'The Devil does not need all the good tunes for himself,’ Luther wisely remarked, and he drew from all sources, secular and sacred, for his melodies. The same breadth of choice was likewise exercised by his followers throughout the century: a song sung by the footsoldiers at the battle of Pavia became the _Durch Adam’s Fall ist ganz verderbt_; the chorale melody _Von Gott will ich nicht lassen_, can be traced to an old love song, _Einmal tät ich Spazieren_; a love song, _Mein G’müt ist mir verwirret von einer Jungfrau zart_, by Hans Leo Hassler, became the choral melody to the funeral-hymn _Herzlich thut mich verlangen_, and later the same melody was set to Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, _O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden_, and in that form holds a leading part in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Nor were the chorale tunes taken from Germany alone. Favorite part-songs of Italy and France were appropriated and set to German words.
The hymn-book compiled by Luther with the help of Rupff and Walther was published in Wittenburg in 1524. It was intended for church use, and that the compilers had the choir, not the congregation, in mind is proved by the fact that all the tunes are contrapuntally set, with the melody as _cantus firmus_ in the tenor, that is to say, in the middle of the music, not soaring triumphantly aloft majestically to guide the congregation. We have, therefore, in these chorales of Luther not a new form but a new spirit. How great a part the congregation ever actually took in them is open to discussion. Doubtless in those churches where there was no skilled choir, congregational singing played an important rôle; but it seems likely that in those churches where there was such a choir, congregational singing was kept as much in the background as possible. In 1586 Lukas Osiander published a set of fifty chorales, 'set contrapuntally in such a way that the whole Christian congregation can always join in them.’ This was obviously a kind attempt to bring the more or less neglected congregation into the musical part of the service. In Osiander’s arrangements the melody is in the soprano. But the setting is still too intricate for general use and the same rather condescending, yet still lofty, attitude toward the congregation is characteristic of all composers down to the time of Bach.