Product Description
A Mighty Fortress is Our God
piano solo arrangement by Stephen R Dalrymple
Martin Luther wrote Ein Feste Burg sometime between 1527 and 1529. (Luther published the Ninety-five Theses in 1517 and was excommunicated in 1521.) Ein Feste Burg was translated into English by Miles Coverdale in 1539 with the title, "Oure God is a defence and towre". The English text most familiar to me was translated by Francis Hedge in 1853.
Luther believed in the power of music. In 1558 in the Forward to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae he wrote I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God. next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits.... Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God.
In his lifetime, Luther made 3 major contributions to the Church: the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, the belief that Scripture should be translated into the people's language (producing a translation of the Bible into German), and the birth of congregational singing. In Roman Catholic churches of his day, only the cantor and a chorus sang the mass in Latin. He was determined to restore congregational singing in German to the church.
In the slides, I have featured the La Citadelle Laferrière, a fortress in Northern Haiti, commissioned in 1805 by Henri Christophe and completed in 1820, following Haitis independence from France in 1804.
music © 2010 Stephen R Dalrymple (copyright registered in 'Rejoice Ye Pure In Heart collection)
recording 2020 Stephen R Dalrymple
presentation © 2024 Stephen R Dalrymple
performed by the arranger
This .pdf file includes 2 files: 1) Letter size piano score 2) Small page piano score for performing from a 10 inch tablet
(Tell your computer which pages you want to print. There are programs online that will allow you to split pdf files so that you can choose the correct part of the pdf for your tablet.)
YouTube Channel: @DalrympleDesigns
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