Introduction

Biography

Balthasar was the son of Lü­beck mer­chant Lo­renz (or Lo­rentz) Mün­ter, and Chris­ti­na Kay­ser, and hus­band of Mag­da­le­na So­phia Er­nes­ti­na Frie­de­ri­ka von Wan­gen­heim.

He en­tered the Uni­ver­si­ty of Je­na as a stu­dent of theo­lo­gy in 1754, gra­du­at­ed M.A. in 1757, and there­af­ter be­came lec­tur­er and ad­junct of the phi­lo­so­phi­cal fa­cul­ty.

In 1760, Duke Fried­rich III., of Go­tha, ap­point­ed him as­sist­ant court preach­er, and preach­er at the Or­phan­age in Go­tha, and then, in 1763, Su­per­in­ten­dent at Tonna (Grä­fen-Tonna) near Go­tha.

In 1765 he be­came first preach­er at the Ger­man Church of St. Pe­ter in Co­pen­ha­gen, re­ceiv­ing, in 1767, the de­gree of D.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty…

Münter was a ve­ry po­pu­lar and in­flu­en­tial preach­er, a true pas­tor and teach­er of prac­ti­cal Chris­ti­an­ity, a suc­cess­ful re­li­gious in­struc­tor of child­ren, an ac­tive friend of the poor, a man of cul­ture and one of the most pro­mi­nent f­igures in the li­ter­ary so­cie­ty of Co­pen­hagen.

His hymns, 100 in num­ber, are among the best of the pe­ri­od, were high­ly es­teemed by his con­tem­po­ra­ries, and ma­ny still sur­vive in Ger­man hym­nals com­piled be­fore 1876 and still in use. They ap­peared in his two works: (1) Geist­liche Lied­er. Leip­zig, 1772. (2) Zwote Samm­lung Geist­lich­er Lied­er. Leip­zig, 1774. [Both in Roy­al Lib­ra­ry, Be­rlin.]

In 1773, the first 60 were re­pub­lished at Leip­zig set to me­lo­dies com­posed for them by the most fa­mous mu­si­cians of the day; and the se­cond 50 were re­pub­lished at Leip­zig in 1774 set to me­lo­dies com­pos­ed for them by [Jo­hann Chris­toph Fried­rich Bach], of Büc­ke­burg.

Julian, p. 777

Works

• Geist­liche Lied­er (Leip­zig, Germany, 1772)
• Zwote Samm­lung Geist­lich­er Lied­er (Leip­zig, Germany: 1774)