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[German Version] The term Hausmusik (house music) arose in connection with the Lutheran culture of hymns (first used by Bartholomäus Gesius, 1605; Church song). It refers to interactive music-making in homes or other spheres of daily life, generally in groups and not in public. Into the 20th century, important parts of European music were oriented toward house performance without the term always being used. German Protestant Hausmusik is older and more comprehensive than the normal use of the term might imply, extending from songs for one voice to complex voca…

[German Version] (Dec 5, 1900, Wuppertal-Barmen – Aug 28, 1983, Berlin). A student of R. Otto’s, he ¶ received his Dr.phil. in 1922 and his Lic.theol. in 1924. In 1926 he was appointed to a pastorate in Cologne and in 1932 became a consultant to the High Consistory in Berlin. In 1936 he became chief consistorial councilor. From 1951 to 1969 he served as spiritual vice-president in the chancery of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union in Berlin, where he also taught at the Academy of Music as a lecture…

[German Version] I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence (Mar 12, 1607, Gräfenhainichen – May 27, 1676, Lübben, Spreewald) I. Life Gerhardt, the most important Protestant hymnist after Luther, was raised in Lutheran Electoral Saxony. His parents died early (1619 and 1621). From 1622 to 1627, he attended the Prince's school Collegium Moldanum in Grimma. He enrolled at Wittenberg in 1682 to study theology in an environment of vigorous orthodoxy (II, 2.a); he was also influenced by the poetics of Augustus Bucher. He came…

[German Version] (Oct 11, 1585, Rudna [Ger. Raudten], Poland – Feb 17, 1647, Lezno [Ger. Lissa], Poland), the most prominent Protestant hymnwriter between Luther and P. Gerhardt. The son of a poor furrier and of sickly constitution, Heermann attended schools in Rudna, Wrocław (Breslau), Brzeg (Brieg), and elsewhere, and spent a short time in the house of V. Herberger in Wschowa (Fraustadt) (1602). His studies in Strassburg were short, owing to illness. Officiating as pastor in Köben near Glogow (G…

[German Version] (Jan [Feb] 13, 1532, Mühlhausen – Apr 8, 1598, Mühlhausen), poet and theologian. Helmbold worked as professor and dean at the university in Erfurt, and simultaneously as the co-rector of the Protestant Ratsgymnasium. Ousted by Catholic forces in 1570, he worked in his home town as teacher, pastor, and, after 1586, as superintendent. Helmbold's life and poems manifest a vital, self-defensive Lutheranism, centered around the theology of justification and based on the Bible and doctrine. Helmbold cast the ¶ Lutheran catechism, the Augsburg Confession and the Su…