Luther's powerful Ein feste Burg has important historical properties that apply to the analysis of its melody as it appears in twentieth-century band literature. Composers who set the tune were attracted to its religious message as well as the opportunity to reset the melody into a new genre. Warren Benson's The Leaves Are Falling, inspired by a poem from Rainer Maria Rilke, resembles an orchestral tone poem in its instrumentation. Benson composed the piece after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He parodies Ein feste Burg throughout in order to give the listener a simultaneous sense of austerity, in the presence of the tune, and loss, in its fragmentation. John Zdechlik's Psalm 46 and James Curnow's Rejouissance quote short portions of the tune in variation and save a complete quotation for the end of the piece. Gordon Jacob's Tribute to Canterbury uses the tune to pay homage to the Kings School in Canterbury and likens Luther's struggle to Canterbury's "ability to survive and grow in times of religious turbulence." In his three-movement cyclical setting, Jacob uses the theme as a unifying element and incorporates it into each movement. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, composed by Elliot Del Borgo, never quotes the entirety of the hymn but rather relies on the familiarity of the first phrase throughout. Del Borgo evokes the spirit of the hymn as a tribute to "comfort against the dark force of death." Vaclav Nelhybel's Festive Adorations uses paraphrase of three hymns, one of which is Ein feste Burg, within a collage setting. Each composer borrows Ein feste Burg because of its strong religious associations, but all use different compositional and expressive means.

Works: Warren Benson: The Leaves Are Falling (55-72); John Zdechlik: Psalm 46 (73-89); Gordon Jacob: Tribute to Canterbury (90-110); Elliot Del Borgo: Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night (111-23); James Curnow: Rejouissance (124-43); Vaclav Nelhybel: Festive Adorations (144-55).

Sources: Luther: Ein feste Burg (1, 3-4, 12-26, 49-50).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Katie Lundeen