Complete Program Notes
Dixit Dominus Duo
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Grace Lutheran Church, Champaign
Introduction
This afternoon, BACH invites you to hear two different settings of the dramatic Dixit Dominus, the Latin Psalm 110 (or Psalm 109 in the Vulgate version). Through these works, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani and George Frideric Handel resisted limitations from liturgical authorities. In Handel’s case, he channeled the powerful emotions of opera into a sacred work, and in Cozzolani’s, she gave her musically rich convent an opportunity to shine in the face of restrictions on polyphony.
Dixit Dominus is part of the Office of Vespers in the Roman Catholic liturgy, and this evening worship may have developed in early Christianity based on the Jewish practice of prayer at sundown. Both Cozzolani and Handel set other Vespers psalms to music, but Handel’s Dixit Dominus in particular stands out as a Baroque Top 40 with its catchy instrumental riffs, rhythmic grooves, and flamboyant musical choices characteristic of a young composer who didn’t know any better (and really just wanted to be a star operatic composer!).
For many of us today, the words of Psalm 110 do not immediately reflect our values: “He shall judge the nations, fill the places with destruction, and shatter the skulls in the land of the many.” Other translations do not smooth over the violence of these lines. This psalm affirms the divinely granted power of earthly monarchs, and in many periods of history, it was used to rally a nation around its leaders.
I was inspired by commentary that a singer named Jenny Reece wrote for the Acadia Choral Society in Maine in 2009. Since I’m unable to match the eloquence of her words, I include an excerpt here:
This is a psalm about power. It explores the nature of leadership, temporal and spiritual. It exults in the moment of the assumption of authority. It seems the right psalm for Handel at this time, as he is trying to find his voice, to out-do the musical splendors of the Italians, to defeat his enemies, to stretch out his power, and to find his authentic musical voice. In a time of war, the music he chooses for this psalm acclaims a God who is sovereign over the chaotic nations and voices a confidence that right will triumph through Christ. Exulting over the defeat of enemies does not feel right to us these days, but Handel asks us to do it. It might help to think of the enemies among whom we as human beings are set as not other humans but as either personal ills– disease, financial disaster, and the like—or as societal systems of oppression, greed and injustice and the destruction of the environment. If we imagine those as the enemies, perhaps we too can exult at the promise that Justice, despite all appearances, will be enthroned in power at last in our world. Righteousness will return to the land. We will be who we were meant to be. We will be refreshed and lift up our head.
Anyone who would like to connect this psalm—and the feelings of relief, hope, and thrilling victory to which Handel's music gives brilliant voice—to the present political situation and the inauguration not of a king but of a new president, and a new era of justice and good leadership, is welcome to do so.
Although Reece wrote these words in March 2009, they are just as relevant today. Let us all hope for good leadership in the years to come, and for a country that can overcome its political divides.
Handel’s Dixit Dominus
When we think about George Frideric Handel today, many of us know him as the powerhouse who gave us Messiah, Water Music, Zadok the Priest, and other greatest hits of the 1700s. Scholars say that his productivity was fueled partly by his practice of borrowing melodies, bass lines, and entire movements from himself and other composers and depositing them into new pieces with the appropriate texts (if he had possessed our modern copy-paste capabilities, he would have been unstoppable!). However, today’s program features an earlier work, which he composed in Rome at the age of 22.
Having written operas in Hamburg, Handel now had to channel his ambitious creative impulses into sacred vocal works; Pope Clement XI had imposed a ban on operatic performances in Rome. Handel composed a number of Vespers Psalms, most likely under the patronage of Cardinal Carlo Colonna, including Dixit Dominus. Though the young composer was Lutheran, he also proved adept at Catholic church music, particularly in the satisfying syllabic text-setting of the Latin verses. On the other hand, the florid counterpoint treats voices as string instruments with extended sequences and virtuosic leaps.
Handel gives each movement of Dixit Dominus a distinctive character, as he does in his later works Messiah and Israel in Egypt. He creates drama with articulated, syllabic choral writing and a keen sense of when voices should be unified or independent. In the first and last movements, a slow-moving psalm tone brings a sense of age and permanence, using the melodic shape with which a psalm would be chanted during worship.
Dixit Dominus opens with stormy g-minor arpeggios, and the choral parts emphasize the word Dixit (“said,” as in “the Lord said”) for its percussive consonants. In contrast, the lyrical alto aria Virgam Virtutis Tuae paints a noble picture of the powerful deity, and the soprano aria Tecum Principium combines triplets and sighing figures to express the humble offerings of the people. The contrasting statements of Juravit Dominus (“the Lord has sworn”) and et non poenitebit eum (“and will not repent”) combine to give listeners a daunting sense of divine authority, but they set up the warmth of Tu es sacerdos in aeternum (“Thou art a priest for ever”), with its slowly rising lines and cascading phrases of secundum ordinem Melchisedech (“after the order of Melchisedech”).
In Dominus a Dextris Tuis (“the Lord upon thy right hand”), soloists open the movement in pairs that build and release tension through strings of suspensions; the choir follows suit. Handel changes the mood next with the imitative Judicabit in nationibus (“He shall judge the nations”) and implebit ruinas (“fill the places with destruction”), a surprisingly cheerful passage given how modern listeners might view the text. Conquassabit capita in terra multorum (“and shatter the skulls in the land of the many”) uses some of the most vivid text painting, with the incisive chords on conquassabit (“shatter”) hitting the audience like shards of glass. The calm before the storm is De torrente in via bibet (“He shall drink of the brook in the way”), in which the achingly sweet soprano duet is supported by unison tenors and basses.
The Gloria Patri returns to the G minor key of the first movement, as well as bringing back the circle of fifths chord progression (the same series of chords used in “I Will Survive”). One could describe the texture of this movement as a lemon meringue pie: the crust is the satisfying and supportive psalm tone Sicut erat in principio… (“As it was in the beginning…”), the lemon curd is the tart and playful back-and-forth of the et Spiritui Sancto (“and to the Holy Spirit”), and the billowing clouds of merengue are the Gloria patri (“Gloria be to the Father”). The real showstopper, though, is the Et in saecula saeculorum fugue (“And forever and ever”). After the first iterations of the fugue subject, young Handel shows off his compositional prowess and gives his singers everything from long series of octaves to extremely high notes (which would likely have been less extreme sung by choir boys and at Baroque pitch). The entrances of Et in saecula grow closer and closer together, leading to an extended pedal tone of a D in the bass line, and Handel finally decides to bring the work to a satisfying close.
In order to provide a change of mood between two dramatic Dixit Dominus settings, we are showcasing some of our favorite instrumental collaborators in an early chamber work by Handel.
The trio sonata is a quintessential Baroque ensemble, although it consists of four players instead of three. Pioneered by composers such as Corelli and Rossi, this genre typically features two violins, two flutes, or two oboes, along with a cello or bass and a harpsichord or organ. Handel’s Opus 2 trio sonatas have been surrounded by myth and rumor: Did Handel write them at the age of 10? Were they meant for two oboes? Were they composed by Handel at all?
Study of the paper shows a north German origin, and Handel could have written them as a university student in Halle around 1703, or at various other times in his career until about 1720. In any case, the early period in his career makes the F major sonata a suitable work to pair with the Dixit Dominus. The sonata da chiesa form (Italian church sonata, slow-fast-slow-fast) highlights the Italian connection as well.
With our flute/violin/cello/harpsichord instrumentation, we demonstrate the versatility of the trio sonata and exhibit Handel’s contrapuntal expertise on a smaller scale.
Handel’s Trio Sonata Op. 2 No. 4 in F
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, a Benedictine nun at Santa Radegonda in Milan, was a skilled singer and composer who published several musical collections before she became Prioress and Abbess. Throughout her life, she had to protect the vibrant musical community from restrictions imposed by liturgical authorities. Audience members who attended BACH’s June 2022 program entitled Behind the Walls: Music from the Italian Convents may recall the tumultuous history of convent musicians during the Baroque period:
After three decades of heightened interest among scholars, we know that convents were rich centers of musical activity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Evidence suggests that convent musicians became increasingly professional in their roles; skilled musicians could even be granted a dowry waiver and therefore higher status in the community than their social class implied. However, the composers featured on tonight’s program faced considerable opposition.
Why was convent music such a central issue for Catholic Church authorities in the sixteenth century? In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent created a set of reforms meant to purify the Church. “Let them keep away from churches compositions in which there is an intermingling of the lascivious or impure, whether by instrument or voice,” came a decree from 1562, leading to individual authorities interpreting and enforcing these vague musical instructions in churches and monasteries throughout Europe.
Surviving documentation paints a clear picture of convent restrictions in Italy, in particular. In the 1560s and 1570s, Archbishop Carlo Borromeo of Milan feared the fact that nuns’ musical and social lives were deeply intertwined, distracting them from devotion to Christ. He considered it his calling to halt this detrimental behavior with a series of decrees. The guiding principle was the reinforcement of clausula, the separation between cloistered women and the outside world. Borromeo outlawed male organ teachers in convents, severely limited socializing in the parlatorio where nuns visited with relatives, forbade the feeding of the poor outside convent walls, restricted the use of instruments, and outlawed the singing of polyphony in certain churches where the public were excessively entranced. Some nuns were forbidden to sing polyphony for several years as punishment for infractions.
Carlo Borromeo’s obsession with the inherent sinfulness of nuns’ music was followed eventually by the less restrictive rule of Federigo Borromeo. However, the younger Borromeo continued to limit access to the outside world, as well as overly elaborate solos, polyphony, and instrumental music.
Despite tight restrictions on convent music, Santa Radegonda was renowned for its singers and composers. Cozzolani published her Vespers collection in 1650, including the Dixit Dominus setting performed this evening.
In contrast to Handel’s orchestral setting from 1707, Cozzolani’s version employs the versatile texture of double choir and basso continuo, for which we are using harpsichord and violoncello. Soloistic passages reminiscent of early Baroque Italian opera are juxtaposed with the interplay of both choirs and crowned with grand moments of homophony. As the conductor, I made my own decisions about which passages would be sung by soloists versus the entire choir, since the piece would originally have been sung one-on-a-part or with a small group.
Certain moments of the text jump out at our ears with respect to Handel’s setting. Unlike Handel, Cozzolani repeatedly brings in the Doxology (Gloria patri) as a refrain, and this full sound has a greater impact with our larger choir than what she would have used at Santa Radegonda. In the Juravit Dominus section, both opt for a syllabic presentation of non penitebit, but the 8-part triple meter setting of non, non, non here highlights the word differently from Handel’s pointed chords. The vivid text painting on Conquassabit (“shatter”) begins with pulsed chords in the Handel and ornamented polyphony in the Cozzolani, but an almost identical eighth-note whole step figure (D-C-D-C-D-C in the first soprano part) appears in both works! It is highly unlikely that Handel would have known the Cozzolani setting, so it marks a similar compositional instinct.