Johann Simon Mayr became one of the most popular opera composers in Europe in the period preceding Rossini, but his younger career in the last decades of the 18th century was largely as a church musician, dividing his time between his native Bergamo and Venice. Often taking the form of small-scale religious operas, his Venetian solo motets were tailor-made for the singers of the day, with notable results, as can be heard in the soaring expressiveness of Exsurge, anima, the cavatina-style melodies of O Deus, quot me circumdant, and the contrasting atmospheres of fear, dread and serenity in Qual colpa eterno Dio.