News Releases

ELCA NEWS SERVICE
February 23, 2010

Richard Hillert, Distinguished Lutheran Composer, Teacher, Dies
10-069-JB

(Updated)

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Dr. Richard W. Hillert, composer of well-known Lutheran liturgical music, and distinguished professor of music emeritus at Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Ill., died Feb. 18, after an extended illness, according to the university's Web site.  He was 86.
     A service of Holy Communion for Hillert will be held March 1 at Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest.
     Hillert was best known for composing Setting One of Holy Communion in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), including "Worthy is Christ" with its familiar refrain, "This is the feast of victory for our God."  The compositions also appear in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), the most recent primary worship resource of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, published by Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis.
     "Worthy is Christ" is especially well-known. "That is a major piece of Lutheran liturgical music that we share ecumenically," said Scott Weidler, associate director for worship and music, ELCA Worship and Liturgical Resources.
     According to Morningstar Publishers, "Worthy is Christ" appears in at least 30 recent worship books in North American, Canadian and other international publications.
     Hillert's compositions included "songs, piano pieces, organ works, chamber, orchestral, cantatas, concertos and choral pieces," according to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis.
     Hillert was a member of the Liturgical Music Committee of the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, which prepared the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW), and he was the LBW's music editor.
     Hillert's teaching career at Concordia University spanned from 1959 until his retirement in 1993.  He specialized in music theory and composition, said his longtime colleague and friend, Carl Schalk, in an interview with the ELCA News Service.  Schalk first met Hillert when they were students at Concordia University.  They were colleagues at different Lutheran churches in Wausau, Wis., in the 1950s before they both began teaching at Concordia.  Schalk, also a distinguished professor of music emeritus at Concordia, was assistant music director at Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, for nearly 35 years before he retired. Several of Schalk's compositions appear in the LBW and Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
     "I think he was the most significant Lutheran church music composer of our generation.  He was certainly one of the most important," said Schalk, who resides in the Chicago area.
     Hillert had high standards for quality in music composition, Schalk said. "He had an integrity about his music that was a model for anyone who attempted to compose church music. His unflagging integrity was a standard for other composers," he said.
     When it became part of the LBW in the 1970s, Setting One for Holy Communion was part of a movement in the church music-liturgical trends of that time to develop "some kind of non-European music for the liturgy," Schalk said.
     "(Hillert's) setting was probably the best example of the search for that.  If you're searching for a unique liturgical voice that would represent American Lutheranism, his voice is the closest we've come.  He accomplished that as best as anyone I know," he said.
     Hillert also wrote a number of popular songs in the 1940s era, Schalk said.
     The Rev. Eugene L. Brand, New York, was project director for the LBW.  Hillert was friendly and worked collegially with others in the LBW project, a "rare gift for composers," he said in an interview.
     "It certainly would not have been the book that it was without his contributions," said Brand.
     "I always had a great appreciation for his ability as a composer to write melodies that were good and solid, but at the same time, 'singable.'  He had a real gift for writing singable melodies," he said.
     Hillert was born in Granton, Wis. He studied at Concordia Teachers College (now Concordia University), River Forest, and earned a bachelor of science in education in 1951.  He earned a master of music degree in 1955 and a doctor of music degree in 1968, both from Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.  Hillert later studied composition with the Italian composer, Goffredo Petrassi, at Aaron Copland's Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, Mass.
     Hillert was teacher and director of music at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, St. Louis, from 1951 to 1953, according to Concordia Publishing House. From 1953 to 1959 he served at Trinity Lutheran Church, Wausau, according to the publisher.
     Hillert is survived by his wife, Gloria, whose career was as a professor of anatomy and physiology. They lived in Melrose Park, Ill. He is also survived by two daughters, Kathryn (Brewer), Oak Park, Ill., and Virginia Hillert, River Grove, Ill.; a son, Jonathan Hillert, Houston; and five grandchildren.

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