The Hymns of Martin Luther


Book Description

Collection of 38 hymns and chants widely credited to Martin Luther. Includes piano accompaniment and brief notes about the origin of each hymn.










Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation


Book Description

Over the first four decades of the Reformation, hundreds of songs written in popular styles and set to well-known tunes appeared across the German territories. These polemical songs included satires on the pope or on Martin Luther, ballads retelling historical events, translations of psalms and musical sermons. They ranged from ditties of one strophe to didactic Lieder of fifty or more. Luther wrote many such songs and this book contends that these songs, and the propagandist ballads they inspired, had a greater effect on the German people than Luther’s writings or his sermons. Music was a major force of propaganda in the German Reformation. Rebecca Wagner Oettinger examines a wide selection of songs and the role they played in disseminating Luther’s teachings to a largely non-literate population, while simultaneously spreading subversive criticism of Catholicism. These songs formed an intersection for several forces: the comfortable familiarity of popular music, historical theories on the power of music, the educational beliefs of sixteenth-century theologians and the need for sense of community and identity during troubled times. As Oettinger demonstrates, this music, while in itself simple, provides us with a new understanding of what most people in sixteenth-century Germany knew of the Reformation, how they acquired their knowledge and the ways in which they expressed their views about it. With full details of nearly 200 Lieder from this period provided in the second half of the book, Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation is both a valuable investigation of music as a political and religious agent and a useful resource for future research.




Luther's Spirituality


Book Description

In inclusive and contemporary translations, this volume introduces the reader to the rich complex of issues that Luther contributes to the history of spirituality




Luther's Liturgical Music


Book Description

Martin Luther's relationship to music has been largely downplayed, yet music played a vital role in Luther's life -- and he in turn had a deep and lasting effect on Christian hymnody. In Luther's Liturgical Music Robin Leaver comprehensively explores these connections. Replete with tables, figures, and musical examples, this volume is the most extensive study on Luther and music ever published. Leaver's work makes a formidable contribution to Reformation studies, but worship leaders, musicians, and others will also find it an invaluable, very readable resource.




Worship and the World to Come


Book Description

How is our Christian hope both expressed and experienced in contemporary worship? In this Dynamics of Christian Worship volume, pastor, theologian, and songwriter Glenn Packiam explores what Christians sing about when they sing about hope and what kind of hope they experience when they worship together.




Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice


Book Description

Review the central teaching of the faith with one of Luther's earliest and most important hymns. A poetic synopsis of the book of Romans, this hymn chronicles the great blessings which God has bestowed on us in Christ. The bold illustrations depict Luther¿s inner struggles and rediscovery of the Gospel, that ¿a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.¿ Both young and old will appreciate the theology woven into the realistic artwork throughout the book.