ABSTRACT
In February 1631, Protestant leaders of the Holy Roman Empire gathered in Leipzig at the request of Saxony's elector, Johann Georg I, to discuss strategies for upholding the imperial constitution, a set of agreements that they felt on the verge of dissolution due to the increasing aggression of Emperor Ferdinand II and the ongoing difficulties of the Thirty Years War. The title of Franck's work, with its references to both the (Protestant) church's “heartfelt sighs” and the warring state of Germany, suggests direct relationships between music, emotion, and the Thirty Years War. The sigh held a variety of meanings for early modern Lutherans, but by far one of its most widely understood functions was as a kind of affective prayer that existed within the heart and was entirely nonverbal. Rauch, a Lutheran, lived and worked as an organist in the small city of Hernals, which is today an incorporated neighborhood of Vienna.
