A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"
Music: Martin Luther
Words: Martin Luther
Published 1531 (or 1529)
Language German
Translated by Myles Coverdale
Thomas Carlyle
Frederick Henry Hedge
Catherine Winkworth
Meter 87 87 66 66 7
Melody name Ein feste Burg (Martin Luther)

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (German, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) is one of the best known of Martin Luther's hymns. Luther wrote the words and composed the melody sometime between 1527 and 1529.[1] It has been translated into English at least seventy times and also into many other languages.[1][2] The words are a paraphrase of Psalm 46.[3]

Contents

History

"A Mighty Fortress" is one of the best loved hymns of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions. It has been called the "Battle Hymn of the Reformation" for the effect it had in increasing the support for the Reformers' cause. John Julian records four theories of its origin:[1]

Alternatively, John M. Merriman writes that the hymn "began as a martial song to inspire soldiers against the Ottoman forces" during the Ottoman wars in Europe.[4]

The earliest extant hymnal in which it appears is that of Andrew Rauscher (1531), but it is supposed to have been in Joseph Klug's Wittenberg hymnal of 1529, of which no copy exists. Its title was Der xxxxvi. Psalm. Deus noster refugium et virtus.[1] Before that it is supposed to have appeared in the Hans Weiss Wittenberg hymnal of 1528, also lost.[5] This evidence would support its being written in 1527–1529, since Luther's hymns were printed shortly after they were written.

Tradition states that King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden had it played as his forces went to battle in the Thirty Years' War. The psalm had been translated into Swedish already in 1536, presumably by Olaus Petri.[6] In the late 1800s the song also became an anthem of the early Swedish socialist movement.

It was first translated into English by Myles Coverdale in 1539 with the title, Oure God is a defence and towre. The first English translation in "common usage" was God is our Refuge in Distress, Our strong Defence in J.C. Jacobi's Psal. Ger., 1722, p. 83.[1]

The hymn is now a suggested hymn for Catholic Masses,[7] appearing in the second edition of the Catholic Book of Worship, published by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, though this is not without controversy. Its enduring popularity in Western Christendom has breached boundaries set in the Reformation.

Text

English translations

The most popular English version is A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing and was translated by Frederick H. Hedge in 1853.

Another popular English translation is by Thomas Carlyle and begins A safe stronghold our God is still.

Tune

Luther composed the melody, named "Ein feste Burg" from the text's first line, in meter 87.87.55.56.7. This is sometimes denoted "rhythmic tune" to distinguish it from the later isometric variant, in 87.87.66.66.7 meter which is more widely known and used in Christendom.[8] In 1906 Edouard Rœhrich wrote, "The authentic form of this melody differs very much from that which one sings in most Protestant churches and figures in (Giacomo Meyerbeer's) The Huguenots. ... The original melody is extremely rhythmic, by the way it bends to all the nuances of the text ..."[9]

While 19th-century musicologists disputed Luther's authorship of the music to the hymn, that opinion has been modified by more recent research; it is now the consensus view of musical scholars that Luther did indeed compose the famous tune to go with the words.

Arrangements

The hymn has been used by numerous composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach as the source for his chorale cantata Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80. Bach set the tune twice in his Choralgesänge (Choral Hymns), BWV 302 and BWV 303 (for four voices). Bach also wrote a version for organ, Chorale Prelude BWV 720. This is nowadays believed to be by his uncle Johann Michael Bach. Two orchestrations of Bach's settings were made by conductors Leopold Stokowski and Walter Damrosch. Dieterich Buxtehude also wrote an organ chorale setting (BuxWV 184), as did Johann Pachelbel. Felix Mendelssohn used it as the theme for the fourth and final movement of his Symphony No. 5, Op. 107 (1830), which he named Reformation in honor of the Protestant Reformation started by Luther. Joachim Raff wrote an Overture (for orchestra), Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, Op. 127. Giacomo Meyerbeer quoted it in his five-act grand opera Les Huguenots (1836), and Richard Wagner used it as a "motive" in his Kaisermarsch (Emperor's March), which was composed to commemorate the return of Kaiser Wilhelm I from the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.[1][3] Two organ settings were written by Max Reger; his Choral Fantasy "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", Op. 27 and a much shorter Chorale, Op. 67, No. 6. Claude Debussy quoted the theme in his suite for piano duet, En blanc et noir. Ralph Vaughan Williams uses the tune in his score for the film 49th Parallel, used most obviously when the German U-boat surfaces in Hudson Bay shortly after the beginning of the film. Flor Peeters wrote an organ chorale setting "Ein feste Burg" as part of his Ten Chorale Preludes, Op. 69, published in 1949. More recently it has been used by band composers to great effect in pieces such as Psalm 46 by John Zdechlik. In 2007, Bradley Joseph arranged an instrumental version on his album, Hymns and Spiritual Songs. It is also used as the final theme in Jazz pianist Bob James' composition "Valley of the Shadows."

In popular culture

Other uses

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Julian, John, ed., A Dictionary of Hymnology: Setting forth the Origin and History of Christian Hymns of all Ages and Nations, Second revised edition, 2 vols., n.p., 1907, reprint, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957, 1:322–25
  2. ^ W. G. Polack, The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, Third and Revised Edition (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 193, No. 262.
  3. ^ a b Marilyn Kay Stulken, Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 307–08, nos. 228–229.
  4. ^ Merriman, John (2010). A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Age of Napoleon. 1 (3 ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-393-93384-0. 
  5. ^ Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, eds., Luther's Works, 55 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1957–1986), 53:283.
  6. ^ Psalmer och sånger (Örebro: Libris; Stockholm: Verbum, 1987), Item 237, which uses Johan Olof Wallin's 1816 revision of the translation attributed to Petri. The first line is "Vår Gud är oss en väldig borg."
  7. ^ Cantica Nova
  8. ^ Cf. The Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Lutheran Worship, (St. Louis: CPH, 1982), 992, 997.
  9. ^ E. Rœhrich, Les Origines du Choral Luthérien. (Paris: Librairie Fischbacher, 1906), 23 (italics original): "La forme authentique de cette mélodie diffère beaucoup de celle qu'on chante dans la plupart des Églises protestantes et qui figure dans les Huguenots". ... La mélodie originelle est puissamment rythmée, de manière à se plier à toutes les nuances du texte ..."
  10. ^ Cyber hymnal: "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"

Bibliography

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