Judging by the prolific output of German seventeenth-century composers, it is easy to imagine music as a part of the texture of everyday life. Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, Augustin Pfleger, Franz Tunder and Dietrich Buxtehude, working in the German court and city choirs, had the freedom to compose many incidental pieces, religious in theme, though not expressly part of the liturgy. Viols were often chosen to accompany singers, both solo and concerted. Drama-inflected texts, such as “Siehe, dein Vater” by Augustin Pfleger, telling the story of Mary and Joseph losing track of the twelve-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem, are found alongside simple psalm settings such as Tunder’s “An Wasserflüssen Babylon” and Schütz’s “Erbarm dich mein.” Buxtehude uses a consort of five viols for his “Ad cor” section of Membra Jesu, a passion cycle on the body parts of Christ, and six viols to accompany two sopranos in “Laudate pueri”.   

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