Grant us peace, we pray
05 October Germany / Hamburg
Sighs and prayers for peace by Heinrich Schütz, Hans Leo Hassler, Tobias Hume, Erasmus Kindermann and others
In the preface to his collection Musicalische Friedensseuffzer (Musical Sighs for Peace), Erasmus Kindermann of Nuremberg laments a ‘Christian war waged at the cost of many millions of souls’. His compositions and those of his contemporaries were written in the 17th century under the traumatic impressions of the Thirty Years' War and its devastating consequences. Entire regions were devastated and depopulated, the survivors weakened, famine and epidemics prevailed. A hundred years earlier, at the time of the Peasants' Wars, Martin Luther had already set the longing for peace to music in his chorale Verleih' uns Frieden gnädiglich (Grant us peace, graciously), based on the 9th-century Gregorian antiphon. This spread in numerous compositions by his contemporaries, from Heinrich Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach to the present day.
Warlike conflicts are as old as humanity itself – and so is the desire and longing for peace. This year, 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the Hamburger Ratsmusik, together with soprano Magdalene Harer, brings this to life in an impressive performance: even ‘early music’ illustrates in its permanent relevance that peace must be renegotiated and achieved again and again.
Warlike conflicts are as old as humanity itself – and so is the desire and longing for peace. This year, 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the Hamburger Ratsmusik, together with soprano Magdalene Harer, brings this to life in an impressive performance: even ‘early music’ illustrates in its permanent relevance that peace must be renegotiated and achieved again and again.
