Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672) was acclaimed by his contemporaries as ''Seculi sui Musicus excellentissimus'' --the foremost musician of his century; within a short time of his death, however, his music began to slip more and more into oblivion until even the existence of the man himself was almost totally forgotten.
Over a century-and-a-half was to pass before the first historic rediscovery was made (C. V. Winterfeld, 1834). The interest in the man and his music was kindled and gradually increased until in the year that marked the tercentenary of his birth a first edition of his complete works was launched (Ph. Spitta, 1885/94). Hand in hand with this development went something of an initial revival of Schutz' s music (in 1864 Brahms put on the Symphonia Sacra "Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich" in Vienna). The first renascence, however, wore itself out through the sheer lopsidedness of the works resurrected and performed, these being almost exclusively such as could be used in the concert-hall, whilst the others remained untouched. Furthermore, Schutz was looked upon more or less as a forerunner of Bach and Handel, as nothing more than one who paved the way for those two great composers, who a hundred years after Schutz elevated the music of the baroque era to a height that was considered not to have been reached previously by any other composer.
It wasn't until a reappraisal of the musical treasures of the early baroque era in the 1920s, encompassing various strata of public musical life and opening up a completely new sphere of music-research, to completely revise that earlier assessment of the "prince of protestant musicians", as Schutz was occasionally called. Today Schutz not only stands alongside Bach and Handel as their peer -- we are in complete agreement with his contemporaries that he was the greatest composer of his era -- but over and above that we esteem him as a creative genius, a man of profound Christian piety. The wonderful expressive power of his music affirms a mind of unprecedented universality and transcends the barriers of time and denomination.
The greater part of Schutz' s output was written during the Thirty Years War. No work, however, quite so directly exudes the atmosphere of moral and economic catastrophe as do these Kleine geistliche Konzerte. In the early years of the 1630s - when the first works of this collection were probably being composed-Saxony, which until then had largely escaped the ravages of war, itself became a center of the fighting and in 1636, when Book I of the "Konzerte'' was published, the outskirts of Dresden lay in ruins and the_ plague was killing off the population. The dedicatory preface by Schutz to his Kleine geistliche Konzerte, Book I, begins with the words:
"The way in which together with other free arts/ exalted music, too, / as a result of the continuing dangers of war in our beloved fatherland / of the German nation / has not only veritably declined / but in many a place been completely put down / is, along with other general ruination and violent disorders, / which accursed war is wont to bring to pass, /for many an eye to see.'' In fact during these horrific years the arts were almost condemned to complete silence. The general disintegration of the Chapels Royal and other bodies of church music -- this having serious effect on the area around Dresden where Schutz exerted greatest influence-led to the fact that the type of work that had hitherto enjoyed greatest popularity, namely lavish anthems requiring numerous choirs and instrumentalists, could no longer be performed.
