Jan Bender presentation by David Fienen All Saints Sunday – 4 Nov. 2012 First Lutheran Church St. Peter, MN Bender was a composer, organist, church musician, educator, and friend. Born in Holland in 1909, he moved to Lübeck, Germany with his mother at age 13, to live with Grandpa Schindler, a Marzipan Baker. Going to church at the famous 12th century Jan Bender Marienkirche near their home, he gravitated to the 1909-­‐1994 organ loft, turning pages, pulling stops, and helping the organist, Karl Lichtwark, know when to start the next hymn. (You see, in that huge church, it took 8 minutes to climb up to the organ balcony on the back wall!) Soon he began taking lessons from Herr Lichtwark and then from his successor, Walter Kraft. He almost didn’t get to finish his high school exams because he was hospitalized with TB. He took his exams in the hospital and was then sent to a sanitorium in Switzerland. Finally they discovered it wasn’t TB—he just had an extra rib on one side! (I have seen the x-­‐ray.) Jan then went to study with Karl Straube in Leipzig, but after 3 years, he went to Amsterdam (since he wasn’t yet a German citizen and with the rise of National Socialism, his prospects in Germany seemed slim). After a year, being dissatisfied with the state of music education in Holland, and because his Dutch relatives belonged to a church that used NO music in worship, he moved back home and finished his studies in Lübeck, where he turned out to be the only composition student of Hugo Distler. You see, Jan had been interested in composition from an early age. I have seen several sketch books of his early songs and piano pieces from his student days. And, the morning after his funeral in 1995, I discovered the long-­‐forgotten manuscript in his living room in Germany of the string quartet he had written as his HS graduation project. 1 But his focus was on church music. His first job was as organist at St. Gertrude in Lübeck, starting 1 June 1934. That came to a sudden end, however, after 1 ½ years. The Bishop of Lübeck had decreed that starting in 1937, only Deutsche Christen Pastors (those loyal to the Nazi Party) would be allowed in the pulpits, and all Bekenntnisskirche (Confessing Church) Pastors would be under house arrest. (You probably recognize the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer, BK Pastor later martyred by the Nazis for his faith.) So, on New Year’s Day, when the BK Pastor at St. Gertrude had been scheduled to preach, much of the congregation including Jan Bender boycotted the service at the church and held a separate service at the Parsonage of their BK Pastor. Meanwhile, back at the church, Bender’s aged predecessor arrived and was pressed into service to play, but blew the fuse in the process of starting the organ blower. Someone said “Bender sabotaged the organ!” an elder called the Kriminal Polizei, and Bender was arrested that afternoon at home and sent to Sachenhausen, a KL near Berlin, until April. You see, being an organist with strong convictions and faith isn’t always a safe profession. Having lost this first position, Bender finally found a good position at Lambertikirche in Aurich, Ostfriesland, in Oct. 1937. In 1939, he met and then married Charlotte Peters, a PK, with whom he had four sons during their 55-­‐year marriage. He was almost immediately conscripted into the German Army and sent first to France, then The Bender family Denmark, and finally to Russia, where he was wounded near Luga by Leningrad. Upon returning home after hospital convalescence, he wrote in his diary on Reformation Day, 1941: 2 Der Krieg... der entsetzliche Krieg.. ist für mich zu Ende. Gott hat ein
Einsehen gehabt. Am 17. August, in der ersten Morgenstunde riss mir
vor Luga ein russischer Handgranatsplitter das linke Auge fort. Jetzt
bin ich “daheim.” … Mittagsruhe im ganzen Hause.
(The war... the ghastly war.. is over for me. God has shown
consideration. On August 17, at Luga, in the first hour of the
morning, a Russian hand-grenade splinter ripped my left eye out.
Now I am “at home.” … Midday rest throughout the house.)
But the war wasn’t over yet, and in 1944, despite his glass eye, Jan was again conscripted into the Army, sent again to Aachen in France where, at risk of being shot for treason, he led his platoon to surrender to the Allies and spent the next 10 months in American POW camps in France. While there, he worked as assistant to the American Chaplain Carl Zimmermann (who after the war was Pastor in Rush City, MN). In addition to playing the field harmonium and piano, he was assigned to clean the Chaplains’ Office and unwittingly used up the Catholic Priest’s holy water because his Mother had taught him to sprinkle the floor before sweeping to keep down the dust. After he was released and returned home, his first diary entry read: Endlich wagt das Herz den ersten Jubelschrei. Wieder daheim! Und
alles wie ehedem! Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib, - nichts haben sie
genommen. Da, wo ich abschloss, darf ich neu beginnen. Wie
wenigen Menschen ist das zuteil geworden.
3 (At last the heart ventures its first cry of joy. Home again! And all as
it was before! Goods, fame, children and wife, - they have taken
nothing. There, where I ended, may I begin anew. How few people
have this chance.) [Obviously a paraphrase from Luther’s chorale A
Mighty Fortress ].
Bender continued in his position in Aurich until 1952, then after a year in Frankfurt, he became Kantor at St. Michael’s Church in Lüneburg—where Johann Sebastian Bach had sung as a choirboy. Then in 1960 he came to America, first to Concordia Teacher’s College in Seward, NE, then as Professor of Composition and Organ at Wittenberg University in Ohio, finally retiring back to Germany in 1976. But I brought him to St. Peter and Gustavus Adolphus College for two years, starting in 1979, as Composer-­‐
Mannhardtstrasse 65 in-­‐Residence and Associate Organist at Christ Chapel. Hanerau, Germany During his long career first in Germany and then in the U.S., he was a prominent church musician, composer, organ recitalist (including a recitals in Spain, Alaska, and Jerusalem), and Professor. His organ students included several college organ professors, church organists (including my sister-­‐in-­‐law) and a former Pastor at First Lutheran, Elizabeth Yates. 4 He wrote over 2,500 compositions, mostly for choir or organ, published both in Germany and the US, and was a member of the Hymn Committee for the LBW. Two of his harmonizations are included in ELW. In 1980, he wrote an Organ Sonata for the dedication of our Hendrickson Organ up there in the balcony. About church music, Jan wrote in 1967: "Church music should have its roots in the past but at the same time should show that as an art it is developing and growing and able to change from something old to something new." (Church Music 67.2, p. 9) As to his personal goals as a composer of church music, he said in the same article: "I am trying to show that church music is something alive and wonderful, that is capable of being used as a means of expression of our faith, confession, love and joy and gratefulness to God." (ibid., p. 14) Bender considered his music to be a bridge between the very advanced music of today and the sensibilities of the Christian layperson. His goal throughout his career was to maintain a high level of creativity and craft in his composing while still communicating with the person in the pew. On his gravestone is inscribed, in his own handwriting, the Bible passage Psalm 96:1 – “Sing to the Lord a new song.” Jan Bender is truly one of the Saints who persevered through trials and hardships to share his faith with God’s people through music, helping us to “sing a new song to our Lord.” 5