanden, the Leise that Johannes Galliculus incorporated into the sequence and Agnus Dei of his Easter mass (published in Rhau’s Officia paschalia, 1539), and Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr interwoven within J.N. Bach’s concerted Gloria in excelsis Deo (1716).
An examination of the different liturgical elements, together with their associated liturgical music, of the morning eucharistic Hauptgottesdienst and the afternoon Vespergottesdienst, as commonly found in the Lutheran church orders of the 16th century, reveal the distinctive features of Lutheran church music that were developed in a variety of ways in subsequent centuries.
Traditional monodic chant continued in use, often with revised texts (in either Latin or German) and in melodic forms customarily sung in Germany (see Ameln, Mahrenholz and Thomas, 1933–74; Brodde, 1961; Mattfeld, 1966, appx IV). These chant forms were found either in locally prepared manuscript collections or in printed anthologies, such as Johann Spangenberg’s Cantiones ecclesiatica latinae … Kirchen Gesenge deutsch (1545, and later editions); Lucas Lossius’s Psalmodia, hoc est cantica sacra veteris ecclesiae selecta (1553, and later editions); and Johannes Keuchenthal’s Kirchen Gesenge latinisch und deudsch (1573).
Lutheran church music, §2: Origins and consolidation (1523–80)
The traditional introits (in Latin or German) for the principal Sundays and festivals of the church year and for a few (mostly biblical) saint’s days continued to be sung to the traditional chant melodies. But the practice was generally more flexible in the evangelical Mass than in the Roman Mass. On some Sundays and festivals in various towns and cities the introit could be replaced by a suitable Latin motet, usually with a biblical text, that announced the primary theme of the day or celebration. These motets were composed by local church musicians or could be found in the published works of various leading composers, such as Michael Praetorius and Heinrich Schütz, or in motet anthologies such as those edited by Erhard Bodenschatz and Melchior Vulpius.
At other times the introit was replaced by a hymn appropriate to the day or season, either Latin (sung by the choir) or German (sung by the congregation). In each case the singing was unaccompanied, the choir supporting the congregation when a German hymn was sung. Whether the service began with a traditional introit, a choral Latin hymn or a congregational German chorale, the singing was introduced by an improvised organ prelude, the primary purpose of which was to establish the pitch for the unaccompanied singing. In the case of a chorale, such ‘preluding’ by the organist would remind the congregation of the melody about to be sung. Thus the genre of Chorale prelude was established. At the end of the 16th century, organ accompaniment was introduced in order to improve the quality of congregational singing (see also §3 below).
Luther’s Formula missae had retained all the traditionally sung parts of the Ordinary; polyphonic settings thus continued to be sung in the early Lutheran Mass. The basic repertory was published by Rhau in Wittenberg: Opus decem missarum (1541) for Sundays, and Officia paschalia (1539) and Officiorum … de nativitate (1545) for the major festivals. Composers, who were mostly Catholic rather than Lutheran, included Johannes Galliculus, Henricus Isaac, Conrad Rein, Adam Rener, Johann Stahel and Thomas Stoltzer, and much of the repertory was heavily dependent on the partbooks compiled during the first two decades of the century for the ducal Kapelle in Wittenberg (see §1 above). Galliculus’s Easter mass (1539) consists of through-composed settings of introit, Kyrie, Gloria, alleluia, sequence (prosa), Gospel, Sanctus-Benedictus, Agnus Dei and communion. In some settings, only sections of the texts have music, implying an alternatims praxis of chant and polyphony, a practice that continued well into the 17th century. The gradual and Credo were omitted because these would have been sung as German congregational chorales (see below). Since the Sanctus and Agnus Dei were not necessarily sung at every celebration, a composed Lutheran mass came to mean settings of just the first two parts of the Ordinary that were customarily sung, the Kyrie and Gloria, being referred to as ‘missa,’ or simply ‘Kyrie’, later ‘missa brevis’. Many later Lutheran composers produced masses in which 16th-century polyphony was replaced by 17th-century concerted music with independent instrumental parts, a sequence that culminated in J.S. Bach’s large-scale Missa of 1733 (bwv232).
The traditional Latin graduals and sequences continued to be sung, at least on some Sundays and festivals. But, whether or not these Latin Propers were used, the congregation sang a vernacular chorale, a Graduallied, between the Epistle and Gospel. This was a de tempore hymn appropriate to the day or season, as is directed in both of Luther’s liturgical orders. The traditional alternatims praxis, in which plainchant alternated with polyphony, was here transmuted into an alternation between congregation and choir. The first stanza of the hymn was sung unaccompanied in unison, with the choir supporting the congregation. The second stanza was then sung by the choir, in a cantus firmus Chorale motet, and thus in alternation throughout the remainder of the hymn. The first collection of such polyphonic settings of chorale melodies was Johann Walter’s influential Geystliche gesangk Buchleyn (1524), the so-called Chorgesangbuch. Employing the twin models of the cantus-firmus technique of Franco-Flemish polyphony and the Tenorlied, especially the imitative style of Stoltzer and Senfl, Walter created a more concise form, with the congregational chorale melody rather than plainchant or secular song supplying the cantus firmus. With two exceptions, all Walter’s settings follow the established practice of placing the melody in the tenor, the other voices being treated in imitative counterpoint, although some settings are more homophonic. Walter issued later, expanded editions of his Chorgesangbuch, and other similar anthologies of chorale motets were also published, notably Rhau’s Newe deudsche geistliche Gesenge (1544). In such collections the form was further developed by numerous composers, including Sixt Dietrich, Benedictus Ducis, Johannes Eccard, Hans Leo Hassler, Leonhard Lechner, Caspar Othmayr, Melchior Vulpius and Michael Praetorius, among many others. With the passage of time, as what was to become the cantata began to evolve, the Graduallied tended to be sung by the congregation stanza after stanza, and the alternatims praxis, and thus the interchange of chorale motet and congregational unison, declined.
In the Valentin Bapst hymnal Geistliche Lieder (1545 and later editions), the last Gesangbuch to be supervised by Luther, 13 Graduallieder were given in sequence, covering the church year seasons from Advent to Trinity. Over the next generation more Graduallieder were written so that every Sunday and feast day had at least one appropriate hymn directly related to the Gospel of the day. In the manuscript church order of 1579 for Annaberg in Saxony, two hymns were assigned for each Sunday and celebration of the church year (Rautenstrauch, 1907, pp.171–6). Bartholomäus Gesius in his Geistliche deutsche Lieder … Welche durchs gantze Jar in der Christlichen Kirchen zu singen gebräuchlich (1601) assigned as many as three or four hymns for each day. The expansion of the church year hymn repertory continued throughout the 17th century and into the 18th (see Liliencron, 1893, pp.61–77; and Gojowy, 1978). The tendency was to use the oldest hymns as Graduallieder, the newer examples being sung elsewhere in the worship of the day. These church year hymns formed the basic corpus of Lutheran hymnody, and they occur repeatedly, together with their associated melodies, in a wide variety of choral, vocal and instrumental, and organ compositions, especially in the Chorale cantata that emerged during the 17th century.
Luther stressed the proclamatory role that music should have in the liturgy, and his followers developed the Latin formula ‘viva voce evangelii’ to express this understanding of music as the ‘living voice of the Gospel’. Luther therefore directed that biblical lections should continue to be sung, and in the Deutsche Messehe gave in detail the specific melodic formulae for the clergy to chant the Epistle and Gospel. This liturgical recitative continued in Lutheran worship generally until the 18th century, but the practice also gave rise to other genres closely related to the singing of the Gospel.
Rhau’s anthology Selectae harmoniae … de passione Domini (1538) included responsorial and motet Passions, together with other music for Holy Week, by such composers as Loyset Compère, Galliculus, Isaac, Antoine de Longueval (Obrecht according to Rhau), Senfl and Walter. The responsorial Passions of St Matthew and St John, attributed to Walter, were sung almost universally until well into the 18th century as, respectively, the Gospels for Palm Sunday and Good Friday. In his Officia (1539) and Officiorum (1545) Rhau included motet settings of the Gospels for the major festivals of Christmas, Circumcision and Easter by Galliculus, Johannes Lupi, Cristóbal de Morales and Balthasar Resinarius. A more extended collection appeared later as Evangelia dominicorum et festorum … continentis … historias … de nativitate, de epiphaniis, de resurrectione Jesu Christi (155410). Thus the ‘historia’ tradition was established within Lutheranism, whereby narrative accounts of the primary events in the life of Christ are expounded in significant musical settings. The greater part of this repertory consists in Passion settings, based on any one of the four Gospels or on conflated texts and poetic versions, by composers from the 16th century to the 20th, but there are also important musical treatments of Christ’s birth, notably by Schütz, J.S. Bach and Hugo Distler, among others, and of his resurrection and ascension.
Another outgrowth from polyphonic settings of the Gospels for the major festivals of the church year was the Gospel motet, or Spruchmotette (scripture-verse motet), a through-composed setting of the key verse or verses of the Sunday and festival Gospels. Lassus published 17 Gospel motets between 1556 and 1571, and complete cycles for the church year were issued by Sethus Calvisius (1594–9), Jacobus Handl (1586–90), Leonhard Paminger (1573–80) and Andreas Raselius (1594–5), thus establishing a particular genre that has been extensively employed by subsequent Lutheran composers from the 16th century to the 20th.
The Creed continued to be sung in Latin to the traditional plainchant melodies as well as in polyphonic settings, though not as regularly as in the Roman Mass. Virtually every generation of Lutheran composers produced through-composed settings of the Latin Credo, which was sung somewhat sparingly in contrast to the vernacular congregational credal chorale, Wir glauben all an einen Gott, which was always sung.
It became customary for one or two stanzas of an appropriate chorale, usually on the Word of God but sometimes reflecting the season of the church year, to be sung by the congegation while the preacher ascended the pulpit steps, preceded by the customary organ chorale prelude.
The liturgical dialogue leading to the Preface and Sanctus was sung only on principal days and major festivals of the church year. On other Sundays, following the sermon, the service proceeded directly to the Lord’s Prayer and the Verba testamenti. This liturgical sequence, beginning with the Sursum corda, might be sung in plainchant, or the liturgical dialogue might alternate chant and homophonic responses, leading to the Sanctus, which could be an extended polyphonic (later a concerted) setting. The Benedictus was not always sung. In some areas the tradition was that if the Sanctus was sung to a traditional plainchant melody, the Benedictus followed; if a polyphonic (or concerted) setting was sung, the Benedictus was omitted. Lutheran composers, therefore, commonly wrote independent settings of the Sanctus without necessarily including the Benedictus (e.g. J.S. Bach).
Following Luther’s liturgical directions, these words were to be sung by the Lutheran celebrant alone, but by the end of the 16th century some Lutheran composers (e.g. Michael Praetorius and Schütz) produced motets of this liturgical text. Whether such motets were intended to be sung at this juncture (on behalf of a non-musical celebrant), as musica sub communione (see next), or at Vespers when these words (which, according to Luther’s Small Catechism, had to be memorized by all) were taught as part of the catechism (see below), remains unclear.
In his Deutsche Messe Luther commended the practice of music during the distribution of Communion: congregational chorales either with a specific eucharistic content or appropriate to the celebration or season. According to custom these chorals were introduced by organ chorale preludes, which did not need to be as concise as elsewhere in the service, since the distribution took some time to be completed, especially at major festivals. It is likely that the development of the organ genres of Chorale partita and Chorale variations was influenced by the need for extended music during the distribution of Communion. Luther also directed that his German Sanctus and Agnus Dei (Jesaja dem Propheten das geschah and Christe, du Lamm Gottes) could also be sung during the distribution. What in the Deutsche Messe was considered to be wholly congregational quickly became an alternation between organ and congregation or between congregation and choir. Thus, after the congregation had sung an appropriate chorale and before it sang another, the choir might sing a setting of Jesaja dem Propheten das geschah or of Psalm cxi, which Luther included as a communion psalm in the Wittenberg hymnal (Joseph Klug’s Geistliche Lieder, 1529, 2/1533/R). But the choir might equally sing during the distribution a through-composed setting of the Latin Sanctus or Agnus Dei, or else an appropriate motet. In time, with the evolution of the cantata form, musica sub communione became another opportunity for concerted music of a devotional nature.
The Benediction was followed by a congregational response, Gott sei uns gnädig (from Psalm lxvii), sung to the tonus peregrinus. Afterwards three chorales, whose melodies were thematically related, were customarily sung, either by the congregation or by the choir, or by both in combination: Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich, Gib unserm Fürsten und aller Obrigkeit and Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort. Numerous settings of these chorales, especially Verleih uns Frieden, can be found from all periods, notably by Walter, Michael Praetorius, Schütz, J.S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn and Distler, among many others.
Lutheran church music, §2: Origins and consolidation (1523–80)
This service was very similar to the pre-Reformation daily Office of Vespers. For example, the Saxon Agenda (1539/40) gave the following description of the order for use on Saturdays, Sundays and feasts:
Vespers shall be held at the usual time after midday; the [school]boys shall sing one, two or three Psalms with the antiphon of the Sunday or feast, and thereafter a Responsory or [Latin] hymn, where a pure one is available. Afterwards let a boy read a lesson from the New Testament. After the lesson the Magnificat is sung with an antiphon of the Sunday or feast, and ending with the collects and Benedicamus.
Although this basic structure was normative, in practice it was subject to a wide flexibility of use, especially with regard to music (see Leaver, 1990).
The beginning of the vesper service gave primary place to the psalms, which, until the 18th century, were customarily sung to all eight plainchant psalm tones. However, on feastdays and special celebrations in particular, an extended psalm motet would replace the chanted psalmody. Depending on local traditions, the text of these settings could be either Latin or German, and an extended repertory of such settings was built up over the generations, beginning with the psalm motets of Walter and Stoltzer in the 16th century, reaching a particular zenith in Schütz’s Psalmen Davids (1619) and continuing through subsequent periods to the present day.
Traditional chant responsories continued to be sung but usually only on major feasts and their eves. Polyphonic settings were also sung, or the responsory was replaced by an appropriate hymn or motet of the day or season.
In the 16th century an appropriate hymn might be sung in a variety of ways: the choir could sing a polyphonic setting of the stanzas of a Latin hymn in alternation with the organ; or the choir could alternate with the congregation, the former singing the stanzas in Latin and the latter singing the equivalent stanzas in German. There was also the possibility, at varying points of the service, of singing a de tempore German chorale of the day in the same way that the Graduallied was sung at the morning Hauptgottesdienst, that is, an alternatims praxis of congregational unison and choral polyphony.
The lesson was usually the Epistle of the day, and the teaching of the catechism (at Sunday Vespers, as well as on some weekdays) might immediately follow it, or be placed after the sermon. Luther’s catechisms were generally divided into six main sections, each one with an associated hymn by Luther. ..\Frames/F921690.htmlAs with hymnic versions of the Mass Ordinary, the melodies associated with these hymns formed the basis for many congregational, choral and organ settings by numerous Lutheran composers. The notable example is the second chorale group of Bach’s Clavier-Übung part 3 (1739), which is made up of two complete cycles of organ chorale preludes on these catechism chorales: one of settings for manuals alone and the other for manuals and pedal, corresponding to Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms. But composers also wrote through-composed ‘catechism’ music that was unrelated to these catechism chorales, such as Matthaeus Le Maistre’s Catechesis numeris musicis inclusa (1559). Thus the teaching of the catechism might be followed by the singing of an appropriate catechism chorale or motet, or by organ music.
Usually the same as that sung at the morning service.
Following the sermon the Magnificat was sung, either in Latin by the choir or in German by the congregation: Meine Seele erhebt den Herren, a prose text sung to the the tonus peregrinus. The Latin Magnificat continued to be sung in settings that alternated polyphony and chant, in all eight tones and with appropriate antiphons. This gave rise to Magnificat settings for organ in each of these tones, a genre that continued to be composed into the 18th century. Alternation of chant and polyphony gave way to through-composed and concerted settings in the 17th century. In his Latin Magnificat quinti toni Galliculus incorporated vernacular Christmas songs, such as Lieber Joseph, into the texture of his polyphony. Later composers, such as Michael Praetorius, Johann Kuhnau and J.S. Bach, introduced ‘chorale interpolations’ into the text of the canticle as separate movements for use at Christmas Vespers.
This could be sung in simple chant or chorally, and might be followed or replaced by the Benediction and Benediction response as sung at the morning service. Similarly, the three related chorales sung at the end of the Hauptgottesdienst were also frequently sung at the end of the Vespergottesdienst.
Walter included many vesper compositions in the various editions of his Chorgesangbuch, and Rhau, as he had done for the evangelical Mass, provided a significant corpus of music for evangelical Vespers: Vesperarum precum officia (1540) comprised complete choral settings for weekly Vespers; Sacrorum hymnorum(1542), polyphonic settings of Latin hymns; Postremum vespertini officii (1544), Magnificat settings in all eight tones; and additional collections of vesper music by Dietrich and Resinarius.
The generation after Luther was characterized by internal theological conflict. The issues were ultimately resolved by the Formula concordiae (1577). The content of Lutheran confessionalism was defined by the anthology of documents entitled Concordia (1580), usually known in English as the Book of Concord. As well as the three historic creeds and Luther’s two Catechisms, the Book of Concord included the Augsburg Confession (1530), which defined Lutheranism as against Roman Catholicism, and the Formula concordiae, which established the essence of Lutheran faith in contrast to the alternatives proposed by some of its own theologians. Calvinism was only cursorily addressed, but the growing influence of the Reformed faith in Germany necessitated the Wittenberg Visitation Articles of 1592, which delineated Lutheranism in contradistinction to Calvinism. Thereafter these visitation articles were usually appended to the Book of Concord. Before being confirmed in church appointments both clergy and musicians had to give formal and written assent to the detailed confessional content of the Book of Concord.
Although Lutheran Orthodoxy was thus established, theological debate continued and became increasingly polemical and polarized. Part of the debate, which materially affected the music of the church, concerned ‘adiaphora’. The term was employed to distinguish ‘things indifferent’ from those that were essential for salvation. Worship forms and ceremonial, including music, came within the purview of ‘adiaphora’. For Orthodoxy, worship forms and their music, while being included among the ‘adiaphora’, could not be considered as peripheral matters of little consequence. On the contrary, Lutheran liturgical forms and practices, along with their musical elements, epitomized the practical outworking of specific Lutheran theology.
Following the lead of Luther, Walter and Rhau in Wittenberg, later Lutheran Orthodox clergy and musicians promoted the use of a wide range of vocal, organ and concerted music in worship. In particular, the Italian concertato style was embraced and explored by such composers as Hassler, Schütz and Michael Praetorius, among others, and organ versets, which substituted for the choir in the alternation singing of hymns and canticles (especially the Magnificat), were developed by Hieronymus Praetorius, Heinrich Scheidemann, Samuel Scheidt and others. By the early 17th century the features of the Baroque organ were fully developed and Scheidt contributed significantly to the establishment of idiomatic liturgical organ music, much of it chorale-based, for the Lutheran Church. The increased use of basso continuo, the ‘affective’ monodic principle and the use of independent instrumental parts led to the transmutation of the chorale motet into the chorale concertato, which consisted of brief, varied movements and instrumental ritornellos. But this new ‘seconda pratica’ did not displace the older contrapuntal ‘prima pratica’ style of Latin and German motets, which, as the contents of the widely circulated anthologies of Bodenschatz, Vulpius and Abraham Schadaeus exemplify, continued to be composed and sung. By the second decade of the 17th century the composition of settings of the Latin Ordinary was commonly restricted to the Kyrie and Gloria of the Lutheran Missa, although these sometimes appeared in German translation, such as Michael Praetorius’s Missa, gantz Teudsch (Polyhymnia, 1619).
The Thirty Years War had a devastating effect on the musical life of Germany. The large-scale polychoralism of the earlier part of the 17th century was forced to give way to smaller-scale forms, a distinct contrast in style that is apparent when Schütz’s Psalmen Davids (1619) are compared with his Kleine geistliche Concerte (1636, 1639). The war also led to an internalizing of spirituality, a process reflected in the hymnody of Paul Gerhardt, Johannes Crüger, and J.G. Ebeling, as well as in the more intimate musical forms composed by Schütz, J.H. Schein, Andreas Hammerschmidt, W.C. Briegel and others who contributed significantly to the development of the cantata form at the end of the century and also influenced the later Pietist desire for musical simplicity (see §4).
While the music of Orthodoxy was self-consciously Lutheran, it was not without Calvinist influences. In 1573 Ambrosius Lobwasser published his German metrical psalms with French-Genevan tunes. Although Lutheran suspicion of Calvinist ‘heresies’ led to the censure of the Lobwasser texts and the encouragement of ‘Lutheran’ metrical psalms, principally those of Cornelius Becker (1602), many of the Genevan tunes were taken over into the Lutheran chorale tradition. These tunes also provided composers such as Crüger in the middle of the 17th century with a compositional model. Calvinist influence is also to be found in the simple note-against-note homophony of Lutheran cantional style, which owes much to the Genevan psalm settings by Loys Bourgeois and Claude Goudimel, among others, and was established in Lutheran Germany by Lucas Osiander (court preacher in Stuttgart, one of the theological architects of the Formula concordiae, and also an accomplished musician) in his Fünfftzig geistliche Lieder und Psalmen mit vier Stimmen … für die Schulen und Kirchen (1586). Osiander’s purpose was to improve the quality of the singing of school choirs by replacing the contrapuntal settings of the previous generation with this simpler style, a feature of which is the placing of the choral melody in the upper voice part rather than in the tenor. In the Hamburg Melodyen Gesangbuch of 1604, the cantional-style settings by Heinrich Scheidemann, Joachim Decker and Hieronymus and Jacob Praetorius (ii) were, according to the preface, also suitable for the accompaniment of congregational singing. This style, therefore, though originally choral, became the norm for the organ accompaniment of congregational chorales, especially in smaller churches without choirs. Important anthologies of cantional settings include those of Eccard (1597), Hassler (1608), Michael Praetorius (Musae Sioniae, vi–viii, 1609–10), Schein (1627), Schütz (1628, 3/1661) and Gottfried Vopelius (1682).
German Lutheran Pietism of the later 17th century was strongly influenced by Calvinism in general and by English Puritanism in particular. The translation of Lewis Bayley’s Practice of Piety into German earlier in the century was particularly important, as was the internalization of spirituality occasioned by the Thirty Years War. Devotional books by German authors, such as Johannes Gerhard’s Mediationes sacrae (1606) and Johann Arndt’s Wahres Christenthum (1606–09), stressed the need for inner spirituality to complement outward conformity to orthodoxy. Crypto-Calvinists within Lutheranism went further to suggest that outward liturgical forms, together with elaborate music, should be eliminated. If such things were genuinely ‘adiaphora’, it was argued, then they could and should be dispensed with. The result of such criticism led Orthodox churchmen to be somewhat circumspect about their views of music in worship, while making no substantial concession to Calvinist demands. Thus the printed sermons of Christoph Frick (1631), Conrad Dietrich (1632), J.C. Dannhauer (1642) and Martin Geier (1672) avowed that formality in worship and its music is inadequate if not accompanied by internal spiritual commitment.
But in his Wächterstimmen (1661), the Rostock theologian Theophilus Grossgebauer argued on theological grounds for the elimination of virtually all music that was not effectively congregational. This was substantially the Calvinist position. Grossgebauer was answered by Hector Mithobius, also from Rostock, in his Psalmodia christiana (1665), who expounded the Orthodox Lutheran understanding of the place and purpose of ‘figural’ music in worship. Other Rostock theologians, such as Joachim Lütkemann and Heinrich Müller, were also somewhat critical of liturgical music but, unlike Grossgebauer, argued from within confessional Lutheranism. In his sermons Müller promoted a mystical spirituality, without which, he claimed, worship was merely an outward duty instead of the expression of inward desire. He also edited a hymnal, Geistliche Seelenmusik (1659), in which the texts of older hymns were revised and the newer texts, particularly his own, exhibited an intense subjectivity; the melodies, around a third of them the compositions of Nikolaus Hasse, established the freer style developed by the later Pietists (see Bunners, 1966).
Arndt, Gerhardt, Müller and others have to be regarded as pre-Pietists, since the movement cannot be said to have begun until the 1680s, following the publication of P.J. Spener’s Pia desideria, originally written as an introduction to Arndt’s Wahres Christenthum in 1675. Spener promoted a programme of spiritual reform based on private devotional meetings for prayer and bible study (collegia pietatis). Spener’s booklet was widely circulated and became the manifesto of Lutheran Pietism. Spener’s successor as the leader of the movement, A.H. Francke, was more radical than his mentor and maintained that Luther had not gone far enough in his Reformation. The primary difference between Orthodoxy and Pietism within Lutheranism was essentially ecclesiological rather than a question of the nature and content of devotional life. Pietists did not have a monopoly on piety; many of the Orthodox, such as Erdmann Neumeister, could express warm devotional sentiments in their sermons, hymns and other poetry, very similar to the imagery favoured by the Pietists. But the Pietists deviated from Orthodoxy on the nature and function of the Church. They argued that the real Church was to be found in the collegia pietatis and that public worship should become more like the informal worship of these private gatherings. Elaborate liturgical forms, therefore, should be greatly simplified and church music confined to hymns in a freer, more intimate style, with modest organ accompaniment. In the early 18th-century there was much Pietist criticism of concerted church music, especially the reform cantata promoted by Neumeister, which incorporated secco recitative and da capo aria, both self-consciously borrowed from opera, a practice that Pietists dismissed as inappropriate ‘theatralische Kirchen-Musik’ (see Heidrich, 1995).
In spite of the acrimonious debates between Orthodox and Pietist proponents over theology, ecclesiology, worship practice and the nature of church music, the spirituality of both was nevertheless expressed in similar terms. For example, the music of Buxtehude shows traces of Pietist influence, and the important and widely used Pietist hymnal edited by J.A. Freylinghausen, Geistreiches Gesang-Buch (1704; censured by the Orthodox Wittenberg theological faculty in 1716), included some hymn texts written by the Orthodox Neumeister. Similarly, many of the melodies that J.S. Bach edited (bwv439–507) for G.C. Schemelli’s Musicalisches Gesangbuch (1736) – essentially an Orthodox hymnal – were either taken from the Freylinghausen Gesang-Buch or composed in a similar style.
The rationalism of the Enlightenment paralleled Pietism in its effect on Lutheran worship life and its music. Elaborate music and highly developed liturgical ceremonial were considered to be remnants of an earlier unenlightened period and should therefore be substantially simplified, if not abolished. During the second half of the 18th century worship was reduced to a simple structure of hymns, readings, prayers and moralistic preaching; the sacraments were undervalued; and the music of worship was reduced to the singing of rationalized hymn texts to melodies composed in or revised to conform to a galant style. After its climax in the works of Bach, Lutheran church music thus declined, and its more significant compositions were mostly the extra-liturgical oratorio with its Italian operatic influences. The generation of C.H. Graun, J.F. Doles, C.P.E. Bach and J.A. Hiller produced religious music reflecting polite church-going society in contrast to the specifically liturgical and confessional music of previous generations.
The 300th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses (1517–1817) gave rise to the beginnings of a restoration movement that countered the effects of both Pietism and the Enlightenment on the theology and practice of the Lutheran Church. In his Von dem Wort und dem Kirchenliede (Bonn, 1819/R) E.M. Arndt called for the texts of the old hymns to be restored to their original forms. Although Arndt’s agenda was concerned with texts, others saw that his arguments also applied to hymn melodies. But the restoration also involved liturgy and church music as well as hymnody. Berlin was in the forefront of this restoration movement, with the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher assuming a leadership role and Romanticism supplying its ethos. In 1829 a new liturgical Agenda for the area was issued in Berlin, a revision of the Berlin cathedral liturgy of 1822, which was one of the earliest attempts at a restoration of liturgical form and content. In the 1822 Agenda the supplement of liturgical music was scored for TTBB, but in 1829 it was arranged for SATB. The same year (1829) a new hymnal, influenced by Arndt’s views, was published as Gesangbuch zum Gottesdienstlichen Gebrauch, and the following year A.W. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn’s organ-teacher, published his Choralbuch (1830) containing organ settings for use with the new hymnal. Many of Mendelssohn’s specific church compositions were written for the choir of Berlin Cathedral around this time.
But the Prussian Church, centred in Berlin, was in the process of becoming a union Church, incorporating both Lutheran and Reformed (Calvinist) congregations. To confessional Lutherans such unionism compromised their theology and worship in general and their music and hymnody in particular. Confessional Lutherans either moved to specifically Lutheran areas or founded Lutheran churches independent of the state; some emigrated to the USA. In Bavaria Wilhelm Löhe argued for a raising of liturgical standards within the Lutheran Church and, with American Lutherans in mind, published Agenda für christliche Gemeinden des lutherischen Bekenntnisses (1844), a complete set of liturgical forms taken largely from 16th-century sources, with liturgical chant edited by Friedrich Layriz. Layriz was a pioneer in advocating the abandonment of the later isometric forms of chorale melodies in favour of their original rhythmic versions. He published his collection of 16th- and 17th-century melodies in 1839; this was expanded in later editions and was reprinted in the USA in the 1880s. The work of Layriz and others led to the publication of Deutsches evangelisches Kirchen-Gesangbuch: in 150 Kernliedern (1854), a collection of the primary chorales of Lutheranism (both texts and music), given in their original forms, intended as a resource for hymnal editors. The voluminous riches of Lutheran hymnody were thoroughly researched in substantial reference works and issued in definitive editions (Knapp, 1850, 4/1891; Wackernagel 1855/R, 1864–77/R; Fischer 1878–86/R; Zahn, 1889–93/R; Fischer and Tümpel, 1904–16/R). Many of the 16th-century church orders (which not only included liturgical forms but also other material such as prescriptions concerning the duties of organists and church musicians) were republished (Richter, 1846/R), as well as an extensive anthology of liturgical music, mostly edited from early Lutheran sources (Schoeberlein, 1865–72/R). Lutheran church music was the subject of extensive study (e.g. Winterfeld, 1843–7/R; Kümmerle, 1888–95/R; Liliencron, 1893/R), and a succession of collected works of Lutheran composers began to be published, for example, J.S. Bach (in 1851), Handel (in 1858), Schütz (in 1885) and Schein (in 1901). The publication of the music of Bach, together with Spitta’s monumental biographical study of the composer, had a significant impact on the later decades of the century. Nevertheless, even though Bach and Schütz were promoted as models for Lutheran church musicians, much of the music heard in many churches during the later 19th century reflected the successive Romanticism of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Herzogenberg and Reger. There is a certain irony in the fact that none of these composers was in the mainstream of Lutheran church music reform: they were, respectively, a converted Jew, an agnostic and two Catholics. Further Catholic influence on Lutheran church music in the later 19th century was the Palestrina style, brought into prominence by the Cecilian movement.
During the 20th century a re-evaluation of the scriptures and the liturgy, together with a renewed interest in the life and theology of Luther, prompted a revival of liturgical worship and its music. The characterization of the ‘rebirth’ of church music in the early years of the century was coined by Söhngen (1953). This rebirth arose from the new awareness of Lutheran liturgical music traditions that had been fostered during the second half of the previous century. But it was also part of a multi-faceted renewal that included the singing movement (Singbewegung), the amateur music-making movement (Laienspielbewegung), the organ renewal movement (Orgelbewegung), the Bach movement, especially the influence of Karl Straube in Leipzig, the new theological climate ushered in by Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans (1918), the ecclesiastical movement for liturgical renewal that was fostered by a new critical and comprehensive anthology of 16th-century Lutheran church orders (Sehling, 1902–13), and the founding of the liturgically-orientated Michaelsbruderschaft (1931), whose influence continued for much of the remainder of the century.
A new hymnal, Deutsches evangelisches Gesangbuch (DEG), was published in 1915, the first to be designed for use by all the territorial churches (Landeskirchen), replacing the many regional and local hymnals that had been customary in earlier generations. In the years following, each Landeskirche issued its own edition of the basic anthology of Lutheran hymns, together with its own supplement of additional hymns and liturgical pieces. A new set of regional supplements to DEG were published in about 1930, the 400th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession (1530). Most of the texts and tunes were of the older, classic hymns from the 16th to the 18th centuries, with some examples of 19th-century German hymnody. However, some new chorale melodies were beginning to be composed, for example, H.F. Micheelsen’s Neue Gemeindelieder (1938).
Schöberlein’s treasury of liturgical music (1865–72) was reprinted in 1928; work began on its replacement, a new critical and practical anthology (Ameln, Mahrenholz and Thomas, 1933–); and important studies were issued (e.g. Gosslau, 1933; Leupold, 1933; Kempff, 1937).
In choral church music there was a distinct reaction against Romanticism. Pre-19th-century compositions were commended both as music to be performed liturgically and also as models for contemporary composition. New collected editions of the works of Lutheran composers were begun during this period, for example, Vincent Lübeck (in 1921), Scheidt (1923), Buxtehude (1925), Michael Praetorius (in 1928) and Johann Walter (1941). The influential journal Musik und Kirche was founded in 1928, Blume’s seminal history of Lutheran church music first appeared in 1931 and Moser’s larger study of Schütz was published in 1936. New directions in composition for the Church were signalled in Kurt Thomas’s Mass in A minor (op.1), heard for the first time sung by the Thomanerchor in Leipzig under the direction of Straube in 1925. Notable composers of this period include J.N. David, Hugo Distler, Karl Marx, Arnold Mendelssohn, Günter Raphäel, Ernst Pepping, Johannes Petzold and Hermann Stern, whose works reflected the music of the past while exploring 20th-century techniques and employed biblical, liturgical and chorale texts (see Distler, 1935). Some of the Landeskirchen founded church-music schools that offered systematic study of the theory and practice of church music, preparing candidates for the ministry of music in the individual churches: these schools include Aschersleben (1926), later moved to Halle; Spandau (c1927); Heidelberg (1931) and Hamburg (1938) (see Blankenburg, 1968). In addition to local church choirs, a marked feature of German Lutheran church music is the widespread use of Posaunenchöre (trombone choirs), a tradition that has its roots in the old custom of using municipal musicians for church music, although in the modern manifestation such groups are amateur rather than professional.
With the rise of National Socialism and the dominance of the Landeskirchen by the Nazi ‘Deutschen Christen’, Lutheran church music during the 1930s was deflected into a heavily nationalistic and anti-Semitic mode. The DEG was criticized for its inclusion of Semitic vocabulary, and from the mid-1930s other hymnals with titles such as Gesangbuch der kommenden Kirche were published, from which Hebraisms (‘Alleluia’, ‘Amen’, ‘Sabaoth’ etc.) had been expunged and whose texts manifested a pronounced ‘Vaterland’ vocabulary and imagery.
The immediate postwar period in Germany was one of restoration, rebuilding and recovery of what had been lost or disfigured between 1933 and 1945 (see Söhngen, 1954; Prolingheuer, 1989; Riethmüller, 1989; Krieg, 1990). In many respects this was a process of reconstitution of what had begun before the rise of the Third Reich, though now hampered by the existence of two German nations. New church-music schools were founded by those Landeskirchen that had not created such institutions during the inter-war years, for example, Griefswald and Hanover (1945), Görlitz and Schleuchtern (1947), Bayreuth (1948), later in Erlangen, Esslingen (1948), Frankfurt am Main, Herford, Dresden and Düsseldorf (1949), and Eisenach (1950). In 1948 the territorial churches came together to form the Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutheranische Kirche Deutschlands (VELKD). A new hymnal, Das evangelische Kirchengesangbuch (EKG), was published in 1950. Like the DEG it replaced, the EKG provided a basic corpus of hymnody to which each Landeskirche added its own supplement. Similarly, the EKG was also a conservative collection of hymnody, with over 90% of its content dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. The EKG was followed by new liturgical forms issued by the VELKD in 1955.
The postwar years saw many new publications: the journals Der Kirchenmusiker (1950–) and Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie (1955–); Moser’s expansive study of Lutheran church music (1953); new collected editions, replacing the earlier ones, of the works of J.S. Bach (1954–) and Schütz (1955–); the Walter edition that had foundered during the war years (1953–); and entirely new editions of the works of Telemann (1950–), Leonhard Lechner (1956–), and the music publications of Georg Rhau (1955–). There was much discussion of and experimentation in new music (see Böhm, 1959; Blume, 1960; Scheytt, 1960; Blankenburg, Hoffmann and Hübner, 1968; Söhngen, 1978 and 1981). Among the new composers were those who had studied with Straube, Pepping and Distler, such as Jan Bender (who later spent some years in the USA), Günther Ramin, and Siegfried Reda. Others were H.W. Zimmermann, who was influenced by jazz idioms, Wolfgang Fortner, who developed a neo-classical style, and P.E. Ruppel, who drew inspiration from black American spirituals. Anthologies of choral music were issued for practical use, such as Das Wochenlied (1951), mostly 3- and 4-part settings of the primary church year hymns edited by Philipp Reich, which not only included compositions from earlier periods but also newly commissioned pieces by such composers as F.M. Beyer, Walter Kraft, Konrad Voppel and Friedrich Zipp. On the other hand, the Chorgesangbuch (1975) for one to five voices, edited by Richard Gölz, consisted almost entirely of 16th- and 17th-century settings. Those who held important church music positions, such as the brothers Erhard and Rudolf Mauersberger – respectively directors of the Thomanerchor, Leipzig, and the Kreuzchor, Dresden – influenced the repertory of churches in other cities and towns.
From the 1950s the influence of the Kirchentag, a lay church congress held every few years, promoted a newer, freer style of church music and hymnody that contrasted with mainstream Lutheran church music. Ecumenical and international contacts have similarly augmented the German Lutheran tradition, reflected in the new liturgical Agenda (1990) and the new hymnal Evangelisches Gesangbuch (EG) of 1993. Unlike its predecessor (EKG), EG includes a significant proportion of hymnody and liturgical music from non-German sources, for example, from England, most central European (as well as some East European) countries, Nordic countries, Israel, USA, Latin America, Africa and Asia. As with other church music traditions at the end of the 20th century, an increasing proportion of the music heard in individual congregations is representative of worldwide Christianity.
The development of church music in the Lutheran churches of Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Finland) paralleled that of Germany between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Chapels Royal in Copenhagen and Stockholm were particularly influential, especially in the latter part of the 17th century, when Andreas and Gustaf Düben, father and son, performed in Stockholm works by many leading German and Italian composers. Both Schütz and Buxtehude spent some time working within the Danish kingdom.
Claus Mortensen issued a Danish Mass and hymnal in 1528, and Olaus Petri published Swedish hymns in 1526 (with at least four further, enlarged editions by 1546) and a Swedish Mass (influenced mostly by Luther’s Formula missae rather than his Deutsche Messe) in 1531. Both Danish and Swedish practice involved the continued use of Gregorian chant forms and congregational hymnody modelled on the German chorale, although some of the tunes were adapted from Danish and Swedish folksongs. Hans Thomissøn’s Den danske Psalmebog (1569; eight further editions by 1634), a collection often described as the greatest achievement in the history of Danish church music, contained liturgical music as well as hymnody; and Niels Jesperssøn’s Gradual: en almindelig sangbog (1573, 1606, 1637), the Danish equivalent of Lucas Lossius’s Psalmodia (1553), provided chant forms for the Propers of the church year. Similarly Laurentius Petri’s revisions of the Swedish Mass (1541–57), incorporated into Den svenska kyrkoordningen (1571), called for the continued use of liturgical music. Later Danish hymnals that had a continuing influence were those associated with Thomas Kingo (from 1683) and H.A. Brorson (from 1739). Swedish hymnody of the 18th century was dominated by Then swenska psalmboken (1695), whose Koralbok (1697) was a carefully edited production, each melody being supplied with figured bass. The foremost Nordic composer of church music in the 18th century was the Swedish J.H. Roman.
The remarkable Piae cantiones (1582) edited by Theodoricus Petri Nylandensis, a Finnish student at Rostock University, does not fit conveniently into any category, and yet it was one of Scandinavia’s most influential collections of music. It included plainchant hymns, medieval carols, student songs and a few rudimentary polyphonic settings and was widely known throughout most of Finland and Sweden for over 200 years.
The use of Latin and Gregorian chant was abandoned in Denmark by the end of the 17th century, and somewhat later in Sweden and Finland. The influence of Pietism touched most of the Nordic countries in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially Sweden, as is witnessed in the many manuscript chorale books in which the Pietistic texts are set to ornamented variants of earlier tunes and a wide selection of folk melodies. By 1800 simpler, isometric forms had become the norm in chorale books, one example being H.O.C. Zinck’s Koral-Melodier (1801), the last Danish collection to include figured bass.
Much 19th-century Nordic church music was composed expressly for major festivals and other special occasions, in a style strongly influenced by the Cecilian movement; Uppsala was an influential centre for such extra-liturgical music. Leading composers include C.E.F. Weyse, J.P.E. Hartmann and H. Matthison-Hanson in Denmark (Niels Gade composed little for church use); B.W. Hallberg and J.A. Söderman in Sweden; and L.M. Lindeman in Norway. In the earlier 19th century in Sweden, male-voice choirs, which sang a repertory of simple hymnic settings, were very popular throughout the country; in mid-century attempts were made to encourage a broader range of choral music in the churches.
The 20th century was marked by the liturgical movement that affected all Nordic churches. For example, at the turn of the century a committee was formed to provide musical settings for the revised Swedish prayer book of 1894. The resulting Svenska massan of 1897 laid the foundations of Sweden’s 20th-century liturgical style that combines chant forms along with traditional and newly composed music. All the Lutheran churches of Nordic countries issued new hymnals in the latter part of the 20th century, such as the Den danske salmebog (1982), Norske salme bok (1985) and Den svenska psalmboken (1986), that exhibit a common core of Lutheran hymnody (much of it German), examples of their own distinctive linguistic and national tradition, together with a selection of representative items from world Christianity. Recent composers include S.-E. Bäck, Roland Forsberg, Egil Hovland and Trond Kverno.
A number of independent settlements of Lutherans on the east coast of the continent existed in the 17th century; these were essentially foreign churches, supported and staffed by the home country. A significant increase in the immigration of Lutherans occurred in the 18th century: some settled in what is now Georgia, others in New York and Pennsylvania. H.M. Muhlenberg (1711–87), ‘the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America’, was commissioned by G.A. Francke, the director of the Pietist missionary enterprises in Halle, to minister in America. Muhlenberg soon rose to a position of influence and leadership among the Pennsylvania clergy. In the 1740s he observed that organs were a rarity and that hymn singing was either appalling or non-existent. His concern for music provided the inspiration for the first German hymnbook produced in America, the Erbauliche Lieder-Sammlung (1786), which drew largely on the Halle Pietist hymnal, Neues geistreiches Gesang-Buch, edited by Freylinghausen. The influence of Pietism in these pioneer days was such that little music other than hymn singing flourished.
In the mid-19th century there was a new influx of immigrants from Germany, who brought with them various regional hymnals. In their desire to be doctrinally orthodox they turned away from much of the 18th- and 19th-century content of these hymnals and rediscovered the rugged hymns of the 16th century. They abandoned the later isometric forms of the melodies in favour of the original rhythmic forms as they found them in Friedrich Layriz’s chorale books (see §5 above). These volumes, together with his liturgical settings for Löhe’s Agenda (1853), helped to make Layriz influential in forming the musical ideals of Lutheranism in the USA. As in Germany, the recovery of early Lutheran hymnody led to a rediscovery of classic Lutheran composers and their music. Lutheran immigrants from Nordic countries continued with the hymnody of their own language-group, largely a blend of folksong and the type of tune promoted by German Pietism.
The renaissance of choral music began in the early 20th century, largely through the efforts of F.M. Christiansen, composer and conductor at St Olaf Lutheran College, Northfield, Minnesota. In 1941 the music department of Concordia Publishing House, St Louis, was reorganized and thereafter restricted its publication of music to what was specifically appropriate for Lutheran worship. For the next 40 years this publisher had an enormous impact on American church music generally. In 1944 Theodore Hoelty-Nickel founded the Valparaiso University Church Music Seminar, an annual event that provided information and inspiration to Lutheran composers and musicians. Other pioneers included C.F. Pfatteicher, Paul Bunjes and Walter Buszin, organists who exerted considerable influence through their writings, lectures, recitals and performing editions. A new awareness of the place of music in the worship and witness of the Lutheran Church was fostered, which included new ideals in organ building and the use of varied instrumental resources. In the 1960s the influence of German composers such as Pepping, Distler and H.W. Zimmermann was strong, partly owing to Distler’s pupil Jan Bender, who was then resident in the USA. Other composers active since the 1960s include Richard Wienhorst, Daniel Moe, Richard Hillert, Carl Schalk, Walter Pelz and David Johnson. But the music of such non-Lutheran composers as Healey Willan, Dale Wood and Richard Proulx has also been widely used in Lutheran churches. In the last quarter of the 20th century various Lutheran hymnals were issued, including the Lutheran Book of Worship (Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, 1978); Lutheran Worship (The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, 1982); Christian Worship: a Lutheran Hymnal (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 1993); and Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Mankato, Minnesota, 1996). Most of these hymnals are conservatively ‘Lutheran’, but the supplementary hymnals of this period exhibit a more pronounced ecumenical and international content.
As Lutheranism expanded through missionary endeavour in the 19th century, in Latin America, Africa, Australasia and elsewhere, church music developed in ways similar to the process of acculturation that had occurred earlier in Nordic countries. The earlier periods were characterized by the importation of the traditions of the respective European Lutheran missionaries (German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian etc.). During the latter part of the 20th century the tendency was to incorporate indigenous musical styles as well as maintaining an ecumenical perspective.
BlumeEK
C.G.A.V. von Winterfeld: Der evangelische Kirchengesang und sein Verhaltniss zur Kunst des Tonsatzes (Leipzig, 1843–7/R)
A.L. Richter: Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Weimar, 1846/R)
A. Knapp: Evangelischer Liederschatz für Kirche, Schule und Haus (Stuttgart, 1850, 4/1891)
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)
L. Schoeberlein: Schatz des liturgischen Chor- und Gemeindegesangs nebst den Altarweisen in der deutschen evangelischen Kirche aus den Quellen vornehmlich des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts geschöpft ... unter der musikalischer Redaktion von F. Riegel (Göttingen, 1865–72/R)
A.F.W. Fischer: Kirchenlieder-Lexicon (Gotha, 1878–86/R)
S. Kümmerle: Encyklopädie der evangelischen Kirchenmusik (Gütersloh, 1888–95/R)
J. Zahn: Die Melodien der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenlieder (Gütersloh, 1889–1983/R)
R. von Liliencron: Liturgisch musikalische Geschichte der evangelischen Gottesdienste von 1523 bis 1700 (Schleswig, 1893/R)
D.G. Rietschel: Die Aufgabe der Orgel im Gottesdienste bis in das 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1893/R)
E. Sehling, ed: Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1902–13)
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U. Leupold: Die liturgischen Gesänge der evangelischen Kirche im Zeitalter der Aufklärung und der Romantik (Kassel, 1933)
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O. Söhngen: Das kirchenmusikalische Amt in der Evangelischen Kirche der altpreussischen Union: mit wichtigsten geltenden Verordnungen und Erlasse auf dem Gebiete der Kirchenmusik (Berlin, 1950)
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H. Böhm, ed: Kirchenmusik heute: Gedanken über Aufgaben und Probleme der musica sacra (Berlin, 1959)
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A.W. Grauer: The Vocal Style of Sixt Dietrich and Johann Eccard and their Contributions to Lutheran Church Music (diss., Rochester U., 1960)
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E.C. Wolf: Lutheran Church Music in America during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (diss., U. of Illinois, 1960)
G.M. Cartford: Music in the Norwegian Lutheran Church: a Study of its Development and its Transfer to America, 1825–1917 (diss., U. of Minnesota, 1961)
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O. Söhngen: Musica Sacra zwischen gestern und morgen: Entwicklungsstadien und Perspektiven in der 2. Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 2/1981)
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J. Butt: Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge, 1994)
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W. Steude: ‘Anmerkungen zu David Elias Heidenreich, Erdmann Neumeister und den beiden Haupttypen der evangelischen Kirchenkantate’, ibid., 45–61
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R. Lorenz: Pedagogical Implications of Musica practica in Sixteenth-Century Wittenberg (diss., Indiana U., 1995)
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D.O. Heuchemer: Italian Musicians in Dresden in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, with an Emphasis on the Lives and Works of Antonio Scandello and Giovanni Battista Pinello di Ghirardi (diss., U. of Cincinnati, 1997)
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