'spiritual concerto (or: concert)') is a 17th-century genre of sacred music, characterized as settings of religious texts requiring both vocal soloists and obbligato instrumental forces for performance.
[5] The stylistic roots of the concert lie in early baroque Italian models brought back to German by musicians such as Heinrich Schütz, and popularised by his contemporaries such as Samuel Scheidt.
The next generation of composers working in this form include Johann Schelle, Johann Philipp Förtsch, Sebastian Knüpfer, Dieterich Buxtehude and early members of the Bach family, the works of whom have been partially preserved in the Altbachisches Archiv.
Johann Pachelbel is another composer contributing to the genre, for instance his Christ lag in Todesbanden, P 60, for SATB voices, strings, bassoon and continuo.
Pieces of this genre were mostly qualified as motets or as cantatas, for instance: In 21st-century scholarship, the sacred concerto or geistliches Konzert description is used more often to indicate compositions from the late 17th or early 18th century: