Ben Horch
by Robert Martens

Once in a generation or two, a gifted, charismatic leader emerges within a religious and ethnic community to leave an indelible cultural and spiritual legacy. Such a leader is a “Wegweiser”(one who shows the way) for his people and changes the goal and direction of artistic and spiritual development for generations to come. Ben Horch was such a leader in the sphere of music.  (George Wiebe)

 “I did not seek for a career among Mennonites,” Ben Horch once remarked, “but I found acceptance, which surprised me. Actually I was forgiven a lot simply because I was not an ethnic Mennonite and didn’t know any better.” Horch was born November 19, 1907 in a German Lutheran village near Odessa, and emigrated with his family to Winnipeg in 1909. Here the Horch family attended a Lutheran church until they joined the North End Mennonite Brethren congregation in 1919. From the beginning, Ben was taught to love all forms of music; his father Edward was an organist who did not draw sharp distinctions between the sacred and secular.

 After some years of private music study, Ben Horch was employed by Winnipeg Bible Institute as choir director and theory teacher from 1932-38. He went on to study four years in Los Angeles. In 1943 he was invited by AH Unruh to teach at the Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg, where he directed choir and orchestra until 1955. It was not always easy. Horch, with his eclectic taste in music and his appreciation for everything from simple Mennonite Kernlieder (core hymns of the faith) to the complexities of Handel and Bach, had to sell his vision to audiences that favoured “evangelical” music over the classics. The latter were sometimes viewed as too artistic to be useful to God. Horch’s charisma and patience eventually won the battle, however, as he led concert tours and directed Sängerfeste (choir festivals) across Canada, in the process becoming a legend in the Mennonite community. Horch went on to be a producer of serious music for CBC radio in Winnipeg between 1959 and 1973.

 On 24 November 2007 at Bakerview MB Church in Abbotsford, Peter Letkemann celebrated the publication of his new book, The Ben Horch Story (Winnipeg: Christian Press, 2007). Letkemann is a historian, entrepreneur, and talented musician who has earned a doctorate with a thesis on Russian Mennonite hymnody. He knew Ben and Esther Horch for twenty years, but only began his biographical work after Ben underwent serious prostate surgery in January 1987. The result is a 500-page book with some seventy photos. “Ben would say,” Letkemann remarked with a grin, “too many pages, too many footnotes.”

 A number of the Horch extended family were in attendance at the Abbotsford book launch, including Ruth, a niece of Ben and Esther. Ruth opened the evening with a violin performance of a number from Mendelssohn’s Elijah. John Toews introduced the guest, and remarked that this was a special evening: first, because November is rather an unusual month for this kind of function; second, Ben Horch was a special person; and third, regarding something “close to the Mennonite heart,” Letkemann had paid his own air fare.

 The Ben Horch Story was officially launched a few days earlier in Winnipeg, on the one hundredth anniversary of Horch’s birthday. Letkemann commented that the audience was bigger in Abbotsford, perhaps “because all the Winnipeggers moved here.” The book was a labour of love. There were times, Letkemann remarked, that he “kept delaying the book to keep Ben alive.” Although Horch and Letkemann did not agree on everything – apparently Horch was not enamoured of organs in churches, for example – the two were intimate friends. Letkemann inherited boxes of correspondence and paraphernalia which enabled him to complete the biography.

 A twenty-seven minute video documents his life, from childhood musical aspirations to the nostalgia of old age. “I think music chose me,” Horch said. The video includes some fascinating moments from the filming of a Sängerfest held in 1987 to celebrate Horch’s eightieth birthday. In his address to the audience, Horch typically opened with a joke (on aging), and then commented on the Mennonite musical transition from Kernlieder to classical music, and from there to sophisticated Mennonite composers.

 It is clear that Horch was a much admired, and even more, much loved individual. “He had a gift of remaining contemporary,” was a comment in the video. “He had an enjoyment of life.” “He was God’s most joyous troubadour.” This love for Horch was further accentuated at the evening’s end, when several former students and associates of Horch took to the microphone. The emotions of memory were intense, and some tears were shed. Ben Horch had a profound influence on Mennonite musicology, and on the individuals who respected and loved him. It is to be hoped, considering the mediocrity of some current musical trends, that his legacy will not be in vain.

 The Ben Horch Story can be purchased at the Mennonite Historical Society archives. For copyright reasons, the video is not available for purchase, but may be borrowed.