Category search results
FROSTENSON, Anders. b. Loshult, Kristianstad, Sweden, 23 April 1906; d. 4 February 2006. Frostenson studied history of literature and theology at the University of Lund. He served in Stockholm from 1933, first as a curate in Gustav Vasa, a big city parish, and then as a parish clergyman in Lovö parish, near to Drottningholm, one of the castles of the royal family, where he served as a preacher from 1955. In 1969 he became a member of the Swedish official hymn committee and in 1981 he was...
NYBERG, Anders. b. Malung, north-west of Västerås, Sweden, 1955. He studied choral conducting and composition at the Royal Music Academy, Stockholm. In 1978 he led a Swedish worship group called 'Fjedur' to South Africa, then under an apartheid regime. They worked in black churches, and soon after Nyberg returned to work in the township of Guglethu, Cape Town (see 'South African freedom songs'). He subsequently worked in Latin America, taking another group, 'Gondwana', to Cuba and other...
GOOK, Arthur Charles. b. London, 11 June 1883; d. London, 18 June 1959. Gook was the son of an estate agent, who would not allow him to take up a scholarship to a university. After working briefly in his father's business, and for a London publisher, he trained as a homeopathic practitioner at the London Homeopathic Hospital. He was converted at a Bible Class, and joined the Open Brethren (OBs: see Brethren hymnody, British*). With his wife Florence, he went to Iceland in 1905 to take over a...
INGEMANN, Bernhard Severin. b. 28 May 1789; d. 24 February 1862. He was born in the parsonage of Thorkildstrup. His father was dean of the northern half of the Danish island of Falster. After the death of his father in 1799 Ingemann grew up in Slagelse (West Zealand), where he attended the grammar school. From 1806 to 1816 he studied at the University of Copenhagen without taking a degree (as an undergraduate he took part in the defence of Copenhagen in 1807). In 1811 Ingemann published his...
BOYE, Birgitte Katerine (née Johansen). b. Gentofte, Denmark, 7 March 1742; d. 17 October 1824. Born into a family in the king's service, she was married to Herman Hertz, one of the king's foresters. He was appointed forester of Vordingborg, in the south of Zealand, in 1763. Birgitte bore him four children, and also found time to study German, French and English: she translated hymns into Danish from these languages. She was discovered as a hymn writer when a new hymn book to replace that of...
Built on the rock the church doth stand. Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig* (1783-1872), translated by Carl Døving* (1867-1937).
First published in Grundtvig's Sangvärk til den Danske Kirke (1837), and later revised and abbreviated to the normal length of seven 7-line stanzas. The first line was 'Kirken den er et gammelt Hus' ('The church which is a strong house'). It is based on Matthew 16: 18, 'upon this rock I will build my church'. The hymn goes on to locate the church in the hearts and...
BOBERG, Carl Gustav. b. 16 August 1859; d. 7 January 1940. Born at Mönsterås, Sweden, he was the son of a ship's carpenter. He began life as a sailor. He was converted at the age of 19, and then attended Kristinehamn Bible School. He then became a preacher at Mönsterås, later becoming its member in the Upper House of the Swedish Parliament from 1912 to 1931. He edited a religious magazine, Sanningsvittnet ('Witness of Truth') from 1890 to 1916. He was a poet and hymn writer: many of his hymns...
Children of the Heavenly Father. Lina Sandell-Berg* (1832-1903), translated by Ernst W. Olson.
Many commentaries on this hymn state that Sandell-Berg wrote the original Swedish hymn 'Tryggare kan ingen vara' in 1858 as a result of her father's tragic death by drowning. Per Harling*, author of Sandell's most recent biography, Blott en dag: Lina Sandell og hennes sanger (Stockholm, 2004), drawing upon research by Swedish hymnologist Oscar Lövgren, suggests that Sandell wrote the hymn much...
The beginnings of Danish Hymnody date back to the 15th century, partly originating in the lay movements of that time, and partly as a Danish version of the renaissance culture of Northern Europe. Only a few texts have been preserved. Revised versions of some songs to the Holy Virgin and a number of pre-Reformation Christmas and Easter carols were included in hymnals of the Reformation period. Some of these carols are from German sources and are either parallel translations from Latin or...
HOVLAND, Egil. b. Råde, Norway, 18 October 1924; d. Fredrikstad, Norway, 5 February 2013. Hovland was one of the most prolific and multifaceted church music and mainstream composers of his generation. One of two sons of a butcher and sausage-maker (a profession intended for both sons), Hovland's family relocated to Fredrikstad in 1928. Here, his father was active as choir leader for a revivalist congregation. It was in this context that Hovland was introduced to church music. Hovland studied...
In the Nordic countries, the Lutheran reformation is often recognised as marking the dawn of hymn writing in the native language. In spite of their remote location in the North Atlantic the Faroe Islands are a part of what was then known as the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway, and the small and scattered population had a Nordic language of its own. But the Reformation made Danish — the king's language — the official language in matters of state and administration, church and faith. Therefore the...
Hymns before hymnals
Although archaeological evidence suggests that some form of Christanity may have existed earlier, the Christian Church was brought to Finland in 1155 by the English-born Henry, Bishop of Uppsala, Sweden, together with King (Saint) Erik of Sweden. Henry, the 'apostle to Finland', met an untimely end when he was murdered by a peasant, Lalli, on an icy lake. Amazing tales began to circulate about Henry and he was later canonized. Antiphons, hymns and sequences* were written...
PJETURSSON, Hallgrim (PÉTURSSON, Hallgrímur). b. Hólar, Iceland, 1614; d. 1674. His father was a bell-ringer at the cathedral. He worked in Copenhagen as a blacksmith, until Brynjolf Sveinsson, who later became Bishop of Iceland, asked him to instruct some returned captives in the Christian faith. He fell in love with one of them, Gudred, living in poverty with her in Iceland although her husband was still living. He married Gudred on the death of her husband, and was subsequently pardoned by...
BRORSON, Hans Adolph. b. 20 June 1694; d. 3 June 1764. Born at Randerup in the Danish part of West Schleswig, where his father Broder Broderson was vicar. He was educated at the Cathedral School of Ribe (1709-1712) and from 1712 at the University of Copenhagen, where he graduated as Master of Theology in 1721. From 1716 to 1721 Brorson was back in West Schleswig, most of the time as private tutor at the family of one of his uncles in Løgumkloster. Here he became acquainted with the Lutheran...
Höga Majestät, vi alla. Samuel Johan Hedborn* (1783-1849).
Published in Psalmer av Hedborn (1812), this has been described by Marilyn Kay Stulken* as 'One of our loftiest hymns of praise' (1981, p. 322). Its use has been primarily by North American Lutherans, in translation. According to hymnary.org., it appeared in a few Swedish language books in the USA between 1890 (Lill Basunen Innehallande Andliga Sånger) and 1903 (Nya Psalmisten: sånger för allmän och enskild uppbyggelse). It was...
In Iceland there developed a rich literary heritage during the Middle Ages, the Sagas and the Eddas. Soon after the establishment of Christianity in 1000, Icelandic poets began also to write poetry on Biblical themes and on the Saints, in which they used the skaldic and eddic metres formerly used in the heroic and mythical poems. Of these the most famous are Geisli ('The Beam') on St Olav from the 12th Century, and Sólarljóð ('The Sun Poem') from the 13th Century composed in the Eddic metre...
SIBELIUS, Jean (Julius Christian). b. Hämeenlinna, Finland, 8 December 1865; d. Jārvenpāā, 20 September 1957. An able violinist as a child, he studied with Martin Wigelius in Finland before moving abroad to Vienna and Berlin for further study. His symphony Kullervo was first performed in 1892, and it was this work that gained attention in his homeland. Other works with a national flavour, such as the Karelia Suite (1893) followed, and with Finlandia (1899-1900), written for a Finnish pageant...
BRUN, Johan Nordahl. b. 21 March 1745; 26 July 1816. Born at Byneset (now in Norway), he was educated at the University of Trondheim. He became a private tutor, and accompanied his pupil to Soro in Denmark (where, according to the Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, 1942, p. 488, he took the theological examination after only three months' study and was placed in the lowest possible grade; he re-took the examination at Copenhagen in 1767, after more study, and did better). After periods as a...
WALLIN, Johan Olof. b. Stora Tuna, Dalarna, Sweden, 15 October 1779; d. Uppsala, 30 June 1839. The son of a soldier, Wallin studied at Falun, Västeros, and Uppsala (PhD, 1803). He was ordained in 1806, and became theological assistant, then lecturer at Karlberg War College (1807), and pastor at Solna (1808). In 1812 he was appointed pastor of Adolf Frederik Church, Stockholm. He was subsequently dean of Västeros (1818-21), pastor of Storkyrkan Church, Stockholm (1821-24), Bishop (1824) and...
SANDELL-BERG, Lina (née Sandell, Karolina Vilhelmina, sometimes Sandell, Lina). b. 3 October 1832; d. 27 July 1903. Born at Fröderyd, Smaland, Sweden, the daughter of a pastor, she lost both her parents, her father drowning before her eyes in a boating accident. After the death of her parents she lived in a home run by a religious group, and began to write poems, using the initials 'L.S.'. Many of them were set to music by the guitarist Oskar Ahnfelt (1813-1882), the 'spiritual troubadour' of...
LINDEMAN, Ludvig Mathias. b. 28 November 1812; d. 23 May 1887. Born at Trondhjem [Trondheim], Lindeman was the best known member of a family of Norwegian church musicians. Of German ancestry, his grandfather, Christopher Madsen (1706/08-1788), studied medicine in London, and changed his name to Lindeman after establishing a medical practice in Trondheim. His father, Ole Andreas Lindeman (1769-1857) was for 57 years organist of Vår Frue (Our Lady's) church, Trondheim, a concert pianist, and...
LANDSTAD, Magnus Brostrup. b. 7 October 1802; d. 8 October 1880. Born at Måsøy, he was one of ten children born to parish priest Hans Landstad (1771-1838) and Margrethe Elisabeth Schnitler (1768-1850). His family moved several times, settling finally in Seljord, Telemark, in 1819. He was raised in a period of abject poverty in rural Norway, partially caused by the Napoleonic wars. His father educated him until 1822, when he began studies at the University of Christiania (Oslo), where he...
GRUNDTVIG, Nicolai Frederik Severin. b. Udby, 8 September 1783; d. Copenhagen, 2 September 1872. He was born in a small village in South Zealand, where his father had been priest since 1778. The small boy remembered news of the revolution in France arriving in the village in 1789, but he seems to have been more impressed in the previous year (when he was five years old) by the news that the Russian troops on the Black Sea coast were advancing south and hoped to be in Constantinople by Easter:...
Early history and the first hymnody
Norwegian language-use and hymnological terminology, while largely concordant with the other Scandinavian languages, differs significantly compared to those of most other languages. The term salme (from the Greek ψάλμος, psalmos) is used to denote both biblical, paraphrasal and other religious strophic verse set to music. This reflects the fact that the psalter in post-Reformation Denmark-Norway gradually disappeared from the service life of the church,...
See 'Zimbabwean hymnody#Olof Axelsson'*
HARLING, Per. b. Bromma, Sweden, 20 June 1948. Harling is a prolific song and hymn writer as well as a composer of liturgical music and hymn tunes. He has written several books on worship life, hymn texts and biographies, including Ett ögonblick i sänder - Lina Sandell och hennes sånger (Libris, 2003). He is particularly noted for his work connected with service life reform in the Swedish church, especially as secretary for the hymnal supplement for the Church of Sweden, Psalmer i...
DASS, Petter. b. Northern Herøy, 1647, date unknown; d. Alstadhaug, 18 September 1707. Born at Northern Herøy in Nordland, he was the son of Peiter Pittersen Dundas (c. 1620-1654), a Scottish immigrant from Dundee, and Maren Falch (1629-1707). Following his father's death he was taken into care by relatives and friends, and was schooled in Bergen from 1660. After study at the University of Copenhagen (1666-69) he returned to Norway, where he became tutor for the family of the parish priest of...
Piae Cantiones. This collection of carols and songs was published in Greifswald, then part of Swedish territory, in 1582. It consisted of 74 items, arranged in 11 sections:
24 Cantiones for Christmas;
9 for Passion-tide and Easter;
1 for Pentecost;
3 for Trinity Sunday;
2 for Holy Communion;
4 'Songs of Prayer';
14 on 'the Frailty and Miseries of Human Life' ('De Fragilitate et Miseriis Humanae Conditionis');
10 on School Life;
2 on Peace;
3 'Songs of History'; and
2 Carols for Spring.
The...
ELLINGSEN, Svein Ørnulf. b. Kongsberg, Norway, 13 July 1929; d. Arendal, Norway, 5 April 2020.. Ellingsen was the son of master stonemason Fritz Frølich Ellingsen and Karo Enge. He was raised in Kongsberg; from an early age he was drawn towards a career in the arts. Initially intending to study theology, Ellingsen instead studied at the Art and Craft school at Oslo (Kunst- og håndverkskolen, 1950-1951) and the National Art Academy (Statens kunstakademi, 1952-1955), with additional study,...
Medieval hymns
Latin hymns in medieval Sweden have been more thoroughly researched than in other Scandinavian countries. An edition of 129 surviving Swedish melodies, with commentary, together with 60 photographs of medieval Swedish hymn sources may be found in Moberg and Nilsson (1991). The texts were edited in Moberg (1947). Sweden came under the influence of north-west European missionaries in the 11th century, and had contacts with central European Christians in later centuries, both of...
KINGO, Thomas Hansen. b. 15 December 1634; d. 14 October 1703. He was born at Slangerup, North Zealand, Denmark, the son of a weaver. He attended the newly founded grammar-school at Frederiksborg from 1650 to 1654, and after four years at the University of Copenhagen he graduated in 1658 as Master of Theology. After some years as private tutor in West Zealand, he became chaplain in 1661 at Kirke Helsinge, also in West Zealand. In 1668 Kingo was appointed as priest in his native town of...
Thy holy wings, O Savior. Lina Sandell-Berg* (1832-1903), translated by Ernest E. Ryden* and Gracia Grindal* (1943- ).
Like Sandell Berg's beloved Swedish hymn, 'Children of the Heavenly Father'*, this hymn (sometimes 'Thy holy wings, dear Savior') is also sung to a Swedish folk song, in this case, BRED DINA VIDA VINGAR. The relationship between this text and tune extends back to 1889 in a hymnal compiled in part by Sandell-Berg, Sionstoner ('Melodies of Zion'). See Swedish hymnody*. The text...
Var hälsad, sköna morgonstund. Johan Olof Wallin* (1779-1839).
This is from the 1819 Svenska Psalm-Boken, the book that Wallin produced after the unsatisfactory attempt at a national hymnbook in 1811. According to Stulken (1981, p. 176), the translation in LBW was the work of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, based on a version made by Ernest William Olson for the Hymnal (1901) of the Augustana Synod of the Lutheran Church. It began 'All hail to you, O blessed morn'. It links the...
We are marching in the light of God. South African Freedom song, translated by Anders Nyberg* (1955- ).
In 1978 Nyberg led a Swedish worship group called 'Fjedur' to South Africa, then under an apartheid regime. After the return to Sweden, ca. 1980, 'Fjedur' published the freedom songs of the black churches (see South African freedom songs*). These were then edited by Nyberg, who provided English translations, and published with the title Freedom is Coming (Church of Sweden Mission, 1984)....
When Christmas morn is dawning. Abel Burckhardt (1805–1882); formerly attributed to Betty Ehrenborg-Posse (1818–1880); translated by. Joel L. Lundeen (1918–1990).
This Swedish Christmas children's hymn captures the moment of Jesus' birth when the shepherds followed the directions of the angel, heard the angel hosts singing, 'Glory to God', and 'found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger' (Luke 2: 16, NIV).
Nothing is known of the author of the hymn text. The hymn first...
WEXELS, Wilhelm Andreas. b. Copenhagen, 29 March 1797; d. Christiania, 14 May 1866. He was educated at the Metropolitan School, Copenhagen, and the University of Christiania (then in Denmark; now Oslo, Norway). After theological studies, he was appointed catechist at Vår Frelsens Kirke (Our Saviour's Church), Christiania (1818), becoming residing curate in 1846; he was also appointed preacher to the University of Christiania. He remained at Christiania for the rest of his life, declining the...