The critical musician will see, and will not
complain, that the original modal structure of the melodies is
sometimes affected by the harmonic treatment.
And now the proper conclusion to this Introduction,
which, like the rest of the volume, is in so slight a degree
the work of the editor, is to add the successive prefaces from
the pen of Luther which accompanied successive hymn-books
published during his life-time and under his supervision.
LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON
______________________________________________________
1 Quoted in the _Christian Examiner_, 1860, p. 240; transcribed
Philadelphia, 1875.
2 The popular impression that the hymn "Ein' feste Burg" was
produced in these circumstances is due, doubtless, to a
parallel in the third stanza, to the famous saying imputed to
Luther on the eve of the Diet of Worms: "I'll go, be there as
many devils in the city as there be tiles on the roofs." The
time of its composition was in the year 1529, just before the
Diet of Augsburg. If not written in his temporary refuge, the
noble "Burg" or "Festung" of Coburg, it must often have been
sung there by him; and it was sung, says Merle d'Aubigne,
"during the Diet, not only at Augsburg, but in all the
churches of Saxony.
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