Christhard Mahrenholz

Christhard Mahrenholz (born in Adelebsen, near Göttingen, 11 August 1900; died in Hanover, 15 March 1980) was a German theologian and musicologist whose work centred on the music of the Protestant Church. Shaped by an environment in which faith and scholarship coexisted, he brought together two disciplines that rarely walked together with such solidity, and his name remains associated with research into the Lutheran liturgical repertoire.

His training began with the piano, the organ and the cello before he turned to theology and musicology. From 1918 he studied at the universities of Göttingen and Leipzig, with teachers such as Ludwig, Schering and Abert. In 1923 he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on Samuel Scheidt. For much of his life he combined pastoral work with administrative duties at the Landeskirchenamt in Hanover, a post he held from 1930 to 1965, and from there he built a highly respected reputation as a scholar of church music, both in teaching and through his numerous publications.

At the University of Göttingen he was an honorary professor from 1946 and received an honorary doctorate in 1948. He also served as co-editor of several weighty publications: the journal Musik und Kirche, from 1929; the series Handbuch der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenmusik, between 1933 and 1974; the multi-volume history Handbuch zum evangelischen Kirchengesang, between 1953 and 1990; and the Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, between 1955 and 1980. He was also general director of the critical edition of Scheidt from 1932 and sat on the editorial board of the new Bach edition. He presided over the Verband evangelischer Kirchenchöre Deutschlands from 1934 to 1973 and directed the Neue Bach-Gesellschaft from 1949 to 1974.

In the postwar years he supervised, between 1947 and 1960, the restitution of more than 14,000 bells that had been requisitioned during the war. As a performer he regularly appeared as a concert organist and as a continuo player until 1950.

His legacy lies in the combination of philological rigour and liturgical knowledge. His writings addressed hymnology and the history of Protestant music, with particular attention to terminology and the musical sources of the repertoire, and he also studied the acoustic properties of organs and bells. His papers are held in Hanover.