Dominus Effekt

What a wonderful contrast! Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Magnificat represent the two oft-compared composers at Dixit . He had already written two Italian operas, and his career path clearly pointed in that direction. The Dixit is as extravagant as Bach’s Magnificat is controlled. The two pieces are such a good fit that one wonders why they haven’t turned up together more frequently, if, in fact, they have at all.

These 2 discs offer the music of 3 different choirs and 4 different times periods. CD 1 features the Choir of King's College, Cambridge,performing 4 Coronation Anthems: Zadok the priest; My heart is inditing; Let my hand be strengthened and The King shall rejoice. Recording Date:August,1963.

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.

Domenico Cimarosa succeeded Salieri as court composer in Vienna and was liked and respected by both Haydn and Mozart. He had an eventful life that included a stint working for Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg (he went back to southern Italy because he couldn't hack the cold weather) and imprisonment in old age for having supported the French Revolution. This Dixit Dominus comes from the last stage of Cimarosa's career, after he composed most of the operas for which he is best known today. Even more than most sacred pieces of the late eighteenth century it is extremely operatic.

Antonio Vivaldi's probably early Nisi Dominus, RV 608, and Stabat Mater, RV 621, both for solo voice and ensemble, have received several top-notch recordings, so the listener can pick on the basis of voice type and stylistic preference. Countertenor David Daniels has essayed the pair with Fabio Biondi and his Europa Galante ensemble, and you can hear the preternaturally rich contralto Sara Mingardo in a reading with the fiery Italian Baroque specialist Rinaldo Alessandrini. Here you get a countertenor, Philippe Jaroussky, in the Nisi Dominus and a female contralto, Canadian Marie-Nicole Lemieux, in the Stabat Mater. The pairing robs the whole of unity at one level, but makes musical sense; the Nisi Dominus is a more athletic work that benefits from the power of the male voice, while the Stabat Mater, especially in Vivaldi's truncated and highly dramatic setting, may require the audience to identify with a female singer.

Marcus Creed amply proves in this recording of the Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne and the Dixit Dominus that he has what it takes to conduct George Frederick Handel. He's got the big beat down, plus the muscular rhythms, vigorous tempos, and vivid textures, as well as the tight ensembles and the unstoppable drive so essential in making Handel come alive. And that's just in the fast choral movements. In the solos and duets, Creed creates poised, alert, and wholly sympathetic accompaniments that help shape the singers' performances as part of the total work. And what singers! Both sopranos are superlative, especially Sophie Kussmann, and countertenor Andreas Scholl is, as always, strong, yet supple and sensitive.

Joining some of Canada’s most accomplished artists and top choristers from the National Capital region and beyond, the Ottawa Bach Choir has received national and international recognition.
The Ottawa Bach Choir presents works by three of the most important composers of the German Baroque period — Handel (Dixit Dominus with the participation of countertenor Daniel Taylor), along with motets by Schütz and Bach. While the three composers remained faithful to their German roots, the works presented here also feature influences from the Italian Baroque, including the use of drama, expression, intensity, rhythmic fervor, harmonic invention and word painting, as well as polychoral techniques.

Wolfgang Katschner and the Lute Compagney provide the oratorios 'Jonas' and 'Judicium extremum' with a Dixit Dominus and a Magnificat, which in their expressiveness are in no way inferior to the more popular oratorios.