In the 1620s, Venetian sacred music underwent a drastic and sudden transformation. The polychoral style pioneered by Giovanni Gabrieli was superseded. Instead of elaborate compositions for divided choirs, the focus shifted to a few solo voices, while Gabrieli's magnificent groups of cornets, violins, and trombones were replaced by much smaller ensembles consisting primarily of strings. Simultaneously, virtuosity gained importance, and the grandeur of the Gabrieli style gave way to a significantly more intimate expression based on secular musical idioms. Monteverdi, who had served as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice from 1613, made extensive use of this new concertante style in his later church music, but it reached its full potential in the 1630s and 40s through Monteverdi's colleagues and successors such as Alessandro Grandi, Giovanni Antonio Rigatti, and Giovanni Rovetta. This style was still present in the 1680s, when Giovanni Legrenzi was active at St. Mark's Basilica.
Dario Castello's "Exultate Deo" is the only known vocal work by this Venetian wind player and important sonata composer. The unpredictable alternation between duple and triple meter, typical of the 1620s, characterizes this piece.
Monteverdi's sacred works are primarily preserved through three printed editions published during his lifetime and a posthumous collection. The Marian antiphons do not actually belong to the Vespers liturgy, but rather to Compline, although they were traditionally sung at the end of Vespers, especially in secular churches. Of the four Marian antiphons, the Salve Regina is used most frequently in the liturgical year and, consequently, has been set to music the most often. The Selva morale et spirituale also contains only settings of the Salve Regina, arranged in ascending order of vocal proficiency. The first setting of the Salve Regina is a trope that combines the original text with that of the Audi coelum, which had already been set to music in 1610. Tropes were not actually permitted in church services during Monteverdi's time, which may indicate private devotions at the Viennese imperial court.
When Monteverdi was summoned to Venice in 1613, he was already 46 years old and approaching old age, and no one could have foreseen that he would continue to shape musical development in the Serenissima for a generation. Prior to this, he had served the Gonzaga family as court musician for more than two decades, contributing to the renown of the small, politically rather insignificant Duchy of Mantua as a cultural center far beyond the borders of Italy, before his dismissal in 1612. Monteverdi remained in Mantua until the 1620s, before traveling to Vienna in the entourage of Princess Eleonora Gonzaga, when she married Emperor Ferdinand II there in 1622.