Holzner: Viretum pierium (1621)

Anton Holzner's Viretum pierium or "Pierian Meadow" (referring to the mythological home of the muses), a collection of twenty-four Latin sacred vocal concertos for one to five voices and continuo published in Munich in 1621, is a fine example of a genre that epitomized sacred music in Bavaria in the decades after Orlando di Lassos's death and, indeed, was of central importance for Catholic German music as a whole. The Latin vocal concerto in southern Germany mediated between existing polyphonic traditions north of the Alps and the newer currents of the Italian stile moderno while providing a vehicle for the aural expression of Catholic spirituality—Marian, eucharistic, and sanctoral devotion—in a time of religious and political crisis.