We Are Members of Christ’s Body

We Are Members of Christ’s Body
Wir sind Glieder

SSAB choir
organ/piano

David Moritz Michael (1751-1827)

(full score and strings available)

TEXT: Ephesians 5:30, Matthew 25:31-40

MMFS1906

David Moritz Michael (1751-1827) was born in Kühnhausen (near Erfurt in Thuringia), Germany, and did not become a Moravian until he was thirty years old. He taught in the Moravian school at Niesky and came to America in 1795. His official church position was as a worker with the young men of the congregations in Nazareth and Bethlehem, but his contributions to the musical life of the settlements were great. He revitalized the Bethlehem Collegium musicum and conducted the performance of Haydn’s Creation which may have been its American premiere. In addition to his well-known woodwind ensemble pieces, he also composed seventeen anthems for four-part choir, several vocal solos and duets, and an eleven-movement setting of Psalm 103. He returned to Germany in 1815 and died in Neuwied, Germany, on February 26, 1827.