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Christoph Peter
1626 - 1669 Person Name: C. Peter Composer of "ACH GOTT UND HERR" in The English Hymnal Born: 1626 - Weida, Vogtland, Thuringia, Germany
Died: December 4, 1669 - Guben
Christoph Peter [Petraeus] was a German composer and music editor. His first appointment was as schoolmaster and Kantor at Grossenhain, Saxony. He moved in 1655 to Guben, where he was Kantor until his death. He worked closely there with the poet and civic official Johann Franck. 40 melodies in the latter’s Geistliches Sion (1672), the first part of his Teutsche Gedichte, are by Peter, and he referred to Peter’s skills in the second part, Irdischer Helicon (1674). Peter’s Andachts-Zymbeln is an anthology of chorales by various composers which also contains preliminary instructional matter, a letter of 1524 from Martin Luther to Spalatin, and testimonials to Peter from Franck and others. It may well be significant that he inscribed it to the mayor and corporation of Guben in the year in which he arrived at Guben and that he received rights of citizenship there early the following year. Precationis thuribulum (RISM 16691) consists of masses by Saxon composers based on familiar chorales and set for various combinations of voices and instruments with continuo. The Geistliche Arien includes settings of poems by, among others, Johann Franck, Johann Rist and Paul Gerhardt, and Peter explained that they are for solo voice (with instruments) ‘so that the words can be better understood’.
--Bach Cantatas Website
Christoph Peter
Anonymous
Author of "O King Most High of Earth and Sky" in The Cyber Hymnal In some hymnals, the editors noted that a hymn's author is unknown to them, and so this artificial "person" entry is used to reflect that fact. Obviously, the hymns attributed to "Author Unknown" "Unknown" or "Anonymous" could have been written by many people over a span of many centuries.
Anonymous
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685 - 1750 Person Name: Johann S. Bach Adapter & Harmonizer of "ACH GOTT UND HERR" in The Cyber Hymnal Johann Sebastian Bach was born at Eisenach into a musical family and in a town steeped in Reformation history, he received early musical training from his father and older brother, and elementary education in the classical school Luther had earlier attended.
Throughout his life he made extraordinary efforts to learn from other musicians. At 15 he walked to Lüneburg to work as a chorister and study at the convent school of St. Michael. From there he walked 30 miles to Hamburg to hear Johann Reinken, and 60 miles to Celle to become familiar with French composition and performance traditions. Once he obtained a month's leave from his job to hear Buxtehude, but stayed nearly four months. He arranged compositions from Vivaldi and other Italian masters. His own compositions spanned almost every musical form then known (Opera was the notable exception).
In his own time, Bach was highly regarded as organist and teacher, his compositions being circulated as models of contrapuntal technique. Four of his children achieved careers as composers; Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Chopin are only a few of the best known of the musicians that confessed a major debt to Bach's work in their own musical development. Mendelssohn began re-introducing Bach's music into the concert repertoire, where it has come to attract admiration and even veneration for its own sake.
After 20 years of successful work in several posts, Bach became cantor of the Thomas-schule in Leipzig, and remained there for the remaining 27 years of his life, concentrating on church music for the Lutheran service: over 200 cantatas, four passion settings, a Mass, and hundreds of chorale settings, harmonizations, preludes, and arrangements. He edited the tunes for Schemelli's Musicalisches Gesangbuch, contributing 16 original tunes. His choral harmonizations remain a staple for studies of composition and harmony. Additional melodies from his works have been adapted as hymn tunes.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
Johann Sebastian Bach
William John Blew
1808 - 1894 Person Name: William J. Blew Translator (from Latin) of "O King Most High of Earth and Sky" in The Cyber Hymnal Blew, William John, M.A., son of William Blew, born April 13, 1808, and educated at Great Ealing School, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1830, and M.A., 1832. On taking Holy Orders, Mr. Blew was Curate of Nuthurst and Cocking, and St. Anne's, Westminster, and for a time Incumbent of St. John's next Gravesend. Besides translations from Homer (Iliad, bks. i., ii., &c.) and Æschylus (Agamemnon the King), and works on the Book of Common Prayer, including a paraphrase on a translation of the same in Latin, he edited the Breviarium Aherdonense, 1854; and published a pamphlet on Hymns and Hymn Books, 1858; and (with Dr. H. J. Gauntlett) The Church Hymn and Tune Book, 1852, 2nd ed. 1855. Tho hymns in this last work are chiefly translations by Mr. Blew of Latin hymns. They were written from 1845 to 1852, and printed on fly-sheets for the use of his congregation. Many of these translations have come into common use. The following original hymns were also contributed by him to the same work:—
1. Christ in the Father's glory bright. Morning.
2. God's ark is in the field. Evening. The second stanza of this hymn is from Bp. Cosin's Hours, in his Collection of Private Devotions, 1627.
3. Hark, through the dewy morning. Morning.
4. Lord of the golden day. Evening.
5. 0 Lord, Thy wing outspread. Whitsuntide.
6. 0 Thou, Who on Thy sainted quire. Whitsuntide.
7. Sleeper, awake, arise. Epiphany.
8. Sweet Babe, that wrapt in twilight. Epiphany.
9. Ye crowned kings, approach ye. Epiphany. This is written to the tune “Adeste fideles," and might easily be mistaken as a free translation of the "Adeste."
Mr. Blew has also translated The Altar Service of the Church of England, in the year 1548, into English. His translations are terse, vigorous, musical, and of great merit. They have been strangely overlooked by the compilers of recent hymn-books. He died Dec. 27, 1894.
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
William John Blew
