"5
It seems superfluous to add to this testimony the word of
Sleidan, the nearly contemporary historian, who says expressly
concerning "_Ein' feste Burg_" that Luther made for it a tune
singularly suited to the words, and adapted to stir the heart.6
If ever there were hymn and tune that told their own story of
a common and simultaneous origin, without need of confirmation
by external evidence, it is these.
To an extent quite without parallel in the history of
music, the power of Luther's tunes, as well as of his words, is
manifest after three centuries, over the masters of the art, as well as
over the common people. Peculiarly is thistrue of the great song
_Ein' feste Burg_, which Heine not vainly predicted would again be
heard in Europe in like manner as of old. The composers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries practised their elaborate artifices
upon it. The supreme genius of Sebastian Bach made it the subject
of study.7 And in our own times it has been used with conspicuous
effect in Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony, in an overture by
Raff, in the noble_Festouverture_ of Nicolai, and in Wagner's
Kaisermarsch; and is introduced with recurring emphasis in
Meyerbeer's masterpiece of The Huguenots.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42