Ludvig Mathias Lindeman

Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was a Norwegian organist, composer, teacher, choral director, and collector of folk music. Born in Trondheim in 1812 into a prominent musical family, he studied piano, organ, and theory with his father, Ole Andreas Lindeman, and also undertook theological studies after moving to Christiania, now Oslo. Music became his principal vocation, and in 1840 he took a permanent post as cantor and organist at Vor Frelsers kirke, now Oslo Cathedral, where he served for the remainder of his life.

Lindeman composed the melody KIRKEN DEN ER ET GAMMELT HUS for Grundtvig's text and published it in 1840 in the musical material for Wilhelm Andreas Wexels' Christelige Psalmer. The tune became one of his most enduring church melodies and remains associated with the hymn in Scandinavian and English-language books.

Beyond hymn composition, Lindeman traveled through Norway collecting traditional melodies and published major folk-music collections that later influenced Norwegian composers. His authorized chorale book appeared in the 1870s, and in 1883 he and his son Peter established an organists' school that became an institutional ancestor of the Norwegian Academy of Music. His career linked church music, folk tradition, education, and Norway's emerging national musical culture.