Three Lutheran Greats 

Which composition* has been covered and remixed at least 25 times since 1970, and is used in football stadiums, ads, movies, and video games worldwide? 
(PS: It’s by a Lutheran!)

Is this all about antiquated and old-fashioned stuff from a bygone era? Isn’t worship today meant to be relevant and upbeat? Why would we as Lutheran Christians want to remember these people from the past?

Actually, these “three Lutheran greats” are still very relevant, and are sought after by Christians ecumenically and globally. Last year at the Reformation Vespers Service, we gave thanks for those who not only keep reforming the church, but who also, as servants of the Gospel, provide beautifully crafted music, such as we heard with the two double motets and a setting of The Magnificat (Mary’s Song) by Johann Pachelbel. And who hasn’t heard of Pachelbel’s Canon in D?

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of Lutheran hymnwriter, Paul Gerhardt.

Gerhardt’s hymns can be found in all mainstream hymnbooks — hymns such as

• O sacred head now wounded
• O Lord how shall I meet you
• Evening and morning
• Come, your hearts and voices raising, All my heart this night rejoices
• Awake, my heart with gladness
• Now rest beneath night’s shadow and so on and so on.

Paul Gerhardt was a Lutheran pastor, mainly centred at the Nikolai Church in Berlin. This was during a very difficult period during the Thirty Years War when various plagues and fires went through many villages: in fact, 30% of the German population perished. Although Gerhardt lost several of his children, his hymn texts are consoling, and he invites people to “sing of a different reality ... to sing into themselves the assurance of a joy beyond earthly woe: God’s undying love for us”. We intend to sing a number of Gerhardt’s hymns this year set to the beautiful and lively melodies of Johann Crueger and Johann Ebeling. You won’t be disappointed!

I discovered a number of years ago that farmers in the Wimmera area thought that Buxtehude was a word you used instead of swearing! Dietrich Buxtehude, a Danish/German composer, was a brilliant organist. The Vespers Services at the Marienkirche in Lubeck on the border of Denmark and Germany became quite famous, and one youthful Johann Sebastian Bach (yet another Lutheran) travelled 220 miles on foot to meet the master Buxtehude and spend 3 months with him. This had a profound effect on the compositions of JSB. There was, however, one negative — Buxtehude was keen that Bach marry one of his not so attractive daughters! Bach left Lubeck as a single man!

The first 9 bars of the Canon in D: the violins play a three-voice canon (that is, repeated parts, like a round) over the ground bass which provides the harmonic structure. Coloured notes highlight the individual canonic entries.

Buxtehude wrote a large amount of organ music, much of it based on Lutheran hymns. This year marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Buxtehude. Worldwide, there are many conferences and workshops, recitals and so on planned to recognize the enormous contribution of this composer. He also wrote a number of smaller choral cantatas with strings accompaniment, and you will hear some of these this year, particularly at our Vespers services.In the April issue of Inside Story (just in time for Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter), we will concentrate on two of Paul Gerhardt’s hymns — O sacred head, now wounded and Awake, my heart, with gladness. 

Alan Collyer

* For a listing of modern uses of Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachelbel%27s_Canon