Motet notes - Schütz

"Ach Herr, du Schöpfer aller Ding" belongs to no larger collection of works, is known mainly to devotees of Schütz’s music, and lasts only three minutes. But no music could more beautifully inhabit these four lines of text that expresses Martin Luther’s awe in the face of the Lord’s manifestation as a humble infant. Bittersweet madrigalisms – unanticipated chromatics and aching dissonances – may suggest Monteverdi or even Schütz’s earlier music, but the motet likely originated as a madrigal by Luca Marenzio (1553-1599). It is ultimately Schütz’s hand that transformed this five-voice music into a miraculous “spiritual madrigal.”