Heinrich Schütz’s Geistliche Chor-Music, one of his most important works, was published in Dresden in 1648, the year in which the Thirty Years War ended. This war not only tragically marked the life of the composer, it also led to the complete collapse of German cultural life. In his detailed foreword to the collection of 29 motets for five to seven voices the composer presented these as models for composition without a basso continuo – it was his conviction that every young composer should obtain “the proper foundation for a good counterpoint.” In spite of the strict counterpoint, stylistically speaking from an earlier era, the “Musicus poeticus” instilled his motets with a strongly expressive character.

Schütz’s close adherence to the declamation of the text and the plastic working-out of its contents, as well a melodic structure which is easily grasped and remembered, are rendered in a most convincing manner in this complete recording by the Dresdner Kammerchor under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann.