The Hymns and Small Cathechism | Page 7

by their faith to thoughts
the most sublime, excited to enthusiasm by the struggles and dangers
by which the church at its birth was unceasingly threatened, inspired by
the poetic genius of the Old Testament and by the faith of the New, ere
long gave vent to their feelings in hymns, in which all that is most
heavenly in poetry and music was combined and blended. Hence the
revival, in the sixteenth century, of hymns such as in the first century
used to cheer the martyrs in their sufferings. We have seen Luther, in
1523, employing it to celebrate the martyrs at Brussels; other children
of the Reformation followed his footsteps; hymns were multiplied; they
spread rapidly among the people, and powerfully contributed to rouse it
from sleep."
It is not difficult to come approximately at the order of composition of
Luther's hymns. The earliest hymn-book of the Reformation - if not the
earliest of all printed hymn-books - was published at Wittenberg in
1524, and contained eight hymns, four of them from the pen of Luther
himself; of the other four not less than three were by Paul Speratus, and
one of these three, the hymn Es ist das Heil, which caused Luther such
delight when sung beneath his window by a wanderer from Prussia.4
Three of Luther's contributions to this little book were versions of
Psalms - the xii, xiv, and cxxx - and the fourth was that touching
utterance of personal religious experience, Nun fruet euch, lieben
Christen g'mein. But the critics can hardly be mistaken in assigning as
early a date to the ballad of the Martyrs of Brussels. Their martyrdom
took place July 1, 1523, and the "New Song" must have been inspired
by the story as it was first brought to Wittenberg, although it is not
found in print until the Enchiridion, which followed the Eight Hymns,
later in the same year, from the press of Erfurt, and contained fourteen
of Luther's hymns beside the four already published.

In the hymn-book published in 1525 by the composer Walter, Luther's
friend, were six more of the Luther hymns. And in 1526 appeared the
"German Mass and Order of Divine Service," containing "the German
Sanctus," a versification of Isaiah vi. Of the remaining eleven, six
appeared first in the successive editions of Joseph Klug's hymn-book,
Wittenberg, 1535 and 1543.It is appropriate to the commemorative
character of the present edition that in it the hymns should be disposed
in chronological order.
The TUNES which are here printed with the hymns of Luther are of
those which were set to them during his lifetime. Some of them, like
the hymns to which they were set, are derived from the more ancient
hymnody of the German and Latin churches. Others, as the tunes _Vom
Himmel hoch, Ach Gott vom Himmel, and Christ unser Herr zum
Jordan kam_, are conjectured to have been originally secular airs. But
that many of the tunes that appeared simultaneously and in connection
with Luther's hymns were original with Luther himself, there seems no
good reason to doubt. Luther's singular delight and proficiency in
music are certified by a hundred contemporary testimonies. His
enthusiasm for it overflows in his Letters and his Table Talk. He loved
to surround himself with accomplished musicians, with whom he
would practise the intricate motets of the masters of that age; and his
critical remarks on their several styles are on record. At least one
autograph document proves him to have been a composer of melodies
to his own words: one may see, appended to von Winterfeld's fine
quarto edition of Luther's hymns (Leipzig, 1840) a fac-simile of the
original draft of Vater Unser, with a melody sketched upon a staff of
five lines, and then cancelled, evidently by hand practised in musical
notation. But perhaps the most direct testimony to his actual work as a
composer is found in a letter from the composer John Walter,
capellmeister to the Elector of Saxony, written in his old age for the
express purpose of embodying his reminiscences of his illustrious
friend as a church-musician.
"It is to my certain knowledge," writes Walter, "that that holy man of
God, Luther, prophet and apostle to the German nation, took great
delight in music, both in choral and in figural composition. With whom

I have passed many a delightful hour in singing; and oftentimes have
seen the dear man wax so happy and merry in heart over the singing as
that it was well-nigh impossible to weary or content him therewithal.
And his discourse concerning music was most noble.
"Some forty years ago, when he would set up the German Mass at
Wittenberg, he wrote to the Elector of Saxony and Duke Johannsen, of
illustrious memory, begging to invite to Wittenberg the old musician
Conrad Rupff