Wolfgang Carl Briegel placed these very consoling words at the center of the dedication that he formulated in 1671 for his Zwölff madrigalische Trost-Gesänge for five or six voices together with basso continuo. After Briegel had served without interruption over two decades at Gotha’s ducal court, he resigned from his post as court music director and solemnly bade farewell to his employer, the local lord Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha, with the publication of these twelve songs of lament.

In the 18th century, Dresden developed into a magnificent baroque residence, which was soon given the nickname "Florence on the Elbe". Music played a special role in the representation of political power, and the "Dresden Court Orchestra" was famous throughout Europe.

When in 1648 the great Heinrich Schütz published his “Sacred Choral Music,” German-language sacred music was strongly influenced by the modern and innovative madrigal style from Italy. One spoke of a “strangely charming Italian madrigal manner,” or of a “a strangely delightful kind of madrigal.” Heinrich Schütz, on the other hand, shows how one could write lively polyphony in a pure contrapuntal style without violating the sacrosanct compositional rules of the six!teenth century. On its new recording of the “Sacred Choral Music 1648” by Heinrich Schütz, Ensemble Polyharmonique combines ideas of the German and Franco-Flemish singing cultures into lively poetic interpretations. As a listener, one must perhaps have the courage to let oneself succumb to the “pervasiveness” of this music, a music that does not become boring and time and again opens up to him who engages with it. But in the end, one will be richly rewarded by the greatest enjoyment of art and valuable musical experiences that touch both the heart and spirit.