Cornelius Becker (1561–1604) was an Orthodox Lutheran pastor in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. He prepared the

Becker Psalter The ''Becker Psalter'' is a German metrical psalter authored by the Leipzig theologian Cornelius Becker and first published by Jakob Apel in Leipzig in 1602 under the title ''Der Psalter Davids Gesangweis''. Several composers set the psalms contai ...

, some of which

Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He ...

set to music.Jane Stuart Smith & Betty Carlson (1995), ''The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence'', p. 23, Good News Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois Bach used his version of

Psalm 23 Psalm 23 is the 23rd psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The Lord is my shepherd". In Latin, it is known by the incipit, "". The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a boo ...

for his

cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. The meaning of ...

Du Hirte Israel, höre, BWV 104 (You Shepherd of Israel, hear), 104, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it for the second Sunday after Easter in Leipzig and first performed it on 23 April 1724. History and words Bach composed the cantata in his first ...

''.

References

1561 births 1604 deaths 16th-century German Lutheran clergy {{Christian-theologian-stub