Ahle, Johann Rudolf (1625, 1673)

Johann Rudolf Ahle (1625-1673) was a German composer, organist, poet and Protestant church musician.



Ahle was born in Mühlhausen, Germany, the son of a soapmaker. After his education in Mühlhausen and Göttingen he began studying theology in Erfurt. His talent as an organist excited early attention. In 1646 he took over the position of church musician at the St. Andreas Church in Erfurt. In 1648 he published the "Compendium pro tenellis", a theoretical work in Latin on choral singing. It was so popular that 50 years later it received a second printing. In 1649 Ahle became the organist at the St. Blasien Church in Mühlhausen, a position to which his son Johann Georg Ahle would succeed after his death.



In the middle of the 1650s he was elected councilman in Mühlhausen. In 1673, the year of his death, he was elected first mayor of Mühlhausen.



His compositional oeuvre consists primarily of sacred art songs. He set not only his own poems but also those of Johann Bockerodt, Ludwig Startk and Franz Joachim Burmeister and wrote the texts of numerous hymns.