German Hymnology [pp. 574-602]

German Hymnology.
means. The production of new melodies continued during the
whole of the seventeenth century, under such men as Praeto
rius, Schein, Alberti, Erstger, Winer, Neander, Rosenmuller,
Severus, Ahle, and Neumark. After this there was a great
stagnation.
The music of the church in Germany, at the time of Luther's reform, had be'come painfully elaborate, and the solemnity of the old Gregorian chant, which certainly had many
excellencies, was overlaid with a burden of artificial difficulties. It was the merit of Luther to restore the ancient simplicity, without rejecting the aids of learned harmony.
"When natural music," says he, "is elevated and polished by
art, we first see and acknowledge with admiration the great
and perfect wisdom of God in his wondrous creation of music,
wherein this is especially strange and astonishing, that a single
voice utters the simple air or tenor,* as musicians name it, and
then three, four, or five other voices join, who as it were play
and leap exultingl about this plain tenor, and marvellously
deck and beautifyit With manifold change, and sound as if
leading a heavenly se, meeting one another in good will,
heartily and lovingly embracing; so that those who understand
a little, and are hereby moved, have to marvel, as thinking
there is nought in all the world rarer than suchi a song with
many voices." The result of this is the German CHORAL, in
which the congregation sing one part, while the singers of the
choir, and in later times the organ, furnish a full and manifold
harmony; a method which is infinitely remote from the American abuse of having a handful of singers in the gallery to
act as proxies of the great congregation and praise God by
committee. The musical composition of the reformation period
was carried forward by Henry Fink, George Rhaw, Martin
Agricola, Balthazar Resinarius, Sixt Dietrich, Benedict Ducis,
and others, whose lives may be read in the histories of music.
We have dwelt long on Luther, because beyond question he
was the founder of the incomparable German psalmody, in regard as well to text as music, so that no one can enter a well
* The musical reader will not mistake this for the part so called ia modes
scores.
Vol. YXIt. —O. IT. 38
1850.]
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