Newly translated from the Latin.
Hail in Christ! I would certainly like with all my heart that the divine and exceedingly glorious gift, music, be praised and extolled to all, but I am so overwhelmed by the quantity and greatness of its excellence and good qualities that I can find neither beginning nor end nor a way of speaking, so that I must be a meager and poor eulogist in the highest abundance of praise. For who could possibly sum up everything? And if you wanted to summarize everything, you would be considered as if you had summarized nothing. First of all, if you look at the thing itself, you will find that music has been implanted or given to all creatures from the beginning of the world. For there is nothing without a sound or sonorous music, so that even the air, which in itself cannot be seen nor touched, and is imperceptible to all the senses, and of all things is least musical, but rather quite mute and considered to be nothing, is nevertheless, when moved, sonorous and audible, then also palpable; wherein the spirit displays marvelous mysteries, of which it is not the place here to speak. But still more wonderful is the music in living creatures, especially the birds, as the very musical king and divine Psalmist David praises with immense wonder and exultant spirit the wonderful skill and assurance of the birds in singing, saying in the 104th Psalm, v. 12.: "By the waters sit the birds of the air, and sing among the branches." But against the human voice, everything is actually unmusical: so great is the over
effusive and incomprehensible mildness and wisdom of the kind Creator in this matter.
The world's ants have labored to discover the marvelous work of art of the human voice, how the air, struck by such a light movement of the tongue and an even lighter movement of the throat, can produce the infinite variety and articulation of voice and words according to the will of the governing soul, and so powerfully and strongly that through such great distances all around it can not only be heard but also understood by all. But they only struggle, they never find it, and with admiration they must desist and marvel. Yes, no one has yet been found who could explain and determine what the whispering and a kind of ABC of the human voice or the coarse material (materia prima) is; namely the laughter (I will not say anything about crying) they admire, but do not understand it. But we want to leave these researches about the infinite wisdom of God in this One Creature to people who understand it better and have more time; we hardly get a sample of it.
Here we should speak of the use of such a great thing, but even this, in its infinite variety and usefulness, is much too high for the greatest eloquence of all the most eloquent people. Only this one thing we can now mention- that experience testifies that it is music alone which, according to the words of God, is rightly called the mistress and
toro. VII, p. 551. German in the Leipzig edition, vol. XXII, appendix, p. 140 and in Walch. We have retranslated according to the Erlanger.
Music should be praised as the regent of the human heart movements 1) (of the animals we have to be silent now), by which the people are ruled as by their masters and are often carried away. A greater praise of music than this we cannot imagine. For if you want to either raise the sad, or frighten the happy. To encourage the despairing, to depress the hopeful, to calm the frenzied, to pacify the insubordinate-and who can enumerate all these masters of the human heart, namely the movements of the heart and the impulses or spirits that drive to all virtues or vices? - What can you find more effective than music? Even the Holy Spirit honors it as an instrument of his own ministry, since he testifies in his holy writings that through it his gifts come upon the prophets, that is, the impulse to all virtues, as is seen in Elisha; again, that through it the devil is cast out, that is, the one who impels to all vices, as is shown in Saul, the king of Israel. Therefore, the fathers and the prophets did not want in vain that nothing should be more closely connected with the word of God than music. For this is the origin of so many songs and psalms, in which both speech and voice work in the heart of the listener, while with other living creatures and bodies, music alone, without speech, makes gestures. Yes, speech and voice alone were given to man before others, so that he should know that he should praise God with words and music, namely by letting himself be heard with praises, and by mixing the words with a sweet melody. If you now make a comparison among men themselves, you will see how manifold and in many ways the Creator has shown Himself glorious in the distribution of the gifts of music, how different one man is from another in voice and word, that one exceeds the other extraordinarily. For
1) Instead of effectuum in our template, affectuum will have to be read.
One denies that even two people can be found who have the same voice and speech in all things, although one often sees that some imitate others, as some of the others are monkeys.
But when finally the effort is added to improve, develop and unfold the natural disposition, then one can finally perceive with astonishment, but not comprehend, the unrestricted and perfect wisdom of God in this wonderful work of His in music. In this way, it is something outstanding that it is sung by one and the same voice, which continues in its course, while in the meantime several voices around it praise, rejoice and adorn it with exceedingly lovely gestures in a wonderful way, and, as it were, perform a kind of divine round dance next to it, so that to those who have even a little feeling, nothing more wonderful seems to exist in our time. But those who are not moved by this are indeed unmusical, and worth listening to some shitty poet or the music of pigs in the meantime.
But the matter is too great for its many benefits to be described in such brevity. You, my dear young man, let this noble, wholesome and joyful creature be commanded to you, by means of which you, too, can at times come to the aid of your heart movements against shameful lusts and evil company. Then you should get used to recognizing and praising the Creator in this creature, and from the corrupt hearts, which abuse this very beautiful natural gift and art, like the lewd poets, for their nonsensical love affairs, you should guard yourself with the utmost diligence and avoid them, in the certainty that the devil will snatch them away against nature, since this alone wants and should praise God, who has bestowed it, with this gift. These bastards make a robbery out of the gift of God and worship with it the enemy of God and the adversary of nature and this exceedingly lovely art. Fare well in the Lord.
Luther's preface to the Latin and German Begräbnißgesänge of 1542 is in the St. Louis edition, Vol. X, 1424 ff. In the header there should be "W. XIV" instead of: "W. XV".