Handel: Dixit Dominus, HWV 232 - CD

David Bates directs La Nuova Musica in a pair of contrasting settings of Psalm 109.

Handel's masterful and ambitious HWV282 was penned in 1707 during a youthful visit to Italy. Vivaldi's vivid and economical RV807 (his third Dixit Dominus) was long mistakenly attributed to Baldassare Galuppi; it probably dates from the early 1730s. Rounding out the programme is Vivaldi's dazzling motet for solo voice, "In furore iustissimae irae", featuring soprano Lucy Crowe.

“Carmelite Vespers 1709” presents a reconstruction of musical performances in Rome in 1709, based on a new critical edition by Italian Handel expert Angela Romagnoli.

In early 18th century-Rome the holiday of Madonna del Carmine was celebrated with a lavish musical pasticcio. Italian Early Music specialist Alessandro de Marchi, his Academia Montis Regalis and an excellent ensemble of solo vocalists present the reconstruction of such a service as it might have been performed in 1709 under the direction of Venetian master Antonio Caldara (1670–1736). The programme combines lesser-known but stunningly beautiful pieces by Caldara himself with famous motets by his predecessor Handel such as “Dixit Dominus” or “Laudate pueri”.

Italian conductor Alessandro De Marchi is one of today's leading specialists in the field of historic performing practice, on both original and modern instruments. His opera repertoire ranges from Monteverdi, Cavalli, Vivaldi and Handel through Keiser, Pergolesi and Hasse to works by Haydn, Mozart and Cimarosa. De Marchi also performs operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti on original instruments, and sees these in a historic context between Baroque and Classical opera.

The stunning cast of top-league international Baroque singers includes Roberta Invernizzi, Robin Johannsen, Martin Oro, Markus Brutscher and Antonio Abete.

2 CDs; Running Time approx. 100min

Booklet with Liner notes in English, German and French, Libretto in Latin

Composed to celebrate the birthday of Queen Anne of England, this Ode was subtitled 'Ode for the Peace' in reference to the Treaty of Utrecht which the monarch was about to sign, marking the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. Six years earlier, the 22-year-old composer exploited in his sacred music what he had just learnt from Italian opera: the result was the powerful, intensely passionate Dixit Dominus. For almost fifteen years,Andreas Scholl has consistently collected the top international awards for his many solo and ensemble recordings (Diapason d'Or in 1996 and Gramophone Award for Vivaldi's Stabat Mater [see our special box sets!]; another Gramophone Award and Diapason d'Or for Caldara's Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo, under the direction of Rene Jacobs, and Singer of the Year Award at the Classical Brits in 2006. He now appears in the world's foremost concert halls and festivals. He has worked with the finest orchestras, and with such conductors as Philippe Herreweghe, René Jacobs,William Christie, Chiara Banchini, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Christophe Rousset, and Paul McCreesh. In 1998, his operatic debut at Glyndebourne in Handel's Rodelinda (Bertarido) won unprecedented praise from the British press. He made his debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in this role in 2006.

The Sixteen adds to its stunning Handel collection with a brand new recording of Dixit Dominus set alongside a little know treasure - Agostino Steffani’s Stabat Mater. Full of virtuosity, vibrant colour and dynamic energy, Handel’s Dixit Dominus captures absolutely the Italian style of the period. Handel’s control of forces is masterly and the range of texture and style is breathtaking. Written during the composer’s time in Italy in the early eighteenth century it is amongst his first autographed works and also one of his finest. By comparison Agostino Steffani’s little known Stabat Mater was one of his last compositions. Written for the Academy of Vocal Music in London, this work is the most powerful expression of Steffani’s religious fervour and, outside opera, his largest, most varied and most heartfelt composition.

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, a son of a barber-surgeon of some distinction who was 63 when Handel was born. His aptitude for music presented itself early and he was soon performing to the royalty and aristocracy. At 18 he moved to Hamburg but his real chance to develop his musical talents came when he moved to Rome in 1706. His Dixit Dominus – a setting of Psalm 109 – is now thought to have been written for the festival of Our Lady of Mount Carmel the following year. It shows how well Handel, a German Protestant, had been accepted by his hosts that the Cardinal should commission him to provide music for such a Catholic occasion. Ten years later Handel was in England and the provision of the Water Music for an excursion by barge on the Thames so delighted the new King George I (previously Elector of Hannover) that he duly forgave the composer for his behaviour whilst in his service in Germany.

In 1727 Handel provided four anthems for the Coronation of King George II of which one, Zadok the Priest, has been performed at every subsequent Coronation. The final work in this set is the Music for the Royal Fireworks written to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749.

The Brook Street Band join forces with the Choir of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and their director Owen Rees, for the first ever pairing on disc of the two settings of the Dixit Dominus by Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel.

Following five critically-acclaimed and immensely popular recordings for AVIE, The Brook Street Band embark on their most ambitious project to date: a recording with the estimable student Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford, that pairs for the first time ever the two settings of the Dixit Dominus written by Alessandro Scarlatti and George Frideric Handel. Both works date from early 18th century Rome, Handel’s within a year of his arriving in the musical capital, and possibly influenced by Scarlatti's work, though the date of the elder Italian’s composition is not precisely known. Indeed it has been suggested that the 22-year-old Lutheran was attempting to outdo Scarlatti with his masterly grasp of large-scale sacred music for the Roman rite. In between these two grand Vespers, The Brook Street Band serve up a palate cleanser of an instrumental concerto in G minor by Scarlatti.

On this recording the massed forces are joined by five of Britain’s brightest young singers: soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, mezzo-sopranos Esther Brazil and Sally Bruce-Payne, tenor Guy Cutting, and bass-baritone Matthew Brook.