Musical Offerings ⦁ 2021 ⦁ Volume 12 ⦁ Number 2 59 desired church music to be of a high quality and musically pleasing, even to the trained musician. Although Luther did not entirely overhaul church music or the liturgy in starting the Lutheran Church, his ideology helped redirect the course and purpose of worship in the Protestant church. As previously mentioned, a large portion of works attributed to Luther are based on Latin liturgical and other familiar melodies. Even chorale singing “was not new; some fifty years before Luther, Jan Hus and his Bohemian Brethren (Moravians, or Hussites) had practiced the congregational singing of hymns adapted from Gregorian melodies or popular airs.”46 While Luther was writing music for the new liturgy, other poets such as Johann Böschenstein and Heinrich von Zutphen were also composing vernacular hymns. Both Böschenstein and von Zutphen studied with Luther in Wittenberg. Though scholars cannot be certain of whether or not Luther knew these men were also writing hymns, the styles seem to reflect one another and imply that he was inspired by their writings.47 It is for reasons such as these that Luther’s “greatness lies in his establishment of the new Lutheran liturgy and in the importance he placed on music” rather than his compositions themselves.48 Additionally, his accomplishment lies in the distinctiveness that Lutheran music gained, which separated it from the Catholic Church and other Protestant churches. At the time, the Reformers considered their movement to be a failure. Luther’s main arguments in the Reformation were against the indulgences and theology of the Catholic Church. He was able to present many arguments for biblical theology and successfully founded the church that believed in salvation through grace and faith alone. However, at the time, the Catholic Church was tied closely to the government. As a result, marriages were only legal if they were carried out through the Catholic Church. Luther and his counterparts sought to change marriage laws, disagreeing with the connection between the Church and the state. This separation of the Lutheran Church from the Catholic Church also resulted in a separation from the Lutheran Church and the law; because of this, marriages were illegitimate, and children produced by Lutheran marriages were considered to have been born out of wedlock. Ultimately, the Reformation did not achieve all the Reformers hoped that it would, 46 Dowley, 88. 47 Leaver, 72–73. 48 Dowley, 90.
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