We have here a remarkable example of how his temptations affected Luther bodily and were in turn influenced by his bodily state, a subject which we shall reserve for future consideration (vol. vi., xxxvi. 1, 2). This mutual influence finds its expression in the relief afforded him by music.
Ratzeberger adds other interesting particulars, showing the happy effect of music on Luther’s mind when confused by anxieties and inward torments.
“As he found great relief from music in his temptations, sadness and fits of melancholy, he wrote to Ludwig Senftlin [Senfl], the Ducal Bavarian Band-master, and begged him to set to music the text ‘_In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam_,’ which he did”; it was also Luther’s custom to have some music after supper with his guests, “especially devotional music, taken from the Gregorian chants.”[455]
It is a relief to dwell for a moment, at the conclusion of a rather disagreeable chapter, on the pleasing trait of Luther’s fondness for the melodies of the Church which he had known and loved from his youth, and for music generally. Formerly, the notes of the Church’s chants had summoned him to “raise a clean heart to God,” and now music assists him to assuage to some extent the storms which rage in his breast.
His letter to the highly esteemed composer Senfl, who was in the service of the Duke of Bavaria, is still extant.[456] It is dated October 4, 1530, and in it Luther asks for a copy of a motet on the text “_In pace_,” etc., arranged for several voices, should Senfl have such a thing, for since his boyish days the (Gregorian) melody to this text had pleased him, and did so still more when he learnt to understand the meaning of the words of the text. If Senfl had no such composition in his possession then he would beg him to compose one later, perhaps after Luther’s death, for he now hoped that death would soon free him from a world of which he was as weary as it was of him, one reason why that Antiphon of the entrance into rest was so dear to him. It is the first Antiphon in the Nocturns of the Holy Saturday Office and runs: “In peace in the selfsame I will sleep and I will rest, for Thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope.”[457]