Theodore Stelzer: Seward’s “Renaissance Man”

In this series, Benjamin Kolodziej reflects on several figures in American Lutheran sacred music history. This series is based on his new book Portraits in American Lutheran Sacred Music, 1847–1947, which is available now from Concordia Publishing House.

Theodore Stelzer, as a professor at Concordia, Seward, always sought to ground his teaching in 1 Corinthians 9:22–23: “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” His interests were vast and varied, his own life serving as a model for the many Concordia graduates who likewise would have to assume various professional roles in their parishes.

Born in 1892 in St. Charles County, Mo.,[1] Stelzer had a love for music instilled in him early on by his father, a farmer who played most band instruments.[2] After graduation from the Addison seminary in 1910, Stelzer was called to Trinity English Lutheran in Racine, Wis. He studied piano at the McCaffery Piano School in Kenosha and the Devold Vocal School of Racine, from which he earned a diploma and teaching certificate. From 1923–1927, while serving as organist, choirmaster, teacher and principal at Trinity Lutheran in Oshkosh, Wis., he studied at the Wisconsin Conservatory with notable organist Wilhelm Middelschulte, one of the premiere performers of the 20th century, whose mentorship would inspire Stelzer throughout his early career. From the Wisconsin Conservatory, Stelzer earned a Bachelor’s (1926) and a Master’s of Music (1927). Stelzer also managed to study school music at Lawrence College in Appleton.[3]

A Composer and Performer for the Church

Stelzer’s first forays into composition included a choral setting entitled “The Words of Ruth” (1916) for his own choir, but he increasingly explored organ composition.[4] Middelschulte must have regarded his student highly, for the eminent organist performed two of Stelzer’s compositions on his “All American” program at Notre Dame in Paris in 1921,[5] additionally playing Stelzer’s fiendishly virtuosic “Passion Chorale” during a German tour in 1925, “winning recognition for Stelzer as a serious artist[ic] composer.”[6]

As an emerging performing organist himself, Stelzer’s concerts featured settings of common hymn tunes, although not necessarily Lutheran ones, drawing on the tunes associated with “Lead, Kindly Light,” “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and “Holy, Holy, Holy,” only occasionally venturing into the chorale repertoire with settings of “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright.” One reviewer affirmed Stelzer’s popularity with audiences, asserting that he “deserves to be classed among the leading organists.”[7]

A Call to Seward

Called to the Concordia Teachers College in Seward, Neb., in 1926, Stelzer enthusiastically taught courses at both the high school and college levels.[8] Already in his mid-30s, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in education from the University of Nebraska, where, for his final degree recital, he played his organ setting Variations on Rock of Ages, a setting of the common tune but in the style of Bach. One reviewer of his recital claimed that Stelzer “is considered to be a brilliant student in counterpoint.”[9] Ever the student, Stelzer followed his teacher Middelschulte to the Detroit Conservatory of Music, earning a doctorate in music in 1929. In an age in which few Lutheran teachers, including professors at the college level, held doctorates, Stelzer’s achievement set him apart from his colleagues.

By 1933, Stelzer added education courses to his teaching load at Concordia, even as he worked toward a Ph.D. in “psychology and measurements” from the University of Nebraska, his dissertation entitled Construction, Interpretation, and Use of a Sight Reading Scale in Organ Music with an Analysis of Organ Playing into Fundamental Abilities.[10] The “measurement” part of his study included tangibly ascertaining the “likability” of organ music, surveying students at Seward and River Forest to arrive at his conclusions. He applied his skills in measurements and evaluation to benefit the church at large, for many years serving on the LCMS “Committee on Tests and Measurements,” helping to develop a “way of testing religious knowledge, understanding of doctrine, and Christian personality traits … [including] the measurement of Biblical knowledge.”[11] One can be forgiven for having lost track of his professional degrees: a Lutheran teaching certificate from the Addison seminary, a vocal diploma, two undergraduate degrees, a masters, a doctorate in music, and a Ph.D. in psychology and measurements. There could have been few professors with more professional credentials at Seward than Stelzer.

Ever industrious even in his home life, Stelzer and his wife, Hattie, raised five children, Hattie herself teaching typing at Concordia.[12]

Musical Pedagogy for the Whole Church

During the 1930s, Stelzer turned his creative energy to scholarly writing. In 1938, he assumed the musical editorship of the venerable Lutheran School Journal. The Journal had historically been the domain of the Addison/River Forest faculty. Thus, Stelzer’s appointment represented the recognition of Seward’s increasingly important status in the world of Lutheran sacred music. Stelzer wrote practical articles to assist the Lutheran church musician, among the more noteworthy “Unifying the Pitch in the Primary Grades,” “The Place of Music in the Curriculum,” “Pitfalls in School Music,” “Factors Influencing our Preferences of Hymns,” “Liturgical Trends in the Missouri Synod,” and “Chanting the Liturgy.” Still others examined “Sitting Too High” and “Inhaling.”

First self-published in the 1930s, his four-volume Stelzer Sacred Song Series featured music appropriate for elementary-aged children. Stelzer hoped that teachers would use the series to teach “note reading and beautiful a capella singing.”[13] In 1949, CPH published Stelzer’s A Child’s Garden of Song, songs corresponding with the various experiences of childhood. This book enjoyed extensive usage, the Baptist Record hailing it as “a joy to children,” while The Sunday School Times extolled it as “intended to make them [children]‘think of lovely things,’” so that “boys and girls can be taught to love the Lord Jesus.”[14] The reviewer in the Chicago Tribune, however, cautioned that “In a few [songs] the theological concepts seem too mature for the primary pupils for whom the book is intended.”[15] In addition to music courses, Stelzer taught physical education and “Introduction to Psychology,” in 1954 even being elected as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. [16]

Music at Concordia, Seward

Portraits in American Lutheran Sacred Music 1847–1947 is available now at Concordia Publishing House.

In 1938, Theodore Stelzer founded the college’s A Cappella Choir, an auditioned, touring ensemble which would bring auspicious recognition to Concordia. Former student George Nielsen remembered that Stelzer held the “conviction that everyone was a singer,” and that his “optimism simply meant that there was no excuse for not singing.”[17] In Nielsen’s audition, Stelzer asked him to “sing with greater resonance,”[18] ultimately placing him in the tenor section. Stelzer aimed to achieve choral resonance through a novel form of breathing from the “gut,” rather than from the chest, earning him the nickname “Tough Gut.” In 1951, his choir performed their spring tour under the auspices of The Lutheran Hour, providing music for rallies and broadcasting on the radio in Chicago and St. Louis.[19] Choral icon Fred Waring considered Stelzer’s choir “as one of the three finest student choirs in the country.”[20]

In August, 1956, while traveling through Mexico, Theodore Stelzer was killed in a head-on collision, his wife, Hattie, dying the next week. The choir dedicated their next year’s tour to his memory.

A Legacy in Service of Education

Perhaps no other piece better illustrates Stelzer’s life than his curious “Motet on Christian Education,” composed in the 1940s, its scoring for six part choir and its anachronistic text mitigating its practicality for any church choir:

These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart,
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
Suffer the little children to come unto Me.
Forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God.
I think when I read that sweet story of old, when Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children as lambs to His fold.
I should like to have been with them then.
O Lord, open Thou my lips: and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.
Thine forever! God of love, hear us from Thy Throne above;
Thine forever may we be, here and in eternity.
Thine forever! Forever Thine!

Perhaps this piece illuminates Stelzer’s vocational motivation in the field of Lutheran education and his belief in the power of Lutheran music, as animated by the Gospel, seeing himself as a servant of the Kingdom of God.

[1] “Theodore G. Stelzer,” (obituary) The Broadcaster 31, no. 1 (October, 1956): 2.

[2] Stelzer notes prepared for a Lutheran Witness article. Concordia, Seward, archive.

[3] “Theodore G. Stelzer,” The Diapason 41, no. 7 (June 1, 1950): 38.

[4] “Sermon for Parents Closes Celebration,” The Journal Times (Racine, WI), September 14, 1916, 10.

[5] “Musical Service Will Commemorate 5 Events,” The Journal Times, May 6, 1922, 9.

[6] “Recital on Organ Proves Charming,” The Oshkosh Northwestern, April 10, 1926, 4.

[7] “Recital on Organ Proves Charming,” 4.

[8] “Concordia Music Faculty, 1894-2023,” archival document compiled by Joseph Herl, 2023.

[9] “Recital by Mr. Stelzer,” Lincoln State Journal, May 2, 1928, 6.

[10] Theodore G Stelzer, “Construction, Interpretation, and Use of a Sight Reading Scale in Organ Music with an Analysis of Organ Playing into Fundamental Abilities” (Ph.D. diss, University of Nebraska, 1935), 1.

[11] “Dr. Stelzer Renamed to Church Committee,” Seward  Independent, 22 Nov., 1950, 1.

[12]“Services Held for Stelzers, Seward County Independent, August 22, 1956, 1.

[13] Theodore Stelzer, Introduction to Note Reading and Part Singing for Children’s Choruses and Ladies Choruses, Stelzer Sacred Song Series, no. 1 (Seward: Theodore Stelzer, 1931), 2.

[14] Review in The Baptist Record 29, no. 46, new series (November 24, 1949): 246/22.

[15] Frances Dunlap Heron, “Religious Books,” Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1949, part 4, 28.

[16] “Stelzer Elected Fellow By Psychological Group,”The Lincoln Star, October 6, 1954, 14.

[17] Electronic correspondence from George Nielsen, January 4, 2024.

[18] Electronic correspondence from George Nielsen, January 4, 2024.

[19] “CTC A Cappella Choir Leave Friday Afternoon for Tour,” Seward Blue Valley Blade, March 29, 1951, 1.

[20] “Concordia Choir to Sing,” Wichita Falls Times, April 26, 1957, 12.