Lutheran Music and the Thirty Years War

Abstract During the 1620s and 1630s, Lutheran composers from central Germany wrote sacred music with significance more deeply connected to the Thirty Years War than previously acknowledged. Composers like Heinrich Schütz, Johann Hermann Schein, Tobias Michael, and Andreas Hammerschmidt, among others, did so by carefully choosing biblical texts that specifically resonated with the war, by setting their texts in ways that sometimes amplify these resonances, and by performing this music in politically meaningful contexts. As a result, their music could take on a variety of meanings revolving around the war: some pieces become representations of 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 (1631–1635) and its victory at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631); and on a few occasions close scrutiny reveals music with a hidden or implicit critique of a controversial decree (the Edict of Restitution, 1628) or of the excesses of Swedish troops. All this shows how Lutherans sometimes talked politics and confession through sacred music, enriching our understanding of a repertoire that might all too easily appear to uniformly preach peace, protest war, or float timelessly in a liturgical or devotional space above the tumult of religious strife and politics.