In preparation for the Reformation 500th anniversary, I present this lecture as a means to highlight the intentionality of Luther's hymn writing and music.

1. MARTIN
LUTHER
THE MUSICIAN
Presentation by Adan Alejandro Fernandez
500 Years of
Reformation

2. Brief
Background:
Why he is
important
• His “95Theses” propogated that the Bible was the sole
religious authority, thereby overriding the pope
– Augustine (340-430) emphasized the primacy of the Bible1
• Believed that they may reach salvation through faith,
not works
– God’s faith works in us.
– Romans 1:17 “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is
revealed- a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,
just as it is written: ‘the righteous will live by faith.’”
• Luther wanted to reform the Catholic church; Pope Leo
excommunicated Luther on January 3, 1521
1http://www.history.com/topics/martin-luther-and-
the-95-theses. Accessed August 16, 2017.

3. Luther’s
Breakthrough
2
• Luther said that he felt as though he underwent a
conversion
• Luther felt a great anxiety
– Concept of penance; works to restore one’s self to the state
of grace; Luther felt he was not convicted enough of
repentance and feared that he would not be saved
– The Will; has to begin with penance; “I wish I had not done
this;” Luther said, “the more I sweated it out like this, the less
peace and tranquility I knew.”
• Luther was not the only one who experienced this
– Clergy responded, “to do that which is within you”
• Catholics believed that, at baptism, the baby is infused
with grace and is stregthened through penance,
thereby exercising that grace
2Discussion taken from lectures by Ryan Reeves,
"Luther's Reformation Breakthrough." Gordon

4. Luther’s
Breakthroug
h
• Luther described his overall feeling as ‘anfechtungen’
– Includes depression, anxiety, crisis, doubt, anger, frustration, attack, etc.
• Spent six hours with Staupitz confessing
• Theology of the Cross; Luther applies it constantly
– Over theology of glory; passive approach to sanctification that allows the
spirit to work through us; our will becomes capable
• Turmerlebnis; ‘tower experience’; reading Romans 1:17;
– Luther is terrified by this verse; God’s righteousness is revealed as a
certain bar to clear in order to be justified
– Luther hates God for this
• Luther concludes Christ’s work was external to us and not
something that must happen within is in order to be justified; we
must trust in the work of Christ
• Infusion versus imputation;Christ’s righteousnessnes is counted
as ours through faith in his work
• Detaches justification and sanctification
– Luther preached that the Holy Spirit indwelt the believer and became the
substance and motivation for sanctification3
3Towns, Elmer L., "Martin Luther on
Sanctification" (1969). Articles. Paper 14.

5. Luther’s
Musical
Upbringing
• Grew up in Mansfeld
– Sang matins and lauds weekly at the school
• At 14, he left home to study in Eisenach in 1498; he supported
himself as a singer
– Known as a Kurrende Boy like many other children in Eisenach
• Learned to sing monodic songs and polyphonic motets from
Johannes Braun, a priest who valued music greatly
• At the Erfurt, Luther obtained his bachelors and masters degrees and
learned to be an accomplished musician as a flutist and lutist
– Learned to sing folksongs or Volkslieder

6. Luther’s
Philosophy
of Music
Musica universalis
• Considered to be the highest form of music according to Boethius
• Music of the spheres
• Luther believed in the inherent moral virue of music
– Aristotle wrote, “It is plain that music has the power of producing a certain
effect on the ethos of the soul, and if it has the power to do this, it is clear that
the young must be directed to music and must be educated in it.”
• Renaissance and classical thought believed music to be a speculative
science
Musica instrumentalis
• Considered to be the lowest form of music according to Boethius
– Musica humana considered second in importance
– Luther wrote, “If I had children and can manage it, I would have them
study not only languages and history, but also singing and music…The
ancient Greeks trained their children in these disciplines; yet they grew up
to be people of wondrous ability, subsequently fit for everything.”

7. Luther’s
Confluence of
Musics
• Luther’s folk music exposure introduced him to the
FrenchTroubadours andTrouvéres along with their
counterparts, the Minnesinger and Meistersinger
– There is overlap between folk song singing and liturgy as
many of the forms in folk songs are derived from the litanies,
sequences, and hymns of the church to give us the simple
tune, the strophic form, the refrain, and the chorus.
• TheTroubadours catalogue, as a result, includes
chansons de geste, routrouanges, rondeaux, virolais,
ballades, and lais, all designed to be singable and
memorable.
• The Minnesinger and later Meistersinger of Germany
adapted the forms similarly while also adapting the
stress-metres of German poetry and not the syllabic
metres of the Romanesque tradition.

8. Luther’s
Confluence of
Musics
• Flowering of Byzantine chant in the 7th and 8th
centuries; the Western church was heavily influenced
by the “free imagination” of the Eastern church.
• Luther loved it so much, in fact, that he took many
chants and converted them to consist of Lutheran
ecclesiology and orthodoxy in a technique he called
christliches corregieren;
– an example of this is Luther’s Mitten wir im Leben sind, a 9th-
century Latin antiphon in which Luther steers away any talk
of purgatory

9. The
Deutsche
Messe
• Luther did not write the first German mass
• Written in 1526
• Luther retained many of the same from the Latin mass,
excluding the canon
– The canon was most of the prayers said after the Sanctus and
began in secret by the priest
• The Deutsche Messe is consistent with Luther’s
understanding of the royal priesthood
– With a translated mass, the democratic accessibility to God
throughChrist became physical, that is, through language
• Luther meant the mass to be prescriptive and not
descriptive
• Became an impetus for polemic song for reformation
sympathisers
• Nationalistic tendencies as the mass used German music,
many songs deriving from Volkslieder

10. The
Deutsche
Messe
• Provided a forum to hear vernacular songs
– Acted as a way to spread news of the Reformation
• Rebecca Oettinger writes that “Luther’s songs in
particular…gave the neonate Protestant population a
sense of themselves as a community. Evangelical church
songs soon became ‘battle hymn[s] against Catholics’,
even when explicit anti-Catholics rhetoric was absent.”

11. Luther’s
Hymns
• Initial repertory of hymns taken from preexisting
hymns of the Catholic church
– Luther rejected hymns addressed to theVirgin Mary, to the
saints, and those that “expounded the sacrifice of the Mass
or some other nonbiblical theme…”4
• Luther changed the texts and/or added verses to many
hymns
– Example: Christ lag inTodes Banden- Luther added verses to
this Easter hymn in 1524. Roots of the hymn can be traced
back to a familiar Easter folk song known as Christ ist
erstanden and the Catholic hymn, Victimae paschali laudes
(“Christians, to the PaschalVictim”), a sequence hymn
attributed to Wipo of Burgundy.5
• Common to sing both the German and Latin in
alternation
4Leaver, Robin. "The Whole Church Sings:
Congregational Singing in Luther's Wittenburg.
5Luther, Martin. "The Hymns of Martin Luther." Edited by Peter
C. Reske. St. Louis: Concordia, 2016.

12. Luther’s
Hymns
• Luther loved certain Catholic hymns that he simply
added verses6
– Example: Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott (“Come, Holy
Ghost, God and Lord”)
– Luther added verses to the 13th-century Latin antiphon for
Pentecost known as Veni sancte spiritus
– Luther commented, “the hymn Komm, heiliger Geist was
written by the Holy Spirit himself, both words and melody.”
– Last verse is important in understanding sanctification,
according to Luther’s doctrine of justification:
Come, holy Fire, comfort true, Grant us the willYour
work to do And inYour service to abide; Let trials turn
us not aside. Lord, byYour power prepare each heart,
and to our weakness strength impart that bravely
here we may contend, through life and death toYou,
our Lord, ascend. Alleluia, Alleluia!
6Leaver, Robin. "The Whole Church Sings:
Congregational Singing in Luther's Wittenberg."

13. Luther’s
Hymns
• Luther contended that every Christian was entitled to
an ‘honourable’ burial
– ‘honourable burials’ consisted of a procession, sermon, and
hymnody7
– Example: Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (“From Depths ofWoe
I Cry toThee), published in 1524
– Based on Psalm 130 which, according to Peter C. Reske,
“expresses deep repentence, the highest assurance of
forgiveness, and the strongest hope of the believer in Christ.”
7Koslofsky, Craig M. "The Reformation of the Dead:
Death and Ritual in Early Modern Germany, 1450-

14. Luther’s
Hymns
• Small Catechism was published in 1529; music took on
a catechetical role
– Example: Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot (“These Are the
HolyTen Commandments”)
– Juxtaposition of original tune intention and new text
– Luther used the tune In Gottes Namen fahren wir (“In God’s
Name WeTravel”), a tune sung by German pilgrims to sacred
places such as the shrine of the three kings in Cologne or the
shrine of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, in Spain.
– Suggestion that the ten Commandements were “guideposts
for the pilgramage through life.”

15. Luther’s
Hymns
• Some hymns took on polemic points of view
– Example: Ein feste burg (“A Mighty Fortress”)
– Based on Psalm 46
– Translation skewed a bit to match the uncertainty of the
reformation
– Perpetuates somethingAuthor PaulTillich identified as the
‘protestant principle,’ stating that “protestantism as a
principle is eternal and a permanent criterion of everything
temporal. Protestantism as the characteristic of a historical
period is tempral and subjected to the eternal Protestant
principle.”
• Ein feste burg sung by generations as protest against
authority from the Pope and magisterium, Gustavus
Adolphus during theThirtyYearsWar in 1631, to Jews in
the holocaust who sang in Mendelssohn’s Reformation
Symphony

16. THANK YOU
500YEARS OF REFORMATION