Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
A giant in the history of music, Ludwig van Beethoven (b. Bonn, Germany, 1770; d. Vienna, Austria, 1827) progressed from early musical promise to worldwide, lasting fame. By the age of fourteen he was an accomplished viola and organ player, but he became famous primarily because of his compositions, including nine symphonies, eleven overtures, thirty piano sonatas, sixteen string quartets, the Mass in C, and the Missa Solemnis. He wrote no music for congregational use, but various arrangers adapted some of his musical themes as hymn tunes; the most famous of these is ODE TO JOY from the Ninth Symphony. Although it would appear that the great calamity of Beethoven's life was his loss of hearing, which turned to total deafness during the last…
Go to person page >Adapter: John Goss
John Goss (b. Fareham, Hampshire, England, 1800; d. London, England, 1880). As a boy Goss was a chorister at the Chapel Royal and later sang in the opera chorus of the Covent Garden Theater. He was a professor of music at the Royal Academy of Music (1827-1874) and organist of St. Paul Cathedral, London (1838-1872); in both positions he exerted significant influence on the reform of British cathedral music. Goss published Parochial Psalmody (1826) and Chants, Ancient and Modern (1841); he edited William Mercer's Church Psalter and Hymn Book (1854). With James Turle he published a two-volume collection of anthems and Anglican service music (1854).
Bert Polman
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Burial of the DeadLORD, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth or ever the earth and the world were made thou art God from everlasting and world without end.
Thou turnest man to destruction; again thou sayest, Come again ye children of me.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday; seeing that is past as a watch in the night.
As soon as Thou scatterest them they are even as a sleep and fade away suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green and groweth up but in the evening is it cut down, dried up and withered.
Fro we consume away in thy displeasure and are afraid at thy wrathful indignation.
Thou hast set our misdeeds before thee and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For when thou art angry, all our days are gone; we bring our years to an end as it were a tale that is told.
The days of our age are threescore years and ten and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow so soon passeth it away and we are gone.
O teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
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Burial of the DeadTe Deum Laudamus
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