Luther’s hymnbook for a funeral (1542)

How to bury your loved ones without papal superstitions

Contents: Kraftsprüche’ (Bible texts), Prayers, 7 Hymns and 7 Latin Responsories

In 1542 the Wittenberg printer Joseph Klug published a small songbook: Christliche Geseng Lateinsich und Deudsch zum Begrebnis. D. Martinus Luther [Latin and German Christian Songs for Burials. Dr. Martin Luther]. From Luther’s preface 1

We have collected the fine music and songs which under the papacy were used at vigils, masses for the dead, and burials. Some fine examples of these we have printed in this booklet and we, or whoever is more gifted than we, will select more of them in the future. But we have adapted other texts to the music so that they may adorn our article of resurrection, instead of purgatory with its torment and satisfaction which lets their dead neither sleep nor rest. The melodies and notes are precious. It would be a pity to let them perish. But the texts and words are non-Christian and absurd. They deserve to perish. . . . [The papists] also possess a lot of splendid songs and music, especially in the cathedral and parish churches. But these are used to adorn all sorts of impure and idolatrous texts. Therefore, we have unclothed these idolatrous, lifeless, and foolish texts, and divested them of their beautiful music. We have put this music on the living and holy word of God in order to sing, praise, and honor it. . . . We are concerned with changing the text, not the music.

When one leafs through this booklet (in particular the part with ‘bible texts’) one is immediatelly reminded of Schütz’s Musicalische Exequien In Dutch: ‘nu is duidelijk waar de mr. Posthumus Reuss de mosterd haalde’). It contained one Latin hymn, Iam moesta quiesce querela (Prudentius – also translated into German – it was also part of the funeral service at Gera. More info), and six German hymns, all except one the work of Luther:

  • Aus tiefer Not (Psalm 130)
  • Mitten wir im Leben sind,
  • Wir glauben all an einen Gott,
  • Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin,
  • Nun laßt uns den leib begraben (by Michael Weiss),
  • Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist.

These are preceded by 7 Latin biblical Responsories, complete with notated chants, with a considerable ‘after-life’. You find them in numerous Lutheran hymnals and anthologies of chant in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Latin incipits and the biblical references of Reponses – Verses.

  • I. Credo quod redemptor meus vivit = Job 19:25 – Psalm 146[145]:1-2
  • II. Ecce quomodo moritur iustus = Isaiah 57:1-2 – Psalm 17[16]:152
  • III. Cum venisset Jesus = Matthew 9:23-24 – Mark 5:41-42
  • IV. Ecce mysterium magnum dico vobis = 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 – 1 Corinthians 54
  • V. Stella enim differt a stella in claritate = 1 Corinthians 15:41-44 – 1 Corinthians 45
  • VI. Nolumus autem vos fratres = 1 Thessalonians 4:13 – 1 Thessalonians 4:14
  • VII. Si credimus quod Jesus Christus = 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 13 – 1 Corinthians 15:22

A further Responsory (Corpora Sanctorum) appears later in the volume — together with three Antiphons:
– Media vita in morte sumus (that Luther translated as Mitten wir im Leben sind),
– In pace simil dormiam et requiescam (a paraphrase of the evening Psalm: In pace et inidipsum, so cherished by Luther, that he asked Ludwig Senfl to make a polyphonic version of it)
– Si enim credimus

Of the associated melodies, four (and probably a fifth) are of Responsories of the medieval Office of the Dead: Two texts appear with their associated melodies:

I. Credo quod redemptor, a variant form of the Responsory that follows the first lesson at Matins of the Office for the Dead.
II. Ecce quomodo moritur, a variant of the Responsory that follows the sixth lesson at Matins on Holy Saturday, but used on Good Friday in the later medieval period.

Luther’s preservation of these earlier melodic forms was a deliberate policy on his part. He explained his purpose in the preface to the booklet:

source: Robin A. Leaver, Luther’s liturgical music

  1. WA 35:479-480 – Zu dem haben wir auch, zum guten Exempel, die schönen Musica oder Gesenge, so im Bapstum. In Vigilien, Seelmessen und Begrebnis gebraucht sind, genomen, der etliche in dis Büchlin drücken lassen… Es ist umb verenderung des Textes und nicht der Noten zuthun.”
  2. Wie verbreitet diese Werke waren, beweist die Tatsache, daß selbst auf sächsischen Dörfern, — so beispielsweise in Glaubitz bei Großenhain — bei Begräbnissen die Motetten Orlandos u. Burgks gesungen wurden, z. B. Ecce quomodo moritur iustus; nunc dimittis servum tuum domine (von Burgk fünf-stimmig gesetzt), ferner sint lumbi vestri precincti (Orlando), stabunt iusti (Orlando), in te domine speravi (Orlando), si bona suscepimus (Orlando). — Cf. E. von Feilitzsch: Das sittl.-religiöse Leben der Großenhainer Gegend.Beiträge zur sächs. Kirchengesch. Bd. XI. 95. 105. – quoted in Rautenstrauch, Luther und die Pflege der kirchlichen Musik in Sachsen, Leipzig, 1907, p. 13