Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833 and died in Vienna in 1897. A leading composer and pianist of the Romantic era, he wrote orchestral, chamber, keyboard, vocal, and choral music, including Ein deutsches Requiem. He was baptized and raised within a Lutheran cultural setting, although a denominational label alone does not fully describe his personal religious outlook. His connection with Savior! Hear Us, We Pray is melodic rather than textual or editorial. The hymn uses an adaptation of the tune from his Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4, published in 1868 and popularly known in English as Brahms's Lullaby. Brahms did not compose a tune specifically for Ellsworth's words, which appeared in print decades later. Early documentation for the hymn names the musical setting CORTADA and credits A. Cortada; later hymnals identify Brahms as the source composer and Cortada as arranger, often renaming the tune LUCY or LULLABY. That layered credit accurately distinguishes Brahms's original art-song melody from its later adaptation for congregational use.