Voicing of works by Schütz

[bobnotts]

I've been doing some tidying up of some of the Schütz score pages but when it came to confirming the voicing of some works, I wasn't sure how to proceed. Works from his Opus 8 are scored variously for Soprano and basso continuo, 2 sopranos and bc, soprano and bass and bc, etc, which I happily changed to solo soprano and bc or solo soprano & bass and bc, etc. However, as I got further down the list, I found some works scored for a voicing much closer to what we might currently associate with choral music, eg. SATB, SSATB, etc. Taking a closer look at the PDFs told me that the lines aren't particularly difficult so perhaps they could be sung by a chorus, not as solos.

How should these works be categorised?

[CHGiffen]

It is my understanding that the Kleine Geistliche Konzerte, I and II comprising the Leipzig Opus numbers 8 and 9 (SWV 282-305 and 306-336, respectively), were intended to be sung by soloists. This is in contrast to the Geistliche Chormusik Opus 11 collection which is clearly intended for chorus singing. This not to say that some of the former haven't also been occasionally sung with more than one on a part, but I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

Chuck