Symphoniae sacrae I
| Symphoniae sacrae I | |
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| Sacred vocal music by Heinrich Schütz | |
The composer of the collection in 1627
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| Catalogue | Op. 6, SWV 257 to 276 |
| Text | Psalms and other biblical texts |
| Language | Latin |
| Dedication | Johann Georg II |
| Published | 1629 |
| Scoring |
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Symphoniae sacrae I (literally: Sacred Symphonies, Book One), Op. 6, is a collection of different pieces of vocal sacred music on Latin texts, composed by Heinrich Schütz, published in 1629. He set mostly psalms and excerpts from the Song of Solomon for one to three voices, with various instruments and continuo. Its twenty pieces were assigned 257 to 276 in the Schütz-Werke-Verzeichnis (SWV), the catalogue of his works. Two additional volumes appeared later, Symphoniae sacrae II in 1647, and Symphoniae sacrae III in 1650.
Schütz composed the first collection during his second study trip to Venice. During his first visit he studied the Venetian polychoral style with Giovanni Gabrieli. Returning in 1628 after Gabrieli´s death, he studied with his successor at St Mark's Basilica, Claudio Monteverdi. Schütz was in the service of the Protestant Elector of Saxony Johann Georg I, and dedicated the collection to the Elector's son, crown prince Johann Georg II, then 16 years old. The texts are mostly taken from the Bible, most of them setting excerpts from psalms and from the Song of Solomon. Schütz set the texts as concertos for various combinations of one to three voices, instruments (both strings and winds) and basso continuo.
Schütz published the collection in 1629 in Venice as his Symphoniae sacrae. Opus Sextum. Opus Ecclesiasticum Secundum., his sixth work, and his second sacred work. In his Latin foreword, he mentions Gabrieli, but not Monteverdi. The composer has been described as "universal" (katholikos), and after his Cantiones sacrae published a second work in Latin. The musicologist Matteo Messori notes:
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