Lutheran Music and the Thirty Years War: Confession, Politics, Devotion [Hardcover]

Author Derek L. Stauff offers a new look German Lutheran music of the 1620s and 1630s, showing how its composers carefully set biblical texts that resonated with the war and performed them in politically meaningful contexts. This book reveals to readers how their music became a representation of the Lutheran church, stoking fears about Catholic religious persecution, celebrating political alignments, critiquing controversial decrees, or lamenting the brutality of war.This book takes a new look at sacred music written in present-day central Germany during the Thirty Years War (1618-48), and in doing so reveals distinct connections between religious works and the historical and political contexts in which they emerged. As author Derek L. Stauff asserts, specific Lutheran biblical motets and sacred concertos engage with the war's events, people, and politics in more detailed and meaningful ways than previously imagined. Composers working in Saxony, like Heinrich Sch?tz, Johann Hermann Schein, Tobias Michael, and Andreas Hammerschmidt, crafted these connections by deftly selecting biblical texts that specifically resonated with the war, by setting their texts in ways that amplify these resonances, and by performing this music in politically meaningful contexts. As a result, their music could take on a variety of war-related meanings: some pieces represent the Lutheran church and community, stoking fears about Catholic political aggression and religious persecution, warning Lutherans of the grave peril in which their church was foundering, and comforting believers with promises of God's protection. Other works celebrate contemporary political and military alignments, such as the Swedish-Saxon alliance (1631-35) and its victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), and close scrutiny of a few musical pieces reveals hidden or implicit critique of a controversial decree like the Edict of Restitution (1628) or of the excesses of Swedish troops. Stauff investigates the scriptulóf