Matthäus Greiter

Matthäus Greiter was a German-born cantor, pastor, editor, and composer active in Strasbourg during the Reformation. Born about 1495 in Aichach, Bavaria, he studied at Freiburg and entered church music as a monk and chorister at Strasbourg Cathedral. In 1524 he joined the Lutheran reform movement, married, and began serving Protestant congregations as a cantor and pastor. He worked closely with fellow Strasbourg musician Wolfgang Dachstein and helped edit the city's early German worship books, including the 1525 third part of the Strasbourg Kirchenamt. He also assisted with Strasbourg's choir school and the musical formation of its congregations.

The melody now called OLD 113TH is traditionally attributed to Greiter rather than established as his work beyond dispute. It first appeared in the 1525 Strasbourg collection with Psalm 119 and later traveled through several confessional traditions. The same melodic family became associated with Psalm 36 in Calvin's 1539 Strasbourg Psalter, Psalm 68 in the 1562 Genevan Psalter, and the Lutheran passion text that gave it the name O MENSCH, BEWEIN. Its later English name, OLD 113TH, came from its use with a metrical version of Psalm 113. Greiter returned to the Roman Catholic Church near the end of his life and died in Strasbourg in 1550. His career illustrates the complicated religious and musical history through which many Reformation tunes reached modern hymnals.