Born: De­cem­ber 10, 1815, Hochdorf (near Stutt­gart), Ger­ma­ny.

Died: Ju­ly 1882, Cannstadt, Ger­ma­ny.

Zundel received his first musical education at the Royal Academy of Esslingen, Württemberg (1829-31). In 1833, he received a position of music teacher in a seminary at Esslingen, at the same time studying violin under Molique. In 1840, he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, to work as a band­mas­ter and or­gan­ist. He em­i­grat­ed to Amer­i­ca in 1847, and played the or­gan at at the Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, New York, then at Ply­mouth Church, Brook­lyn (1850-1878, with some in­ter­rupt­ions). The Ply­mouth Church pas­tor was Hen­ry Ward Beech­er, af­ter whom Zun­del’s fa­mous tune is named. Zun­del helped ed­it Beecher’s 1855 Ply­mouth Col­lect­ion of Hymns, the first ma­jor hym­nal with mu­sic on the same page as the lyr­ics. He re­tired to Ger­ma­ny in 1877. His other works in­clude:

• The Amateur Or­gan­ist, 1854
• Psalm­o­dy, 1855 (ed­it­or)
• Modern Or­gan-School (Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts: 1860)
• Treatise on Har­mo­ny and Mo­du­la­tion
• Christ­ian Heart Songs, 1870
• School Har­mo­nist (with James E. Ry­an) (New York: Amer­ican Book Com­pa­ny, 1873)

Sources

Music

1. Beecher
2. Brooklyn
3. Lebanon
4. Zundel