Sighs of the German People: An Emotional History of Musical Sigh – Compositions During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) – Thomas J. Marks

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Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Thirty Years’ War”. Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date, https://www.britannica.com/event/Thirty-Years-War. Accessed 25 February 2021.

Marks, Thomas J. Sighs of the German People: An Emotional History of Musical Sigh – Compositions During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019.

This is a detailed explanation of sighing and something called Seufftzer. The use of this material is good to add to the growing acknowledgement that music is used by the populace to get through difficult times brought on by a country’s participation in war. This particular angle being through the response of the deity. “By singing musical sighs and feeling true repentance from their performance, early modern Germans believed that the harsh realities of the Thirty Years War could be curbed by means of God’s direct intervention in the world” (from the Abstract).