In 1619, Schütz married Magdalena Wildeck, and they were blessed with two daughters. Only six years later, Magdalena died, a tragedy that Schütz felt deeply. He put aside the work of writing grand compositions, and turned instead to reading the psalms. There was a Lutheran pastor of Leipzig, Cornelius Becker (1561-1604), who had taken each of the psalms and created a rhyming, metrical text for each. This Becker Psalter especially comforted Schütz after his wife’s death, and as Schütz read them, he began to compose choral settings for each, eventually setting all the psalms to music. About this project Schütz writes:

“It pleased Almighty God, according to His infinite wisdom and gracious will, through a particular family grief and through the sudden death of my late beloved wife, Magdalena Wildeck, to bring to a halt such other work I was planning and put into my hands this little psalter, as it were, so that I could derive more comfort from it in my sorrow. I thus set about this task more willingly, without further thought of myself, as a comforter in my sorrow, and finally prepared this small work, as it is presented here, with God’s help.”

Schütz published these works three years after his wife’s death and wrote this message to those who would read and sing them:

“May the true God, in these afflicted times of late, let His holy, pure, true Word live abundantly in the churches, the schools, and with each father in his home, through pure devout teachings, as also through spiritual and consolatory songs and psalms, until the longed for future of His beloved son, our Savior and Redeemer, that we might await Him in love, patience, and joyous hope, and be found always ready for that time. Amen.”

Schütz himself lived a long life, survived the hardships of the Thirty Years’ War, wrote an astounding number of sacred pieces, and died surrounded by the sound of hymns.