Composition
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) published his Psalmen Davids (Psalms of David), Op. 2, in Dresden in 1619, following his studies with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice. The collection of twenty-six psalm settings applies the Venetian polychoral technique - multiple choirs and instrumental groups positioned spatially - to the psalms of Luther's German Psalter, creating a new synthesis of North German Lutheran sacred music and the most advanced Italian Baroque technique. Schütz is the pivotal figure in German Baroque music, the bridge between the Renaissance polyphony of Lasso and Palestrina and the mature Baroque of Buxtehude and Bach.
Biblical Text
The collection includes settings of Psalms 2, 6, 8, 84, 100, 110, 122, and others, applying the concertato technique to the full range of the Psalter - praise, lament, penitence, confidence, messianic expectation. Psalm 100 - "Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs" - is set with the full forces of multiple choirs and instruments, the spatial disposition of the performers creating a physical enactment of the psalm's invitation to corporate praise.
Psalm 8 - "LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" - and Psalm 110 - "The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand'" - demonstrate Schütz's ability to match musical texture to theological content: Psalm 8's meditative wonder at human dignity within cosmic grandeur is treated with lyrical sensitivity, while Psalm 110's messianic declaration receives the full ceremonial weight of the polychoral apparatus.
Creator and Legacy
Schütz's Psalmen Davids established the model for German Baroque sacred music: elaborate, spatially complex, dependent on professional performers, but animated by Luther's conviction that the psalms are the voice of Christ and his people before God. Bach's own psalm settings a century later continue the tradition Schütz initiated. The collection is regularly performed in Protestant churches that maintain the tradition of great sacred music as a form of corporate proclamation.