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Johann Sebastian Bach

1685 - 1750 Person Name: J. S. Bach Harmonizer of "[Christ Jesus says, "Count well the cost when you lay the foundation."]" in The Brethren Songbook 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 Hermann Schein

1586 - 1630 Composer of "[Christ Jesus says, "Count well the cost when you lay the foundation."]" in The Brethren Songbook Schein, Johann Hermann, son of Hieronymus Schein, pastor at Griinhain, near Annaberg, in Saxony, was born at Grünhain, Jan. 20,1586. He matriculated at the University of Leipzig in 1607, and studied there for four years. Thereafter he acted for some time as a private tutor, including two years with a family at Weissenfels. On May 21, 1615, he was appointed Capellmeister, at the court of Duke Johann Ernst, of Sachse-Weimar; and in 1616 he became cantor of I3t. Thomas's Church, and music director at Leipzig, in succession to Seth Calvisius (d. Nov. 24, 1615). This post he held till his death, at Leipzig, Nov. 19, 1630. Schein was one of the most distinguished musicians of his time, both as an original composer, and as a harmoniser of the works of others. As a hymnwriter he was not so prolific, or so noteworthy. Most of his hymns were written on the deaths of his children or friends, e.g. on seven of his children, and on his first wife. They appeared mostly in broadsheet form, and were included, along with his original melodies, in his Cantional oder Gesang-Buch Augspurgischer Confession, Leipzig, 1627; 2nd ed., 1645. [Both in Wernigerode Library.] Those of Schein's hymns which have passed into English are:— i. Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt. For the Dying. First published, as a broadsheet, at Leipzig, 1628, as a Trost-Liedlein á 5 (i.e. for 5 voices), &c. [Berlin Library.] The words, the melody, and the five-part setting, are all by Schein. It was written for, and first used at, the funeral, on Dec. 15, 1628, of Margarita, wife of Caspar Werner, a builder and town councillor at Leipzig, and a churchwarden of St. Thomas's. It is in 6 stanzas of 6 lines; the initial letters of 11. 1, 3, in st. i.-iv., forming the name Margarita; and the W of st. v. 1. 1 standing for Werner. In Schein's Cantional, 1645, No. 303 (marked as Trost-Liedlein, Joh. Herm. Scheins, á 5), and later hymn-books, as e.g. the Unverfäschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 830, st. vi. was omitted. It is Schein's finest production, and one of the best German hymns for the sick and dying. Translated as:— Deal with me, God, in mercy now. This is a good and full translation by Miss Winkworth, in her Chorale Book for England, 1863, No. 191, set to Schein's melody of 1628. ii. Mein Gott und Herr, ach sei nicht fern. For the Dying. First published, with his name, in his Cantional, 1627, No. 262, in 9 stanzas of 6 lines. The initial letters of the stanzas give the name Margarita, probably one of the daughters who predeceased him. It is included, in 5 st., in the 164-8, and later eds., of Crüger's Praxis. The translation in common use is:— My Lord and God, go not away. A good tr. of st. i., ii., iv., v., vii., by A. T. Russell, as No. 254, in his Psalms & Hymns, 1851. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.] --Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Bartholomäus Gesius

1555 - 1613 Composer of "MACH’S MIT MIR / EISENACH" in Voices Together Bartholomaeus Gesius; b. 1555, Muencheberg, near Frankfort; d. 1613 or 14, Wittenberg Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal, 1908

Alexander Mack

1679 - 1735 Person Name: Alexander Mack, Sr. Author of "Count Well the Cost" in The Brethren Songbook Alexander Mack was born in 1679 at Schriesheim, between Mannheim and Heidelberg. He was brought up in the Reformed faith. He was not satisfied with the formalism of the Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed churches, but also not satisfied with the Pietists, who believed religion was of the heart, and rejected the organized church. He founded the Church of the Brethren in 1708 in Schwarzenau, Wittgenstein. The church sought to adopt the teachings of the New Testament, and practiced baptism by immersion. Because of this they were also known as "Dunkers." The church grew in Schwarzenau but was scattered by persecution. The leaders decided to come to the United States and nearly the whole denomination migrated to the States starting in 1719. Mack move with his family in 1729, where he led the church until his death in 1735. Dianne Shapiro from The Religious Poetry of Alexander Mack, Jr. by Samuel B. Heckman (Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, 1912)