Magnificat (Schütz)

Heinrich Schütz composed four extant settings of the Magnificat or Song of Mary, one of the three New Testament canticles. He set one in Latin and three in German. In the Schütz-Werke-Verzeichnis (SWV), the compositions have the numbers 344, 426, 468 (in Latin) and 494. The settings on the German text are all part of larger groups of works. They are settings of Martin Luther's German Magnificat, Meine Seele erhebt den Herren (My soul magnifies the Lord). Schütz wrote the compositions for different forces and occasions.