Carl Gotthelf Gläser

Carl Gotthelf Gläser (1784–1829), also cataloged as Karl Gotthelf Glaeser, was a German composer, conductor, music director, teacher, and writer of instructional works. He was born at Weißenfels on May 4, 1784, and later worked in Barmen, where biographical authorities associate him with musical teaching, conducting, a music-lending establishment, and an instrument business. He died at Barmen on April 16, 1829.

Gläser’s name is preserved in English-language hymnody chiefly through a melody composed in 1828 that became the source of the tune AZMON. The melody did not enter American hymnals in its later familiar form directly from Gläser. Lowell Mason adapted it and published his version in The Modern Psalmist in 1839; hymnological references therefore distinguish Gläser as composer from Mason as adapter or arranger.

AZMON became a durable common-meter tune and has been paired with a number of English hymn texts. Its history illustrates the nineteenth-century practice of adapting European melodies for American congregational use. Because HymnInfo’s structured contributor roles do not include arranger, Mason’s historically important work on AZMON is described in the hymn-level history and musical notes rather than misclassified as composition.