“About Organs”: A Lutheran Statement about Organ Music from 1597, and Its Historical Context

Authors

• Markus Rathey, Yale UniversityFollow

Abstract

The article presents a translation of an important document about organ music, published by the Theology Department at Wittenberg University in 1597. While written in response to an ongoing controversy, the document became the authoritative statement of the Lutheran church about organs and organ music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The article presents the first complete English translation of the text and it analyzes the historical context of the document.

Author Biography

Markus Rathey is the Robert S. Tangeman Professor of Music History at Yale University. His research focuses on the relationship between music and theology with a particular emphasis on Johann Sebastian Bach and the Lutheran Reformation.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Rathey, Markus (2026) "“About Organs”: A Lutheran Statement about Organ Music from 1597, and Its Historical Context," Yale Journal of Music & Religion: Vol. 12: No. 1, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1360