page_title: Moravian Church music
section_title: Categories of Moravian music
hierarchical_section_title: Moravian Church music / Categories of Moravian music
caption_attribution_description: English: Tower music, funeral service, and burial in the Moravian community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
context_page_description: The Moravian musical tradition in United States began with the earliest Moravian settlers in the first half of the 18th century.
  These Moravians were members of a well-established church – officially called Unitas Fratrum or Unity of Brethren – that by [the mid-18th century] had already seen almost three centuries of rich experience of religious life. They were spiritual descendants of the Czech priest Jan Hus, who for his attempts at reform was martyred in 1415. Forty-two years later in 1457, some of his followers founded a church body consecrated to following Christ in simplicity and dedicated living.
  This newly constituted church developed a rich and orderly ecclesiastical life in the 15th and 16th centuries, but in the Thirty Years War of 1618-48 it was virtually wiped out. In the 1720s a few exiles of this religious heritage, along with various other seekers after truth, found refuge on an estate of a Saxon nobleman named Nicholaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. There in their village of Herrnhut the ancient church experienced a rebirth culminating in a spiritual blessing on August 13, 1727, in which their former diversity of purpose was welded into one.
context_section_description: The richest body of Moravian music is that composed for worship.  However, there are other aspects of the musical life of the American Moravians which should not be overlooked.
  First is what is most likely the best known aspect of Moravian music: the trombone choirs.  Moravians have used brass ensembles and bands since their earliest years in Herrnhut to announce special events and to accompany singing at outdoor services and funerals.  The Easter Band for the sunrise service in Salem numbers some 500 band members representing the 12 congregations of the Salem Congregation (the Moravian churches in Winston-Salem, NC) as well as players from across the country.  Moravian chorales used by the trombone choirs and church bands tend to be fairly stately and to have active parts for all four voices, which reflects the singing of a congregation – also singing in parts.
  The second type of music is the secular instrumental music in the Moravian collections.  This includes some music by Moravian composers, but by far the greater part of the instrumental music is not by Moravians, instead by composers who were the most popular ones in Europe in the middle 18th century and later.  Moravians seemed to have a voracious appetite for new music and collected, purchased, and copied everything they could get their hands on.  American Moravian music collections contain several thousand pieces by composers as well known as Haydn, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, Karl Stamitz; and as little known as Wenzel Pichl, Adalbert Gyrowetz, and Kleinknecht.  What the Moravians have in their instrumental collections is a cross-section of the musical culture out of which the masters arose – the cultural sea in which Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were swimming.  Many of these works in the American Moravian collections are “only known surviving” copies of music from these composers.
  Moravian contributions to the instrumental works, while fairly few in number, are significant.  An example is David Moritz Michael’s “Water Journey” for woodwind sextet, which was written for a holiday outing along the Lehigh River in Bethlehem, PA.  Musicians played on a barge and floated down the river while the townspeople strolled along the bank.
  There are also string works by Moravian composers.  John Antes (1740–1811) wrote a set of three string trios, which are lovely and challenging and have been recorded.  These trios were published in England prior to 1795 under the name “Giovanni A-T-S, Dillettante Americano”.  They are the earliest known chamber music written by a composer born in America.  Antes was born in Pennsylvania and served the Moravian Church as a missionary in Egypt.  In addition to the trios we have, he also wrote some string quartets which are now missing.  The truly international scope of the Moravian Church can be seen in the story of these quartets: here was an American-born missionary in Egypt, sending copies of his string quartets to an American diplomat in France, quartets which he had written for an English nobleman and his associates in India.  His three trios were dedicated to the Swedish ambassador in Constantinople.  These trios have been published by the Moravian Music Foundation in a scholarly edition.
  
  Also by a Moravian composer are the six string quintets (two violins, two violas, and cello) by Johann Friedrich Peter.  These were written in Salem, NC in 1789.  Peter was probably the most gifted and accomplished Moravian composer.  In addition to these string quintets, he wrote nearly 100 vocal works.
  "Secular" groups—chamber ensembles and concert bands—developed along a parallel stream to the "trombone choirs". While the trombone choirs and church bands focus their attention primarily on chorales, the community bands and chamber ensembles play primarily what we would now call "secular" music -- chamber music, marches, dances, arrangements of popular music of various sorts. These groups provide not only entertainment for player and audience alike but also enable the players to improve through playing more challenging music.
  By the 1780s th
caption: When a member of the church dies, it is announced by the trombone choir from the belfry of the church. While the funeral service is being held in the church, the body of the deceased lies in the Corpse House at the rear of the church. After the service, the coffin is placed on a bier and covered with a white cloth, as it is borne to the cemetery. At the grave a responsive service, participated in by the minister and the people, and with trombone accompaniment, is rendered. See also aequales.
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