Did Martin Luther Use Barroom Music with Sacred Music? Part 3

Did Martin Luther Use Barroom Music with Sacred Music? Part 3

            Here is a short history of some of the sources of the music Luther used with his sacred lyric texts: "Of the melodies to Luther’s 37 chorales, 15 were composed by Luther himself, 13 came from Latin hymns of Latin service music, 4 were derived from German religious folk songs, 2 had originally been religious pilgrims’ songs, 2 are of unknown origin, and one came directly from a secular folk song." (Data compiled from Squire, pp. 446-447; Leupold, ed., Liturgy and Hymns; and Strodach, ed., Works of Martin Luther, VI)  NOTE: The one secular song was from a popular pre-Reformation (not a drinking tune!) secular song, "I Arrived from an Alien Country," and was used as the melody for the Christmas hymn, "From Heaven on High I Come to You", the first stanza Luther patterned after the folk song. (sources: Robert D. Harrell, Martin Luther, His Music, His Message, p. 18)   The quote above is taken from http://www.av1611.org/question/cqluther.html 

            Furthermore, after researching every published work dealing with Luther’s music, Robert Harrell says point-blank: "None of the works dealing with Luther’s music can trace a single melody of his back to a drinking song." (Robert D. Harrell, Martin Luther, His Music, His Message, p. 34). (ibid, above).  So it is safe to conclude that there is no scholarly basis to believe that Luther used secular music with his sacred texts in a willy-nilly manner.  There are many sources and data sited in the article quoted that are worthy of the reader’s consideration so I suggest that those who are not convinced or who have further interest read the entire article and follow up the sources sited.  If Christian writers had not misquoted the facts so often further research would not have been necessary except that many of these articles are quite convincing on the surface.