"Verleih uns Frieden", in Latin "Dona nobis pacem": this was surely the inspiration for musicians in the terrible years of the Thirty Years' War which ravaged Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, leaving whole countries devastated and depopulated for decades. Between Protestants and Catholics, mercenaries paid from sacking and looting, and many parties' constant switching of sides, it is impossible to boil this war down to a fight between two camps. The luckless civilian populations had to take refuge in the remnants of religious and human security, praying that the next band of mercenaries wouldn't gut them in the morning; under these conditions, music could only turn towards divine mercy. Ach Gott! Wir haben’s nicht gewusst, was Krieg für eine Plage ist ("Oh God! We knew not what a plague war is!") by Hildebrand, Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste ("What a ruin the city is") by Weckmann, Teutoniam dudum belli atra pericla molestant ("Dark dangers of war have long imperilled Germany") by Schütz say a lot about people's preoccupations at the time, whether they were Catholics, Lutherans or Protestants of other denominations; and about their terrors in the face of the inescapable situation created in part by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 with the famous formula Cuius regio, eius religio, or "Whose realm" – i.e. to each ruler, big or small – "his religion", which could only inflame the already-aroused passions of the period. The Johann Rosenmüller ensemble are happy to translate the ardent prayers of the populations of Central Europe which would eventually fall by 60%. © SM/Qobuz