SACRED CONCERTO

   A setting of a Christian text, usually Biblical, for voices and instruments, dating from the late 16th to mid-17th centuries in Italy and German-speaking lands. The earliest publication, which also contains secular works, is Concerti di Andrea, et di Gio. Gabrieli (Venice, 1587). Seventeenth-century collections adopted the textures and techniques of Italian opera, the sacred concertos of Heinrich Schü tz (also called Symphoniae Sacrae) being among the greatest exemplars. The use of sacred concertos in worship would have paralleled that of motets.

   See also Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici; Du Monte, Henri; Monteverdi, Claudio; Recitative; Sacred Symphony; Schein, Johann Hermann.