Southern German composer, Johannes Christoph Demantius (1567–1643), was an exact contemporary of the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, though his compositions remained more firmly rooted in the Renaissance. Still, his music has extraordinary emotional depth and the kind of specific reaction to text we associate with composers of the Baroque period. Our motet - like most of those of Demantius - is scored for six-voice ensemble, an indication of the many musicians available to him in affluent Freiburg, where much of his later professional life was spent. This beautiful motet sets words from Isaiah so familiar to us, thanks to Handel's Messiah.

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