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Walter Blankenburg

German pastor, musicologist and conductor

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ2543666
Source-derived summary

Walter Blankenburg (31 July 1903 – 10 March 1986) was a German Protestant pastor, director of church music and musicologist, who focused in several publications on liturgy, hymnology, and on the sacred music of the early Baroque period, especially by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Career

Born in Emleben near Gotha, Blankenburg, the son of a pastor, studied theology, history and musicology at the University of Rostock. in Tübingen, Göttingen, Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin. He was promoted to Ph.D. in 1943 in Göttingen with a dissertation about Die innere Einheit von Bachs Werk.

He was a member of the group preparing the Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch from 1939 to 1949. He was director of the Kirchenmusikschule of the Evangelische Kirche von Kurhessen-Waldeck in Schlüchtern from its foundation in 1947 to his retirement in 1968. He was from 1941 to 1981 editor (Schriftleiter) of the magazine Musik und Kirche (Music and church. He founded in 1976, together with Renate Steiger, the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für theologische Bachforschung In 1962, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of the University of Marburg. He died in Schlüchtern.

An award of the Protestant Church is named after him.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Walter Blankenburg” is german pastor, musicologist and conductor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Walter, Blankenburg and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1903, 1986, 1943, 1939—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1903-07-31. For this dossier, Walter, Blankenburg and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german pastor, musicologist and conductor” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2543666. VIAF identifies the subject as 56700569. The Library of Congress control number is n81089708. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1903, 1986, 1943 and 1939.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Walter Blankenburg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.