Schütz composed the pieces during the first years of the Thirty Years' War,[REF] when he was in the service of the Protestant Elector of Saxony Johann Georg I, who tried to stay neutral [REF].
Schütz dedicated the work to the Catholic Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg, an influential politician, whom he first met in 1617,[REF][REF] when Eggenberg accompanied Emperor Ferdinand of Habsburg on a visit to Saxony [REF].