GREGOR'S 112TH METRE

GREGOR'S 112TH METRE

Composer: Christian Gregor (1784)
Published in 1 hymnal


Printable scores: PDF, MusicXML
Audio files: MIDI

Composer: Christian Gregor

Gregor, Christian, son of Georg Gregor, a peasant living in the Silesian village of Dirsdorf, near Peilau, was born at Dirsdorf, Jan. 1, 1723. In 1742 he went to Herrnhut, where he was at first employed in tuition. He became leader of the music in the [Moravian] Brethren's congregation at Herrnhaag, in 1748, and in 1749 at Zeist; but in 1753 he returned to Herrnhut as cashier of the Brethren's Board of Direction. He was, in 1756, ordained diaconus, in 1767 presbyter, and in 1789 bishop of the Brethren's Church. On Nov. 6,1801, he attended a meeting, held at Herrnhut, of the Board of Direction of which he had been a member from 1764. Just as he entered his house at Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, he was struck with paralysis, and died that same… Go to person page >

Tune Information

Title: GREGOR'S 112TH METRE
Composer: Christian Gregor (1784)
Meter: 10.11.10.11.10.4
Key: C Major

Texts

Our Faithful God

Our faithful God makes plans which cannot fail.
He loves his own, and to himself he calls them.
He knows their past and future in detail.
His present help makes only good surround them.
The works of time, which his pure being spans,
are in his hands.

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Notes

Christian Gregor, Moravian minister and musician (b. Dirsdorf, Silesia 1723; d. Berthelsdorf, near Herrnhut, Saxony, 1801), wrote GREGOR'S 112TH METRE as a setting for "Er wird es tun, der fromme treue Gott" and published it in his Choralbuch in 1784 (hymn no. 112). That hymnal was a supplement to the 1778 Gesangbuch der evangelische Brueder-Gemeinen. Dutch musician Leonard J. Mens (1879-1960) prepared the harmonization for the Psalmen en Gezangen (1938), where this tune was set to Pierson's text.

The tune has bar form shape (AAB) common in many chorales. The melody also; has a sensitive balance between stepwise motion and larger, dramatic intervals. Sing in harmony and use a firm, bright organ registration.

Gregor became uncomfortable as a Protestant in predominantly Roman Catholic Silesia, and he joined the Moravian settlement in Herrnhut in 1742. There his many gifts came to expression: he became a noted spiritual leader, church musician, and hymnal editor. He traveled to Moravian communities and mission outposts in Europe and the United States, served as organist for the Moravians in Zeist, the Netherlands (1749-1753), and became a Moravian bishop in Herrnhut in 1789. The principal editor, of the Moravian Gesangbuch (1778), Gregor supplied some three hundred of his own texts as well as adaptations to its contents of 1,750 hymns. He also compiled a tunebook for that hymnal, entitled Choralbuch (1784), in which a number of tunes are also attributed to him.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Media

Psalter Hymnal (Gray) #445
Text: Our Faithful God
  • Full Score (PDF, XML)
  • Bulletin Score (PDF)
  • Bulletin Score (melody only) (PDF)

Instances

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Psalter Hymnal (Gray) #445

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