The composers setting the poetry of Martin Opitz to music pitted the southern European tradition against his orientation to the west. For them Italy was more important than France. This cultural dichotomy was a source of danger to the incipient cooperation between poets and composers. Attempts to reflect the pulse of the verse in music accorded ill with the stile concertato and emotional outbursts. As the through-composition of stanzas was only possible in exceptional cases, the 17th century German lied is marked by considerable differences in form and style.