Scheidt: Sic Deus dilexit à8 (1620)

This setting of Sic Deus dilexit, like all the other double-choir pieces by Samuel Scheidt included in the present series, is taken from his Cantiones Sacrae Octo Vocum, (Hamburg, 1620).  It is a remarkable collection, consisting as it does both of Lutheran chorale settings (Ein feste Burg, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, etc.) and quite Italianate Latin motets on texts that had mostly been set previously by Italian composers (there is a setting of the present text by Giovanni Gabrieli, for instance).