Below the transcription of Senfl’s motet for Luther. A summary in English of the historical setting in which this exchange took place, see below .
Senfl._L._In_pace_in_idipsum_a_4And this it how it sounds. The motet is the antiphon, so it is followed by the evening prayer and the gloria, after which it the antiphon is repeated. (It’s a response).
He sings the ‘cantus’, the lute plays the other voices (intavolation).
Historical Background
Martin Luther wrote to the composer Ludwig Senfl in October 1530, amid the turmoil of the Diet of Augsburg. He not only praised music as a divine art second only to theology, but also requested from Senfl a setting of the Antiphone In pace in idipsum dormiam (“In peace, yes in the same, I will lie down and sleep,” Ps. 4:9). Senfl’s reply is lost, but contemporary evidence suggests that he indeed did compose a small motet and sent it to Luther together with another motet “Non moriar, sed vivam” (“I shall not die, but live,” Ps. 118:17)—a verse that had become Luther’s personal motto during his isolation at Coburg. The score of the first-mentioned motet was long thought lost, but rediscovered as an anonymous work and, with near certainty, attributed to Senfl by Ole Kongsted : Although the manuscript bears no composer’s name, Kongsted noted stylistic features typical of Senfl’s mature sacred writing—its poised counterpoint, careful text declamation, and restrained expressivity—and therefore attributed the piece to him with near certainty. His edition, published in Motetter af Ludwig Senfl (Capella Hafniensis Editions A.1, 2001), reintroduced the work to modern performance, and it has since been listed as Anonymous / (Ludwig Senfl?) in most catalogues and recordings.
Musicologist Grantley McDonald has shown that this exchange was part of a carefully mediated correspondence network linking Senfl, who remained employed at the Catholic court in Munich, to Lutheran humanists in Nuremberg such as Hieronymus Baumgärtner, Joachim Camerarius, and Sebald Heyden. Through these intermediaries Senfl could engage sympathetically with Lutheran thought while outwardly maintaining his position in a Catholic environment—a stance McDonald characterizes as Nicodemism, or cautious religious dissimulation. The motet *Non moriar* thus carries both musical and confessional resonance. It can be heard as Senfl’s discreet gesture of solidarity with Luther’s faith and courage: a musical message of hope and perseverance across confessional boundaries at a moment of political and spiritual crisis. More about Luther and the letter itself (Latin, English) you can read here:
https://luther.wursten.be/frau-musika/brief-aan-senfl-1530/#english_translation
SOURCE:
– Grantley McDonald, ‘The Metrical Harmoniae of Wolfgang Gräfinger and Ludwig Senfl in the Conjunction of Humanism, Neoplatonism, and Nicodemism’ . (published in Senfl Studien IV (2012). Available on https://www.academia.edu/12246640
– Ole Kongsted: research article in Danish (“Ludwig Senfl’s “Luther-Motetter” : en forskningsberetning Fund og forskning i Det kongelige Biblioteks samlinger, Bd. 39 (2000)). – Kongsted proposes that the anonymous four-part setting of In pace in idipsum in the Zwickau Ratsschulbibliothek partbooks (Mus. Ms. 73, the Jodocus Schalreuter manuscript) is the very motet Luther asked Senfl to compose in 1530; he therefore assigns it to Senfl. He edited the piece in Motetter af Ludwig Senfl (Capella Hafniensis Editions A.1, 2001). He prints it with a question mark after Senfl’s name, signaling a cautious attribution, —stylistic features fit Senfl, but there’s no external concordance naming him.