Thirty Years War Essay

Words: 1151
Pages: 5

The significance of my topic relates to how music can adapt to survive difficult situations such as war. I found it very interesting to see how at the beginning of the seventeenth century music was flourishing across all of Europe. The Baroque era as we know it was beginning to dawn, and musical styles and genres were beginning to emerge. In Italy the birth of the opera had occurred, in France the ballet style was gaining momentum. Yet in Germany, which had been a leading figure in music previously, we find that their musical development was fragmented by the Thirty Years’ War. Germany was divided between the south and the north at this time, with both being affected differently by the war.
My research questions in relation to this topic are how did the Thirty Years’ War affect the system of patronage in Germany? What effect did the war have on the development of music in Germany? What effect did the war have on German sacred music; was the setting of the music different, did the textures change, etc.? What effect did the war have on the life of musicians, focusing on composers? What
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In the first section I provide a brief look at the history of the Thirty Years’ War. In the second section I discuss how the development of music was reliant on location, particularly the divide between north and south Germany. In the third section I provide an account of the effect the war had on the system of patronage and the life of the musicians. I focus primarily on court at Dresden during this account as an example of what other courts would have suffered at the same time. In the final section I examine the effect on composers. I decided to focus on the German composer Heinrich Schütz who was worked for the Dresden court for the entirety of his career. I plan to show the effect the war had on composers and their compositional style by using Schütz as an