This concert includes works by Handel – Dixit Dominus and Vivaldi – Beatus vir RV 598
Dixit Dominus is a psalm setting by George Frideric Handel (catalogued as HWV 232). It uses the Latin text of Psalm 110 (Vulgate 109), which begins with the words Dixit Dominus (“The Lord Said”). The score was published in 1867.
The work was completed in April 1707 while Handel was living in Italy. It is Handel’s earliest surviving autograph. The work was written in the Baroque style of the period and is scored for five vocal soloists, five-part chorus (SSATB), strings and continuo. It is thought that the work was first performed on July 16, 1707 in the Church of Santa Maria in Montesanto, under the patronage of the Colonna family. The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope (Martin V) and many other church and political leaders.
Movements:
Beatus vir RV598, a setting in B flat major of Psalm 111 (112), is unique among Vivaldi’s surviving sacred vocal works for one coro in being in a single movement but requiring both choir and soloists. It must have been written for the Pietà during Vivaldi’s first period there (1713–1719). The Psalm text, with nine verses (not counting the Doxology), is far from short and obliges Vivaldi to compose a movement of truly exceptional proportions—420 bars in 2/4 metre. Its style and form are based on that of the instrumental concerto, but on a hugely expanded scale. RV598 contains no fewer than twenty-five separate sections (ritornellos or episodes) and visits six keys besides the tonic. In structural terms, both the choir and the three solo voices (singly or in combination) act in the manner of soloists in an instrumental concerto; for the sake of balance and variety their appearances are judiciously alternated. Admirable, too, is Vivaldi’s thematic economy; an easily recognized cadential phrase of six notes underpins the whole movement. (from notes by Michael Talbot © 1997)
