The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 25 (2019) No. 1

Another Example of Monteverdi’s Self-borrowing:
The First Dixit Dominus in the Messa a quattro voci et salmi (1650) and the Dixit Dominus primo of the Selva morale et spirituale (1641)

Jeffrey Kurtzman*

Written in honor of the eightieth birthday of Kerala Snyder
and published in honor of her role as founding editor
of the Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music
on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary

Abstract

For the Dixit Dominus primo in his Selva morale et spirituale of 1641, Monteverdi borrowed and reworked the first Dixit Dominus setting in the Messa a quattro voci et salmi, published posthumously in 1650. The first two verses are significantly recomposed and reworked, and verse 7 is completely rewritten, while verses 3–6 and the doxology are borrowed mostly intact but with variants in detail. A close examination of Monteverdi’s revisions suggests a variety of reasons for the changes he made, most notably an apparent desire to create a complex and coherent organization that was previously lacking.

1. Monteverdi’s Self-Borrowing

2. Monteverdi’s Dixit Dominus Settings

3. Verse Subdivisions of the Psalm Dixit Dominus

4. Exegeses of Dixit Dominus by Saint Augustine and Joannes De Rubeis

5. Verse-by-Verse Comparisons of the Two Settings (Vulgate Verse Division)

6. A Note on Proportional Notation

7. Recomposition and Self-Borrowing: Comparison between the Settings of the First Two Verses

8. Recomposition: Verse 7, “De torrente”

9. The Adaptative Process: Verses 3–6 and the Doxology

10. Rationalizing the Relationships between Monteverdi’s Settings

Appendices

Examples

Figure

Tables

References

1. Monteverdi’s Self-Borrowing

1.1 On a number of occasions throughout his career, Claudio Monteverdi reworked a piece of his own, using it as the basis for a new composition. The best known such pair is Arianna’s solo lament from the 1608 opera Arianna, recast by Monteverdi around 1610 as a five-voice madrigal, which he published in Il sesto libro de madrigali in 1614. The solo lament was later presented as a contrafact: the Latin lament of the Madonna, the final piece in the composer’s 1641 Selva morale et spirituale (hereafter Selva morale).

1.2 Despite its fame, the reworking of Arianna’s lament is exceptional. Most of Monteverdi’s recompositions are sacred works for vespers. The earliest we know is the adaptation of the Toccata for trumpets that introduces the 1607 opera L’Orfeo, to become the instrumental accompaniment in the opening falsobordone response, Domine ad adiuvandum, of the Vespro della Beata Vergine of 1610. In another instance, the Beatus vir primo of the Selva morale turns the brief canzonetta Chiome d’oro from Monteverdi’s Concerto: Settimo libro de madrigali (1619) into a much more extended psalm setting.

1.3 These are Monteverdi’s only such reworkings of preexistent secular pieces, though there are certainly instances elsewhere in his surviving repertoire of motivic similarity from one piece to another, parallel treatment of particular words, and parallel structural formats.^[1] His remaining reworkings of his own compositions principally involve psalms and Magnificats based on others of the same liturgical genre. The most interesting is the relationship between the two Magnificats published as part of the Vespro della Beata Vergine in 1610, where Monteverdi adapted the simpler (though still quite complex) “Magnificat a sei voci” to become the “Magnificat a sette voci e sei instrumenti” by a variety of means. These included substituting instruments for vocal roles and reversing the musical settings of two adjacent verses to create a more coherent overall structure for the newer version. The result is a significantly more complex composition.^[2]

1.4 Two closely related versions of the psalm Confitebor tibi Domine in the posthumous Messa a quattro voci et salmi (hereafter Messa et salmi) of 1650 have been compared by Jerome Roche.^[3] In this case, Monteverdi took a strophic variations setting for solo soprano and two violins with an opening sinfonia and a ritornello, and refashioned it into a duet for soprano and tenor with violins, while retaining the same strophic bass pattern. Roche makes a convincing case that the duet was derived from the solo version rather than the other way around.

1.5 Another instance in which one setting of a psalm is based on another with the same text is the Dixit Dominus pair comprising the first Dixit in the Messa et salmi, published posthumously in 1650, and the Dixit Dominus primo in the Selva morale et spirituale of 1641.^[4] As will be shown below, Monteverdi once again has enlarged and made more complex a simpler version (1650) to generate a more sophisticated and structurally complicated work (1641).^[5] This pair is the principal focus of the present study.

1.6 A few years ago, the Italian musicologist Luigi Collarile published a small print of three Salve Regina settings and one of Regina caeli laetare, apparently issued in Venice by Alessandro Vincenti between 1662 and 1667, which may have originated among the manuscripts Vincenti salvaged, as described in the dedication to the Messa et salmi (see Chapter 2 below). Only the first Salve is attributed to Monteverdi, though the others are also arguably by him. The first Salve is the only one of the three with concordances elsewhere in Monteverdi’s repertoire, and Collarile is planning a study including an examination of the reworkings among the versions.^[6] Apart from the psalms and Magnificats mentioned above, these are the only surviving sacred works in which Monteverdi has apparently reworked one version to create another.

1.7 Such reworkings of previously written compositions pose questions as to why Monteverdi revised or recomposed them in the first place, and at the same time offer unique opportunities for understanding his compositional thought processes. In surveying all such pieces, one sees no single rationale underlying recomposition; every case represents something quite different, and often we can only speculate as to why Monteverdi took this approach to the “new” piece. The five-voice madrigal version of Lasciatemi morire, labeled by Monteverdi as the “Lamento d’Arianna,” in four partes, was reportedly composed at the request of a Venetian gentleman, yet the madrigal forms part of a pair of compositions in Monteverdi’s Il sesto libro de madrigali a cinque voci of 1614, mourning and honoring Carterina Martinelli, the young singer who was slated to perform the original Lasciatemi morire in the opera Arianna in 1608 but died of smallpox before the premiere. The other work in her honor is a sestina entitled “Lagrime d’amante al sepolcro dell’amata” in six partes, and the two madrigals make up approximately half the music of the print. Monteverdi had already made known his intention of publishing these two madrigals as early as 1610.^[7]

1.8 Expanding the Orfeo toccata to create the opening response of the 1610 Vespers may have to do with when the response was first performed in relation to Orfeo, or the presumed function of the toccata as an introductory piece for the Gonzagas, or both.^[8] The reworking of the six-voice Magnificat in the 1610 Vespers into a seven-voice and six-instrument setting is an enhancement of the solemn, celebratory character of the original work by the means already noted. But what might have motivated Monteverdi to turn a solo Confitebor tibi into a duet, except perhaps a performance situation in which a duet was required and time for producing one was short? More puzzling is the rationale for turning Chiome d’oro into a Beatus vir setting. In the case of the two Dixit Dominus settings under consideration here, it appears that Monteverdi refashioned an earlier and somewhat simpler work (though not published until Alessandro Vincenti’s posthumous collection of 1650) into the more complex version that initiates the psalm section of the Selva morale et spirituale (1641), dedicated to Eleonora Gonzaga I (hereafter Eleonora Gonzaga), widow of Emperor Ferdinand II and mother of his successor, Ferdinand III.^[9]

1.9 Not only does the rationale for each of Monteverdi’s reworkings seem to be different, each is also different in its compositional methods and techniques, though in every case Monteverdi appears to have made a more complex composition out of a simpler work (though often still complex in its own right). With regard to the “Magnificat a sette voci e sei instrumenti” of the 1610 Vespers and the present Dixit Dominus settings, one aspect of the recomposition is the creation of a more complex and systematic organization of the individual verses according to such structural principles as symmetry and the golden section. Nevertheless, the compositional details and methods of each reworking are unique, and each offers distinct, individual glimpses into Monteverdi’s compositional thought processes. This is not the place to attempt comparisons of these diverse pairings, but any understanding of how Monteverdi thought and acted in the process of recomposing must begin with detailed analysis of each reworking. As legal professionals are fond of saying, “The truth is in the details,” and it is in the details that we can see Monteverdi’s mind at work and, one hopes, draw both detailed and more general conclusions about his compositional methods. My purpose is to go beyond already-published descriptive comparisons between the two settings (see n. 4), to examine in detail the compositional considerations by which Monteverdi converts one setting into the other, and to suggest reasons behind the changes and adaptations he makes.

2.  Monteverdi’s Dixit Dominus Settings

2.1 Each of the two psalm settings in question is the opening work in the vespers portion of the relevant print. Dixit Dominus is the first psalm in any and all vespers services, regardless of the sequence of psalms that follows, and as a consequence, it is the single most frequently set psalm in seventeenth-century sources.^[10] Monteverdi published three settings of this text: the single version that appeared in 1610 and two versions in the Selva morale, while Alessandro Vincenti, in the posthumous Messa et salmi, published another two versions from Monteverdi’s estate that Vincenti claims miraculously came into his possession after the death of the composer.^[11] We know of three other vespers services in Mantua for which Monteverdi was responsible, and he clearly had to have composed a very large quantity of vespers music for both Saint Mark’s and other religious institutions and patrons in Venice during his thirty-year tenure in the city. Thus, the five settings of Dixit Dominus we have must be only a small fraction of what he would have written.^[12] We are therefore fortunate that, thanks to Vincenti’s posthumous publication, comprising a mass, a set of vespers psalms (with second settings of several texts), a Magnificat by Francesco Cavalli, and a litany, we have the Dixit Dominus setting on which the first Selva morale version is based.

2.2 The Selva morale et spirituale has in recent years been assumed to have been assembled to meet the needs of its dedicatee, Eleonora Gonzaga, perhaps commissioned by her to fulfill the liturgical and spiritual needs of her Mysterien-Andachten and her services in her private chapel after the death of her husband, Emperor Ferdinand II, in 1637.^[13] The print is exceptionally large and the contents are unusually diverse. Apart from the initial set of spiritual madrigals in Italian, the contents comprise mass music, vespers psalm and Magnificat settings, as well as hymns and motets. Even the psalm settings are diverse. Most are more-or-less concertato settings for varying numbers of voices and instruments, but two, Credidi propter quod and Memento Domine David, are for eight voices in the strict coro spezzato style required for all five vespers psalms on major feasts in the Ceremoniale of St. Mark’s, first recorded by the master of ceremonies Bartolomeo Bonifacio in 1564, recopied numerous times through the mid-eighteenth century, and confirmed by the Ceremoniale magnum of Giovanni Battista Pace in 1678 and by a number of other descriptive documents. The method of performance for such coro spezzato pieces was four voices in one choir and the remainder of the chapel singers in the other, situated in the bigonzo, an octagonal platform above the floor of the church on the south side of the presbytery.^[14] This solemn style seems to have persevered for at least two centuries, and unless the feast didn’t fall under those for which coro spezzato psalms were required or exceptions were made for specific reasons, it would have prevented most of the psalms of the Selva morale and all but one of the psalms (another Dixit setting) from the Messa et salmi of 1650 from having been performed at St. Mark’s on major feasts. Thus, we must assume that both the 1650 Dixit and the Selva morale’s Dixit that are the subject of this study, neither of which is in a strict coro spezzato style, were composed for institutions outside St. Mark’s, whether another church or confraternity in Venice or even in one of the nearby towns of Padua or Treviso. The Selva morale’s Dixit could also have been prepared specifically for Eleonora Gonzaga, whether at the time of publication, or possibly even earlier. We do not have any evidence at this time that any music of the Selva morale was sent to the imperial court in Vienna prior to the publication itself, though the possibility is certainly not to be rejected.

2.3 The diversity in performing forces and musical styles as well as contents of the Selva morale suggest that much of it may have been assembled from compositions written for other purposes than the print itself. According to this theory, the print may contain additional psalms beyond the aforementioned Beatus vir and the Dixit Dominus under consideration adapted from preexistent works, no longer extant. The Selva morale is the last music Monteverdi himself published, just two years before he died, at the time he was writing his final operas. That he was pressed for time is apparent from his plea in the dedication that Eleonora accept the print “even if it is not perhaps in that state of perfection that I would have wished it to be.”^[15] And, indeed, there are a number of major errors and problematic passages in the print, some of which defy an obvious solution.^[16]

2.4 The Messa et salmi, on the other hand, is the posthumous production of the publisher Alessandro Vincenti.^[17] By whatever “miraculous” means Vincenti got hold of Monteverdi’s manuscripts, it is likely there were more than he published, for the print is a carefully fashioned mass-and-vespers collection like many others of the period, with some multiple settings of the five psalms of the “male cursus” followed by the three additional psalms also required for the “female cursus,” a Magnificat, and a reprint of Monteverdi’s Letanie della Beata Vergine for six voices.^[18] The print is organized in the typical manner to assist the user in performing all the psalms and the Magnificat for these two categories of feast in their appropriate succession.^[19] But even if there were psalm settings and other music that Vincenti didn’t use, there apparently was no Magnificat among Monteverdi’s manuscripts, so Vincenti chose to print one by Francesco Cavalli, which is different from any of the Magnificats Cavalli himself published. By reprinting Monteverdi’s six-voice litany of the Virgin, Vincenti provided an element which, though not part of a vespers liturgical service, was often sung after the conclusion of vespers, especially if compline were not performed. Nor was it uncommon to include a litany of the Virgin in prints of vespers music in the seventeenth century. It is indeed fortunate that Vincenti rescued and published these compositions, for the collection is filled with superb music, comparable in quality to the Selva morale. Included are the best of Monteverdi’s three surviving masses and several of his best psalm settings.^[20]

3. Verse Subdivisions of the Psalm Dixit Dominus

3.1 In the seventeenth century there were multiple ways of subdividing the text of a psalm into verses. Appendix 1 illustrates the three principal methods with which Monteverdi would have been familiar for parsing the verses of Dixit Dominus: the Vulgate, the Psalter of St. Mark’s, and the Roman Psalter.^[21] Note that the Vulgate does not include the lesser Doxology (“Gloria patri … Sicut erat”), and the Psalter of St. Mark’s has slightly different wording from the other sources in verses 3 and 7. Both of the psalters differ from the Vulgate in dividing the psalm proper into eight verses instead of the Vulgate’s seven by beginning verse 2 at “Donec ponam inimicos” instead of “Virgam virtutis.” In addition, the Vulgate’s “exaltabit” in verse 7 becomes “exaltavit” in both psalters’ verse 8 (“exaltabit” reflects the Hebrew reading).^[22] In the two Dixit Dominus settings compared here, Monteverdi tends to group the verses into pairs based on the Vulgate’s seven-verse subdivision, though each pairing is dependent on a different criterion.^[23] As we shall see, the first two verses display parallels in structure and disposition of musical forces; verse 4 repeats, only slightly modified, the music of verse 3; and verses 5–6 are joined as a continuous unit. Verse 7 stands alone, and the doxologies display the traditional verse division into “Gloria patri” and “Sicut erat.” In some verses Monteverdi’s music reflects neither the hemistich subdivision of the text nor the mediant cadence of the psalm tone.

3.2 By comparison, the Dixit Dominus in the 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine employs the eight-verse subdivision as found in the two psalters, with each even verse set in falsobordone. On the other hand, the Dixit Dominus secondo of the Selva morale uses the same seven-verse subdivision as the Dixit Dominus primo under discussion here, as does the Dixit Dominus alla breve of the Messe et salmi of 1650. In these other three settings, the only indication of paired verses is a close relationship between verses 5 and 6.

4. Exegeses of Dixit Dominus by Saint Augustine and Joannes De Rubeis

4.1 The fourth-century theologian Saint Augustine, whose commentaries on the psalms were widespread in the seventeenth century, interprets this psalm as prophesying Christ, who sits at the Lord’s right hand. Christ is both the Son of David and the Lord of David, who, extending his rod out of Zion, will rule over his enemies: pagans, Jews, heretics, and false brethren. The “beginning” (Vulgate, verse 3) refers to both God and Christ who together are the beginning. “The splendor of the saints” refers to their divinity when they no longer carry their earthly bodies. Augustine understands “from the womb before the morning star” both literally, as a reference to the birth of Christ by Mary at night, and figuratively, as the Son of God born among the stars, issuing forth from a hidden place. The Lord’s oath (verse 4) is a promise confirming the perpetual priesthood of Christ; he is not a priest in his role as coeternal with God, but in his flesh and mortality. In the next verse Christ and the Lord change places; it is the Lord who is at Christ’s right hand and, in the day of his wrath and by means of his glory, shall crush kings who took counsel against the Lord, like crushing stones to powder, making them too weak to destroy Christianity. The obstinate who have fallen should become humble before Christ, so that in their ruin they may be built up. Likewise, he will smite many heads on the earth, making the wounded humble so they can be built up again. The brook from which Christ drinks in the final verse is the onward flow of human mortality, shared by Christ, who lifted up his head because he was humble and obedient even to death on the Cross.^[24]

4.2 In Augustine’s reading God and Son are both distinguished from one another and indistinguishable from one another, so that it is not always clear whether he thinks one or the other is acting, or if both are acting as one. Important to his interpretation is the notion that the psalm describes an ongoing process, active in his own time.

4.3 Another source to which Monteverdi would have had ready access, once it was published in 1628 in Venice, is the Commentaria in psalterium romanum of Joannes De Rubeis (or De Rubeus), a 918-page exegesis not only of the psalms, but also of hymns, canticles, antiphons, and versicles as they appear in the Roman Breviary of Pius V as revised by Clement VIII.^[25] De Rubeis divides the psalm into eight verses according to the Roman Psalter (see Appendix 1). Each verse is subjected to a detailed interpretative analysis according to Catholic theology, in part as expounded by Cassiodorus in the mid-sixth century. All but the first and last verses of Dixit Dominus have a summary or moral of the meaning of the verse under the rubric “Moraliter.” De Rubeis’s commentary often corresponds with or overlaps Augustine’s interpretation, but doesn’t quote directly from it.

4.4 De Rubeis declares that “the subject of this psalm is the mysterious incarnation of Christ, and of his exaltation and magnificence, both in his humanity as well as his divinity.”^[26] Because of what he suffered as a human, Christ sits in majesty on the right hand of God. Verse 2, “Donec ponam inimicos tuos: scabellum pedum tuorum,” refers to the torturers of martyrs in Hell under the feet of his saints.^[27] “Virgam virtutis emittet Dominus ex Sion” of verse 3 is symbolically interpreted as the fourfold staff of God given to Christ, which he bequeaths to his disciples at Pentecost on Mount Sion, from which also emanates the law and the Word of God. The remainder of the verse, “dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum,” is taken literally to refer to Jews, pagans, and heretics.^[28]

4.5 De Rubeis, following Cassiodorus, ties verse 4 to verse 3 and interprets verse 4 as showing Christ to be the true, natural, and eternal Son of God, by which he inherits from his Father the eternal realm and power; and by his staff on the day of Pentecost, which is called the splendor of the saints, he sent the fiery splendor of the Holy Spirit to come over the holy Apostles, by which they are illuminated and restored with every virtue and gift. “Ex utero ante Luciferum genui te” is interpreted as “From the mystery of my predestination, I ordained to glorify you.”^[29] Verse 5 De Rubeis understands as predicting that Christ, through his passion, will be an eternal priest; as a man who could suffer for us, he completes justice; as God he will prevail against the devil; as king he has universal dominion. He is both priest and king, like Melchisedech; he is the true king of justice and the king of peace who reconciles humanity with its Father. Just as Melchisedech in Genesis 14 gave bread and wine to Abraham, Christ instituted the sacrifice of the Eucharist in which he offered himself in the form of bread and wine in memory of his passion.^[30]

4.6 Verse 6 begins by quoting from verse 1: “Dominus a dextris tuis,” where Christ sits, according to De Rubeis, by virtue of his being a priest forever. As God would make his enemies his footstool in verse 1, here he will crush the heads of those kings of the earth who gathered to oppose God and Christ. He crushed them by his glory, and by the weight of his name made them weak so that they could not accomplish what they wished.^[31] Verse 7 is a continuation of the same thought and imagery as verse 6. He will judge people according to their sin, that they be humbled to conversion, he will pass judgment and will punish people so that they be converted, and edify those humbled who had risen up against Christ. At the final judgment he will make angels of those who ascend, while the wicked angels descend, collapsing. He will condemn severely many proud leaders and tyrants. He will save those nations that are just and damn the impious. He will humiliate the hearts of many in many places and human habitations.^[32]

4.7 In the final verse De Rubeis follows Augustine’s interpretation rather closely but in more detail. All the effort, wanderings, hunger, thirst, injury, disgrace, and beatings that Christ suffered for humanity in his life and passion are symbolized in the torrent and river of tribulations of life. Christ’s life was a torrent full of persecution and labors and afflictions, and from what he drank in this corporeal life, through those labors he deserved to be exalted and obtain the reign and priesthood and the power of judgment. Because Christ drank the chalice of his passion from the river of such persecutions, his head was exalted with honor, kingdom, and dominion over all creatures.^[33]

4.8 These are the types of exegeses with which Monteverdi would have been familiar in a lifetime of setting the texts of the vespers psalms, whether he became acquainted with them through his own reading, through conversations at court and in church, or in discussion with theologians in Mantua and Venice. Indeed, all three probably contributed to his understanding of the texts he set and the meanings that were attributed to them by his contemporaries. In his settings of psalm texts, he generally steers clear of the more abstract and symbolic theological interpretations; instead, as someone whose early career was built upon the madrigal, his emphasis is on the semantic aspects of the text and the concrete images they convey, as well as any dialogue that may occur. In the course of the detailed analyses below, individual examples of his musical reaction to these features of the text will be described.

5. Verse-by-Verse Comparisons of the Two Settings (Vulgate Verse Division)

5.1 Comparison of these two settings must begin with a note about vocal and instrumental scoring. While both settings are for eight voices, neither displays characteristics of a coro spezzato texture.^[34] In both settings all eight voices sometimes come together in homophony, but the bulk of the writing is for solo voice, duets of voices of the same register, and imitative passages in which pairing of voices in the same register is the norm. While the Messa et salmi setting is described only as “a 8” in any of the partbooks, the descriptive rubric in the indices of the Selva morale setting reads “A 8 voci concertato con due violini et quattro viole o tronboni quali se portasse l’accidente anco si ponno lasciare” (“For eight voices, concertato, with two violins and four violas or trombones which, if necessary, can also be omitted”).^[35] There are separate partbooks for each of the violins in the Selva morale but none for the violas or trombones, nor do parts for these instruments appear in any except one of the vocal partbooks.^[36] Whether viola parts were planned for other compositions and never executed or lost is unclear. Given Monteverdi’s propensity for writing instrumental parts somewhat independent from the vocal parts, rather than simply engaging in colla parte doubling, it seems likely that he intended to provide lower instrumental parts for other pieces as well, but for whatever reason, they either did not materialize at Bartolomeo Magni’s print shop or were in such a confused state as to be unusable.^[37]

5.2 Table 1 briefly compares the vocal scoring in the two Dixit Dominus settings, ignoring for the moment the addition of two violins in the Selva morale, internal repetitions, and other complications in individual verses, as well as minor differences between otherwise identical passages. “CF” identifies verses using a psalm tone as cantus firmus. Note that in this discussion, the settings are sometimes identified by their publication dates; “1650,” published posthumously, is the earlier of the two compositions.

5.3 The table shows that in the later version—the one in the Selva morale—verses 1, 2, and the Amen were set for the most part independently, but with some important interrelationships; verse 7 is a completely different setting; but the remaining verses are nearly identical to the model or were modified only in a limited way (as in verses 3 and 9). Indeed, as has often been noted, for the majority of the verses, the two psalm settings are very closely related, except that Monteverdi reinforces the eight-voice passages of the Selva morale version with two obbligato violins and optional violas or trombones, which, however, are silent in the solo and duet passages and verses.

5.4 Table 2 illustrates the length of each verse in terms of breves, the distribution of duple and triple meters, and the entirely different proportions of length among the non-parallel verses in the two settings. The final longa is calculated as two breves, though Monteverdi may not have been concerned about its precise length. Bars are counted according to the Malipiero and Arnold edition.^[38]

5.5 The obviously disproportionate relationship between vs. 1–2 and vs. 7 in the two Dixits results in a Selva morale setting that is eight breves longer than the original in the Messa et salmi. However, because of the different quantity and length of triple-meter passages, in which the breve is subdivided into three semibreves, the Selva morale setting is actually fifteen semibreves shorter. Given the length of both psalms, the total differences are slight and inconsequential. The particular differences in vs. 1–2 and vs. 7, of course, are more interesting.

5.6 The general overview of the two settings and their relationship to one another in Tables 1 and 2, along with the textual and biblical commentary above, will serve as the basis for the detailed analysis below of the process by which Monteverdi refashions one setting to become the other.

6. A Note on Proportional Notation

6.1 The reference to triple meter in the two Dixit Dominus settings requires a momentary digression. Triple meter in the 1650 Messa et salmi is notated in all parts in 3/2, with the principal rhythmic units consisting of three semibreves.^[39] In the Selva morale setting, triple meter is notated in all parts by Ø3/1, again with the principal rhythmic units comprising groupings of three semibreves.^[40] The only exception is the tacet opening of the alto secondo, which is notated erroneously with a C. The question is whether this discrepancy between the two settings in their triple-meter mensuration signs has any practical significance.

6.2 From the early seventeenth century to its end, mensuration and fractional time signatures remained quite inconsistent in Italian music, even in the works of individual composers.^[41]  Theorists tried to create some coherence in their discussions of the subject, complaining about the “incorrect” time notations used by contemporaneous composers, but their words had very little practical effect.^[42] Yet many theorists themselves operated in a practical vacuum, simply repeating formulations about proportions from sixteenth-century treatises without regard to changing usage in practice.

6.3 For modern performers, the underlying question regards potential temporal relationships between successive sections in duple and triple meter. However, no theorist addresses this issue directly, preferring to relate different simultaneous mensurations, even though these had gone almost entirely out of practice by the beginning of the seventeenth century and were revived only in limited cases later in the century.^[43] The inconsistencies in seventeenth-century triple-meter notation make it clear that no fixed temporal relationships between duple and triple meter were expected by composers and publishers apart from black notation under a single mensuration, which was precise in indicating the relationship between triple and duple subdivisions of notes. In the succession of different mensurations, it was up to performers to decide the tempo of each section of the century’s often highly sectionalized compositions.

6.4 Nevertheless, from a practical standpoint, a specific proportional relationship between duple and triple meter often makes good musical sense, as it does, in fact, in the Messa et salmi setting of the first Dixit Dominus. An appropriate temporal proportion, however, sometimes has little to do with the proportion suggested by the mensuration sign itself. In the Messa et salmi setting, the 3/2 notation implies a sesquialtera—that is, that three semibreves under 3/2 are equal in time to two semibreves under C. But the result is a highly unsatisfactory very slow tempo for the passages in triple meter, whose semantic context, as in verse 6 at the sequential repetitions of implebit ruinas, clearly calls for rapid, energetic performance. The same passage is incorporated into the Selva morale setting, but with the mensuration Ø3/1. The implication of this mensuration is that three semibreves under Ø3/1 are equal to one semibreve under C—i.e., twice as fast as the tempo implied by the Messa et salmi’s 3/2. Thus, one even tactus under C is equal to one uneven tactus under Ø3/1. These considerations suggest that if in performance proportional tempo relationships are to be contemplated at all, the signature 3/2 in the 1650 version has the same temporal relationship to the duple meter C as the Ø3/1 of the 1641 setting, regardless of the difference in their mensural notations. Therefore, in the Messa et salmi setting, a proportional performance of duple- and triple-meter sections would also lie in the tactus: one even tactus under C would be equal to one uneven tactus under 3/2. Such a conclusion not only makes musical sense, it is also a valid response to the inconsistencies in Monteverdi’s own triple-time notations throughout his life as well as those of his contemporaries.

6.5 The problem in proportional notation that arose in the early seventeenth century is that the principal note values in triple time did not change—they remained semibreves and minims (triple subdivisions of breves and semibreves) in the context of new notations under C emphasizing smaller note values than in the sixteenth century, as found in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and the 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine. This shifting of the principal note values in duple time to minims and semiminims, and sometimes even smaller units, threw into confusion the practical relationship between note values in duple time and triple time, a confusion the seventeenth century never resolved and which we can see reflected in the two settings of Dixit Dominus under discussion here. The time duration of Monteverdi’s settings, which is affected by the temporal relationship between duple and triple meters, is also a factor important to the understanding of Monteverdi’s structural organization in each piece. This issue will be discussed further below.

7.  Recomposition and Self-Borrowing: Comparison between the Settings of the First Two Verses

7.1 The first two verses of these Dixit Dominus settings are the locus of the most extensive reworkings and adaptations in this pair of compositions. Here the shared materials are complex and the differences significant. As noted above in Table 1, these first two verses are the only ones where Monteverdi employs a cantus firmus, the eighth psalm tone, although the doxologies do make indirect reference to it, and the outlines of the principal motives of verse 7 in both settings are vaguely reminiscent of the psalm tone’s overall shape. The unrhythmicized psalm tone used as cantus firmus can be seen in Example 18.

7.2 In the Messa et salmi version, verse 1, the narration “Dixit Dominus Domino meo” is brief and straightforward (see Example 1). It begins with slow homophony in all eight voices, harmonizing the first hemistich of the eighth psalm tone, found in the first soprano, in the tonality of C—what might be described as a rhythmicized falsobordone. The quoted command “sede ad dextris” continues the psalm tone in the first soprano, but accompanied now by an alto duet in sequences of parallel thirds in quick rhythms, with a descending-ascending arc-shaped motive, cadencing in G.^[44] Thus, the direct speech is presented in a thin trio texture, and the descending psalm tone mirrors the motion of sitting. (In Monteverdi’s three other Dixit settings not analyzed here, the action of the text is conveyed through a descending soprano line harmonized in slow homophony.) Once Monteverdi has presented the direct speech as a trio, its homorhythmic repetition expands the texture to all eight voices, concluding on G with a brief plagal close and generating an ABA textural pattern for the passage. Responsiveness to the text and to musical structural considerations are thus both satisfied. The eighth psalm tone permits the opening in C and closing in G, but its close similarity to the third tone gives Monteverdi the opportunity to exploit the ambiguity by employing the key of A in the rest of this verse and in subsequent verses.^[45] As one would expect, the principal cadence points, apart from G, are C, D, and A in both settings, even though there is far less reference to the psalm tone in the Selva morale version.

7.3 Verse 1’s second hemistich, “Donec ponam inimicos” (Example 2), begins with a very slow eight-voice “Donec” in the minor mode of A, highlighting the conjunction with a radical harmonic change from the previous G to an E major triad resolving to the new A (minor). The slow beginning anticipates a contrasting, rapid-patter repetition of “ponam inimicos tuos,” based on a slightly modified version of the “sede a dextris” arc motive, ultimately concluding in a full cadence on an A major triad. The rapid patter of steady eighth notes, initiated by repeated pitches and staggered entries of the second voice of each pair and several repetitions of the text, anticipates the blows that will be visited upon these enemies in verses 5 (“confregit”) and 6 (“conquassabit”). But once the enemies are defeated to become the footstool of Christ, the motion immediately slows to steady half notes and an even slower cadence. A similar homophonic slowing for the same text is apparent in the Dixit Dominus secondo of the Selva morale.

7.4 Parallel to verse 1, verse 2, “Virgam virtutis tuae” (Example 3), returns to C with slow homophonic semibreves harmonizing the first hemistich of the psalm tone, found in the first soprano, with a pseudo-falsobordone eight-voice texture; this is followed by a soprano-alto and then a soprano duet for “emittet Dominus ex Sion,” supported by the second hemistich of the psalm tone as cantus firmus in the first tenor part.^[46] The texture then expands to homorhythmic eight-voice homophony, briefly continuing the motivic material of the duets and completing the first text hemistich, absent the psalm tone, with the same plagal pause on G as in verse 1, bars 19–20. Monteverdi views the Lord’s staff or rod as the symbol, like the bishop’s staff, of solemn authority, and conveys it with slow-moving homophony. The subsequent act of extending the Lord’s power out of Zion is energetic, repeating the arc motive of verse 1’s “ponam inimicos tuos.” De Rubeis’s more abstract interpretation of this hemistich as the theological emanation of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples is not the kind of concept to which Monteverdi was likely to respond with a musical metaphor. The structure of the hemistich—eight-voice homophony, duet against psalm tone, eight-voice homophony—follows the pattern established in verse 1.

7.5 In the second hemistich (Example 4), Monteverdi takes advantage of the phrase “dominare in medio inimicorum tuorum” to contrast again slow homophonic movement (“dominare”) with rapid patter motion in a new arpeggiated motive (“in medio inimicorum”), recalling the slow “donec” and subsequent energy of “ponam inimicos tuos” in verse 1. Monteverdi cleverly combines “dominare” in long notes (semibreves and minims) with “in medio inimicorum tuorum” intoned by other voices in eighth notes. The energy of the rhythm of “in medio inimicorum” is enhanced by voice pairs and then trios and quartets, alternately trading off the quick triadic motive in contrary, canzonetta- or villanelle-like motion. Repetitions of the slow “dominare” are intermingled with the rapid motion of “in medio inimicorum tuorum,” illustrating by means of texture the steady sway of the Lord amidst the disarray of his enemies (bars 60–67). Eventually “in medio inimicorum tuorum” engages all the voices for the end of the verse (bars 68–72). The disorder of the texture is compounded by the unpredictable harmonic sequence G–D–G–C–A–D–G–C–G; the passage thus envisions in sound the bustle of the Lord’s enemies circling confusedly. The Dixit Dominus secondo of the Selva morale responds to this text in a related manner, even intercalating the first hemistich with the second, to complicate the texture even further.

7.6 These first two verses of the Messa et salmi setting are clearly linked through slow homophonic beginnings, rapid reiterations of an arc-shaped motive, and paired-voice duets that culminate in repetition of the same motives in the full eight-voice texture. The harmony, however, is varied: the first verse begins in C, pauses on G without a cadence at the midpoint, then moves to A for the remainder of the verse, while the second verse begins again on C and concludes in G. Both verses are in duple meter throughout.

7.7 While the first two verses of the Dixit in the 1650 Messa et salmi form a compound unit of 35 breves, the same two verses of the 1641 Selva morale version fashion a much longer and significantly more complex unit of 80½ breves. The 1641 Dixit begins, like the 1650 version, with a slow narrative recitation in the soprano, but here the initial phrase of the text is in triple meter, and the voice is accompanied by only the basso continuo rather than the full choir, and instead of outlining the first hemistich of the psalm tone, it is confined to a solo falsobordone reiteration of the single gʹ that begins the psalm tone in the 1650 Dixit (see Example 5).

7.8 Whereas the opening gʹ of the 1650 version is harmonized in C, the 1641 Dixit begins in G, and Monteverdi eschews the first hemistich of the psalm tone cantus firmus altogether, making only oblique reference to its concluding hemistich (see Example 6). The descending third in the arc motive of the 1650 setting of “sede a dextris,” also harmonized in C, is replaced in the Selva morale version by a simple drop of a third, harmonized in G, but repeated at two other pitch and harmonic levels (bars 7 and 12) while remaining in the solo soprano rather than accompanied in parallel thirds as an alto duet. The soprano solo recitation descends by step at the end from the psalm tone’s repercussio of c″ to gʹ, cadencing, like the psalm tone in the 1650 version, in G, and reflecting, though not precisely, the second hemistich of the eighth psalm tone, while still mirroring, as in the 1650 version, the descending motion of sitting. At this initial point in the 1641 setting, the text is not divided into homophonic narration and few-voice direct speech as in the 1650 version. In contrast, the entire phrase is initially presented by the solo soprano, with the narration as solo falsobordone, and the direct speech midway between recitativo and arioso.

7.9 At this point in the 1650 original, “sede a dextris” is repeated in eight-voice homophony to complete the text’s first hemistich. But in the 1641 setting Monteverdi repeats the entire hemistich, beginning by harmonizing a repetition of the soprano’s triple-meter opening “Dixit Dominus” with slow eight-voice measured falsobordone in which the original soprano part (now in the second soprano) is doubled at the octave in the basses (see Example 7). As is typical for Monteverdi, the triple meter returns to duple time at the conclusion of the segment. The obbligato violins double the second soprano and first alto at the upper octave, enhancing, together with the optional lower instruments, both the sonority and brightness of the passage. “Sede a dextris” follows, continuing the duple meter, with a much more complex contrasting texture presenting the original solo soprano motive for these words in staggered imitations beginning in the four lowest voices. In this passage the violins introduce new, independent contrapuntal motives, the first violin imitating the second. It is not at all clear what the violas or trombones may have played here, if anything at all. Once the two sopranos enter, the violins abandon their independence and double the top two voices, though the second violin doubles the first soprano and vice versa (bars 26–32). It is perhaps here at the entrance of the sopranos with doubling by the violins that the violas or trombones may have been added to double parts of the vocal counterpoint. The expansion of the vocal forces from four voices to all eight generates a highly energized passage of 5½ breves that belies the implied stasis of the text, before the solo soprano returns for a final reiteration of “sede a dextris meis” in an ascending-descending arc motive (bars 33–35). This hemistich in the 1641 version comprises 21½ breves, including two passages in triple meter, in comparison with the 1650 setting of 10 breves, all in duple time.

7.10 The second text hemistich in the 1641 Selva morale setting begins, as in the 1650 version, with four slow semibreves introducing the topic “Donec ponam,” but here associating “Donec” with “ponam” rather than “ponam” with “inimicos tuos” (see Example 8). The texture is once again confined to the solo soprano and continuo in place of the 1650 version’s eight-voice homophony. There is no highlighting of the conjunction with a radical harmonic shift; there is, rather, a continuation of G, the cadential pitch of the preceding polyphonic “sede a dextris.” The soprano actually connects with the conclusion of the first hemistich by repeating the same pitch (bʹ) on which the former had closed and then continuing the stepwise descent from the arc motive’s high of e″ (Example 7, bars 33–35) down to f ′-sharp (Example 8, bars 36–39). At “inimicos tuos” a modified form of the motive of “sede a dextris” gives rise to a set of syncopated rising sequences, cadencing on A and continuing immediately without pause to “scabellum pedum tuorum” (bars 50–51). “Scabellum pedum tuorum” is set to declamatory triadic outlines and an ornamented ascending-descending arc at “pedum tuorum” with a final cadence on D. Because the first statement of the second hemistich is given throughout to the solo soprano, the passage lacks the energy of the 1650 version’s “ponam inimicos tuos” (Example 2), with the modest exception of the rising sequences enunciating repetitions of “inimicos tuos” (Example 8). Nor is there any obvious text-interpretive reason for the closing vocal ornament on the word “pedum” (bars 58–59); it is not uncommon for Monteverdi to introduce vocal ornamentation for purely musical/aesthetic reasons without particular reference to the semantics of the text.

7.11 At this point in the 1641 Selva morale version, Monteverdi repeats the text of the verse in a significantly modified musical setting (Example 9). The first hemistich is now much abbreviated, in static measured falsobordone, beginning with a repeat of the triple time “Dixit Dominus” (see Example 7, bars 17–21), then shifting at bars 66–68 to duple meter for a repetition in full chordal harmonization of the solo soprano “sede a dextris meis” (Example 7, bars 33–35). The hemistich is drastically truncated from its original 21½ breves to only 5½.

7.12 The second hemistich begins by repeating the solo “Donec ponam” (Example 9, bars 69–72; compare Example 8, bars 36–39) in slow semibreves, but, like the just-completed “Dixit Dominus,” now in full eight-voice homophony with violin octave doubling of Soprano II and Alto I (as well as the optional instruments doubling the lower voices). “Inimicos tuos” takes up the same motive the solo soprano had sung earlier (Example 9, beginning in bar 73; compare Example 8, bars 40–51), but now in staggered imitations in all eight parts, echoing the first hemistich’s comparable passage at “sede ad dextris” (see Example 7, bars 24–32), but with a stronger, more energetic rhythmic profile and a closer relationship between the violins and the vocal parts, the instruments mainly doubling altos or tenors at the octave. The imitations and energy also embrace the “scabellum pedum tuorum” motive (Example 10; compare Example 8, bars 51–61), moving now at twice the pace as before. Thus, “Inimicos tuos” this time conveys far more numerous and threatening enemies than suggested by the sequences of its first solo-voice presentation, and the rhythmic energy continues through “scabellum pedum tuorum” at the end of the verse, in contrast to the stable homophonic minims that conclude this verse in the 1650 version (Example 2, bars 30–35).

7.13 Monteverdi’s approach in both hemistiches of this first verse in the Selva morale setting is to pass from solo presentation to the full eight-voice choir. The initial run-through of the first hemistich emphasizes the solo soprano (Example 5 and Example 6: bars 1–16) and then repeats the text, expanding the texture to all eight voices (Example 7, bars 17–35). The second hemistich is at this point sung only once by the solo soprano (Example 8, bars 36–61). Then the entire verse is repeated employing all eight voices, the first hemistich in slow homorhythmic homophony (Example 9, bars 62–68) and the second hemistich beginning in slow homorhythmic homophony but then, after “Donec ponam,” breaking into more rapid, energetic imitation (Example 9, beginning in bar 73, and Example 10, bars 86–92). The original statement of the first hemistich, encompassing 35 bars, was some 35% longer than the second hemistich, covering 26 bars. However, with the repetition of the verse beginning in bar 62, the proportions are reversed. The first hemistich now occupies only 7 bars, while the second hemistich runs 24 bars, 69–92, more than three times the length of the first. As shown in Table 2, the double settings of the first verse encompass 52 breves in the Selva morale version in comparison to 17½ breves in the Messa et salmi setting.

7.14 The Selva morale setting of verse 2, “Virgam virtutis,” is based on the 1650 Messa et salmi original, with the opening also harmonizing the first hemistich of the psalm tone (repercussio only) in slow notes in C, but as a tenor unison duet instead of an eight-voice falsobordone (Example 11). The continuing tenor duet at “emittet Dominus ex Sion” seizes the same motive as in the 1650 version, but with the two parts staggered instead of in parallel thirds (compare Example 11, bars 97–101, with Example 3, bars 44–52). The second hemistich, “dominare in medio inimicorum,” uses the same arpeggiated motive for “in medio inimicorum” as the 1650 version, but as a staggered duet rather than the Messa et salmi’s fuller scoring: paired voices presenting the motive in contrary motion in a texture of eight parts (compare Example 11, bars 104–6, with Example 4, bars 59 and 63–70).

7.15 In this first duet presentation of the verse, the 1641 version loses much of the text-oriented energy and power of the full-choir setting of 1650, but as in verse 1 of the Selva morale setting, Monteverdi now repeats the entire verse. But this time it is a quotation of the entire 1650 “Virgam virtutis,” with only very minor modifications and the addition of the instruments, whereby the violins double the first soprano cantus firmus at the unison and the second soprano at the octave in the homophonic “Virgam virtutis.” The instruments then disappear until “emittet Dominus ex Sion”reaches a tutti texture, whereupon the violins double the two sopranos at the unison or octave. The optional violas or trombones would have doubled lower voices. Presenting the entire verse twice results in a total duration of 28½ breves in contrast to the 18½ breves of the 1650 version.

7.16 These first two verses of the Selva morale setting illustrate how, by reiterating the text of both verses, Monteverdi constructs a much more prolonged opening for the 1641 setting of the psalm than the 1650 version, with greater variety of textures, including extensive emphasis on the solo first soprano and on duets and paired voice groupings, enhanced rhythmic vitality in the eight-voice imitative passages, and the color of violins and violas or trombones in the tuttis. At the same time, his borrowing of the second verse from the 1650 version for the repetition of that verse’s text sets the stage for the subsequent verses in the Selva morale rendition, which are borrowed with limited modification from the Messa et salmi setting.

8. Recomposition: Verse 7, “De torrente”

8.1 In contrast to all the other verses, including the doxology, only Verse 7, “De torrente,” comprises two different settings with no evidence of adaptation. Their only similarity is that both versions are imitative duets whose opening motives appear to reflect the overall outline of the psalm tone. (The unrhythmicized psalm tone can be seen in Example 18.) The setting of 1650 is for the unusual combination of alto and tenor—unusual because Monteverdi prefers almost exclusively duets of voices in the same register. It must be remembered, however, that in Monteverdi’s environs, alto and tenor are both male voices, distinguished only by their potential ranges. The setting, in C—the tonal center where the previous verse had ended—is primarily in triple meter, and utilizes in the first hemistich a motive rising by a third and then falling by a fifth, answered by a varied counterpart and then a closely related but modified imitative pair at a different pitch level, before returning to an abbreviated version of the opening pair, thus creating an ABA′ structure (see Example 12, bars 147–63). Monteverdi obviously conceived the mostly stepwise triple-meter figures in a soothing rocking rhythm as the musical image of the flowing, calming stream after the frenetic and violent “confregit” and “conquassabit” of the preceding verse pair (to be discussed below).

8.2 Monteverdi subsequently repeats the first hemistich of text in a greatly abbreviated setting: just 3½ semibreves in the meter C: here he converts bars 152–55 to duple meter, accompanies the tenor in thirds by the alto instead of in imitation, and ends with a mediant cadence on D. Thus, the flow of the triple meter is stopped, in response to the action of “bibit.” After the linking adverb “propterea,” set in imitation, the second hemistich continues, returning to triple time for no fewer than fifteen exuberant imitative repetitions of “exaltabit” and “exaltabit caput,” using a motive derived from the opening of the verse in increasingly closely spaced imitations, and closing in the tonal area of C, where the verse had begun. As shown in Table 2, the verse is exceptionally long, encompassing 48 breves.

8.3 The Selva morale’s version of verse 7 is entirely newly composed and in G rather than C. A short imitative soprano duet in duple meter, with a neighbor-tone figure in lush rising parallel-third sequences, makes up the first hemistich (see Example 13, bars 228–32). The shape of the first soprano’s line is vaguely similar in overall shape to the 1650 version, again possibly taking its point of departure from the full psalm tone. As in the 1650 version, “propterea” performs a linking function (here in the first soprano, bars 232–33), simultaneously cadencing and introducing the second hemistich. The first soprano continues alone, emphasizing “exaltabit” with a lengthy passaggio ornament. Only then does the second soprano enter imitatively, starting with a repeat of the word “propterea.” Together the two voices reiterate the passaggio in parallel thirds all the way to the conclusion (Example 13, bars 234–44). The linear shape of the second hemistich is also vaguely reminiscent of the complete psalm tone. The verse lasts only 8½ breves—drastically reduced in length from the 48 breves of the 1650 version.

8.4 “De torrente” in the Dixit secondo of the Selva morale also employs a thin texture: three voices with long flowing melismatic lines until the second hemistich, where “propterea exaltabit caput” is given multiple repetitions with extravagant melismas not unlike those of the Dixit primo, eventually engaging all eight voices at much greater length than the Dixit primo’s duet. Even the Dixit alla breve of the Messa et salmi indulges in repetition of melismas, though of shorter length and with fewer repetitions, at “propterea exaltabit caput.” Moreover, this second half of the verse is in triple meter, the first and only time triple meter is introduced in Dixit alla breve. The 1610 setting of “De torrente” is for six voices in falsobordone, with the customary concluding melismas of each hemistich conveniently falling on “bibit” and “caput.”

9. The Adaptative Process: Verses 3–6 and the Doxology

9.1 As Table 1 and Table 2 illustrate, verses 3–6 and the doxology are essentially the same in the Messa et salmi and Selva morale versions. But despite this near identity, there are differences in detail, revealing that Monteverdi considered carefully how to adapt the verses he wished to transfer from the 1650 psalm to their new context in the Selva morale. The commentary below will summarize the settings and differences in each verse. More extended analyses are found in Appendix 2, linked to the texts below as a continuous narrative. Readers who wish to skip over this detail may simply continue with the text in this chapter.

9.2 Verse 3, “Tecum principium,” begins in both versions with nearly identical duets for altos. But the 1641 setting adds a bass duet, articulating the text along with the altos while doubling the pitches of the organ bass (compare Example 14a with Example 14b). Whereas the alto duet engages in overlapping imitation, the two bass voices alternate with one another before overlapping more than halfway through the verse (Example 14b). See Appendix 2, item a, for further detail.

9.3 The comparison between the two versions of verse 3 illustrates how, rather than merely copying the entire verse from the Messa et salmi, Monteverdi sensed the need for a fuller vocal texture, perhaps to make a smooth transition from the full textures of his new verse 2, as well as a need to strengthen the thin writing of the 1650 version from bar 78 to the end (Example 14a). In both settings, the opening motive of a descending fifth serves throughout the verse as the principal motive for each new phrase of text, but the differences between the two versions are by no means insubstantial. With Monteverdi, adaptation typically entails further complication, to the point where a more complicated setting points reliably to which version came first.

9.4 Despite the contrapuntal complications detailed in Appendix 2, item a, “Tecum principium” is among the shortest verses in both the 1650 and 1641 settings. Nor is there any obvious connection between the music and the text other than a brief melismatic emphasis on the word “principium,” and the repetition of “ante luciferum genui te” with a counterpoint of thirds in the bass voices in the Selva morale version. As the psalm exegeses discussed in Chapter 4 illustrate, the interpretation of this verse is theologically abstract, and the absence of concrete imagery seems to have left Monteverdi without motivation to invent any madrigalistic metaphors. The most that can be said is that the frequent cadences and mostly steady semiminim bass create a positive, jaunty atmosphere for the entire verse, presumably stimulated by “in splendoribus sanctorum.” (See Appendix 2, item b, for remarks on Monteverdi’s handling of this verse in his other Dixit Dominus settings.)

9.5 Both psalms studied here directly connect verse 4, “Juravit Dominus,” with verse 3 by repeating the music of verse 3 (without the bass voices of the Selva morale setting), but this time transposed down a fourth for two tenors and with differing rhythmic details in response to the different number of syllables in verse 4. See Appendix 2, item c, for further detail.

9.6 While verse 4 of the 1650 setting follows its own verse 3 as closely as possible, expanding only the final cadence to accommodate a repetition of the final word “Melchisedech,” the Selva morale version, oddly enough, does not repeat in its verse 4 either the bass duet of the Selva’s verse 3 or the modifications of verse 3 that Monteverdi made in bars 156–65 (as discussed in Appendix 2, item a). As a consequence, the conclusion of verse 4 in the Selva morale setting is identical to that of the Messa et salmi version until the Selva expands the final cadence even further by repeating “secundum ordinem Melichsedech.” The fact that the Selva’s verse 4 does not take up the changes made in its own verse 3 suggests the possibility that the Selva’s verse 4 may have been adapted from either the Messa et salmi’s verse 3 or its verse 4 before the Selva’s own version of verse 3 was formulated.

9.7 Just as verse 3 shows little interest in musical interpretation of the text, verse 4, in its close repetition of verse 3, offers very little more, though the brief melisma on “principium” in verse 3 now appears at “Dominus” in verse 4, and the repetitions of the exchanges of “ex utero” in verse 3 now set the words “in aeternum,” more meaningfully underscoring the extended time duration. The cadentially oriented steady bass also gives a sense of certainty or confirmation to that which the Lord did swear in verse 4. Whether these slightly stronger relationships between music and text in verse 4 suggest that verse 4 was composed first and the music then adapted to verse 3, instead of vice versa, must remain an open question. In the absence of any tuttis, the violins and other instruments are tacet in both of these verses in the Selva morale.

9.8 Like verses 3 and 4, verses 5 and 6 also form a pair in both psalms, though not because verse 6 repeats the music of verse 5. In both versions verse 5 returns to the full eight-voice chordal texture, beginning with a cadential gesture in C (see Example 15). (As expected, the 1641 setting adds instrumental doubling in the full-choir passages. See the example.) The tutti is briefly interrupted by a soprano duet intoning “a dextris tuis” in thirds, syncopated to generate a series of descending suspensions (bars 188–92). The return of the tutti (bars 192–98) brings the words “confregit in die irae suae reges” (“He has crushed kings in the day of his wrath”), emphasized in both settings by means of sequential “beating” figures in quarter and eighth notes involving both note repetition and descending motion. The figures conclude with an open-ended pause at the end of the verse on an E-major triad. Such musical metaphorical techniques are typical for this phrase of text throughout the seventeenth century, including Monteverdi’s Dixit Dominus secondo of 1641. However, in his 1610 Dixit, this verse is among the falsobordone settings where metaphorical treatment of text is not possible, while in the Dixit alla breve of 1650, Monteverdi underscores “in die irae suae reges” by means of a rising scale in dotted rhythm imitated in seven of the eight voices.

9.9 The text of verse 5 has been given in its entirety at this point, but Monteverdi returns to its first hemistich to repeat “a dextris tuis” with its syncopated soprano duet, followed by text repetition in all eight voices, as if to repeat the remainder of the verse (see Example 16, bars 199–204). But instead, another open-ended E-major triad leads immediately to a completion of the cadence in A major (serving momentarily as dominant of D) and the beginning of verse 6, “Judicabit in nationibus” (bar 204). Verse 6 continues with the full ensemble, now more rhythmically energized through imitation between a grouping of lower and higher voices, reaching a cadence in A major. Thus, the phrase “a dextris tuis” not only appears in the first hemistich of verse 5 but also introduces verse 6, binding the two verses together as parallel actions of Christ (“Dominus a dextris tuis”).^[47]

9.10 Continuation of the first hemistich of verse 6 at “implebit ruinas” consists of a triple-meter version of the sequence at verse 5’s “confregit” (notated with a different mensuration in the two versions—see Chapter 6 above), pausing on a dominant of C (see Example 17, bars 209–13, and compare “confregit” in Example 15). The descending sequences, in homophony and triple time and no longer fragmented by rests, have an almost dance-like character, reflecting both Augustine’s and De Rubeis’s readings of the text at this point as restoring those who have fallen through Christ’s judgment of the nations. Returning to duple time, Monteverdi resolves the harmony by repeating yet again the “a dextris tuis” soprano duet and full-choir response (Example 17, bars 214–19); the full choir then proceeds immediately to the continuation of verse 6, “conquassabit capita in terra multorum,” hinting at the “confregit” sequence in bars 222–23. The repeated “striking of heads” by means of repeated notes in dotted rhythms and sequences slows at the end for “in terra multorum,” concluding with a calm plagal cadence in C (Example 17, bars 219–27).

9.11 Monteverdi has obviously understood these two verses as conceptually interlocked: “The Lord is at your right hand; he has shattered kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among nations; he shall fill up the ruined; he will strike heads in the wide land.” Monteverdi has emphasized verse 5’s “Dominus a dextris tuis” (Christ, in St. Augustine’s commentary) in connection with the destruction wreaked in both verses and the redemption of those thus humbled. This substantial structure, mostly for eight-voice choir, conveying the most violent texts of the psalm, clearly serves in both settings as a reminder of the eight-voice textures in verses 1–2 and as an anchor in the middle of the duet verses 3–4 and 7, anticipating the full-textured sections of the doxology at the end. (See Appendix 2, item d, for further analytical commentary, as well as remarks on Monteverdi’s other Dixit Dominus settings, verses 5–6.)

9.12 After the newly composed seventh verse (discussed above in Chapter 8), the version in the Selva morale returns to borrowing and adapting the setting from the Messa et salmi: the slow, homophonic, duple-meter “Gloria patri” of the 1650 doxology, beginning in C and cadencing in A major, is repeated exactly in the 1641 version, with doubling violins (and the other optional instruments) added, one violin at the unison, the other at the octave. The “Sicut erat” settings are likewise nearly identical: the principal differences are in voicing and the addition of the violins doubling the two sopranos at the unison (along with the other doubling instruments) in the eight-voice textures of the Selva morale version until the final “Amen,” where the violins assume independent high-register harmonic accompaniment. The Messa et salmi’s initial long, occasionally imitative duet for two sopranos, led by the first, is transferred to two tenors, led by the second, in the Selva morale setting. The opening rising motive is sufficiently close to the psalm tone initium for its overall shape to be heard as familiar. The eventual descent, in triple time, is even closer to the psalm tone (see Example 18). Even the intervening “Sicut erat” and sequences of ornamented repetitions of “et” echo the shape of the psalm tone (Example 19, bars 215–22). After the sopranos turn to triple meter to mirror the psalm tone’s descent (at “et nunc et semper”), they come together in parallel thirds in another rising sequence before returning to duple time and cadencing in G (Example 19, bars 227–30). (In the Dixit secondo from the Selva morale, “et nunc,” like “et,” is set to repetitious sequences for paired sopranos, echoed by the violins, culminating in a homophonic “et in saecula saeculorum” in triple meter.) See Appendix 2, item e, for further detail.

9.13 It is only in the concluding “Amen” that Monteverdi introduces significant alterations in the Selva morale setting. The result of vocal alterations and added instruments is a fuller texture and more sonorous and colorful drive toward the final cadence in the 1641 version. This increased complexity is sustained to the end: the 1650 version (Example 21, bars 254–59) concludes with an opening rising motive based on the psalm tone in the two soprano voices, whereas the Selva morale conclusion (Example 22, bars 297–300) is based on a counterpoint of descending and ascending scale patterns in imitation, in the voices and second violin. As a consequence of these modifications, the 1641 version concludes with an “Amen” of eight breves’ duration (counting the final longa as two breves) in comparison with the 1650 version’s seven breves. See Appendix 2, item f, for further detail.

10. Rationalizing the Relationships between Monteverdi’s Settings

10.1 It is one matter to study the relationships and the differences between these two versions of Dixit Dominus, but quite another to explain why Monteverdi chose to make the changes that he did for publication of the Dixit Dominus primo in the Selva morale. In a few instances, such as the fuller concluding “Amen” of the later version, the rationale seems aesthetically obvious. In some others, such as improving the thin texture of “Tecum principium” (verse 3), the changes seem plausible enough. On the other hand, the de-emphasis of the psalm tone in the first verse is less readily explainable. The opening solo soprano could just as easily have intoned the psalm tone initium rather than reiterate a single pitch in falsobordone. Here, and in regard to some of the major differences, such as the greatly expanded setting of the first two verses or the radically different version of verse 7, “De torrente,” we enter the realm of speculation, though not without some evidence to support various hypotheses.

10.2 The evidence of the music itself demonstrates that Monteverdi sought a more colorful setting for the Selva morale through the addition of accompanying instruments, as well as a radical shift in temporal and structural weight toward the opening two verses. At the same time, these verses stress solo singing in verse 1 and duets in verse 2, as well as lively rhythmic interaction among the eight imitative voices in expanded textures, to a much greater extent than in the earlier version. The solos are exclusively in the first soprano part, and they not only initiate the opening verse but encompass the first presentation of the entire second verse. If the Selva morale were, as hypothesized, assembled, and some of the pieces even composed or adapted, to meet the needs of the new private chapel of its dedicatee, the Empress Eleonora Gonzaga, gradually established after the death of her husband Emperor Ferdinand II in 1637, then perhaps a particular castrato or countertenor in Eleonora’s employ was the impetus for the changes in these opening verses. Although duet pairings occur in all voice registers in both settings, tenors receive special emphasis in the Selva morale version through the reassignment of the soprano-alto and soprano duets of verse 2, “Virgam virtutis,” and verse 9, “Sicut erat,” to two tenors, suggesting the presence of at least two excellent tenor soloists in Eleonora’s chapel. But while we know the names of some of the singers in her chapel, we have no information on their voice registers, so this possibility must remain purely hypothetical.^[48] Indeed, the same criteria in the selection of voice types could have applied if the setting had been fashioned for a specific institution in Venice and simply published later in the Selva morale. In any event, the emphasis on soloists in the 1641 setting of the first two verses actually reduces the focus on interpretative relationships between the text and music apparent in the 1650 version.

10.3 Another aspect of the first two verses is the textural transformation of the Messa et salmi’s quick eight-voice homorhythmic, homophonic settings of “sede a dextris” and “inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum” into even more energetic, repetitive eight-voice imitations of the preceding solo presentations of each text in the Selva morale. While the second of these Selva passages may be viewed as an interpretative enhancement of “inimicos tuos,” the first turns the more sedentary phrase of the 1650 psalm’s “sede ad dextris” into a repetitive, insistent demand.

10.4 A different (though not incompatible) hypothesis as to why Monteverdi so significantly reconstructed the first two verses and the seventh verse in adapting the earlier setting to the Selva morale version emerges from the examination of their overall structural organizations, measured in terms of time units. Table 2 compares the two versions in terms of breves, but breves are a measure of notational units, not of performed temporal units when there is shifting between duply subdivided breves under C and triply subdivided breves under 3/2 (in the earlier setting) or ø3/1 (in the later one), particularly when there is more triple meter in one version than the other. In fact, I can find nothing noteworthy about the structural organization of either version in terms of its breve units. But the story is different if we consider the two settings in terms of their temporal units, the tactus. Here (as argued above in Chapter 6) I understand the two triple-time mensurations to be equivalent in meaning, with regard to the implied tempo relationships between these passages and sections in C.

10.5 Malipiero’s and Arnold’s barring is helpful to this analysis, since both triple-meter notations are barred in tactus units, as is duple time, thereby equating one bar (semibreve) under C with one bar in triple time. Their barring tacitly reflects the same interpretations of the triple-meter mensurations and temporal relationships between duple and triple time that I have suggested above. Table 3 compares the two versions in terms of the Malipiero-Arnold barring; the final longa in both settings is notated and counted here as a single bar.

10.6 What is interesting is the structural significance of these differing temporal quantities in comparing the two settings. In some of Monteverdi’s Venetian compositions, it is clear that equal or nearly equal sections, or sections related by subdivisions of even numbers or by the Divine Proportion (golden section), governed his organizational plans.^[49] In this period the intersections between mathematical proportions, music, and architecture were of great interest in Italy, both philosophically and in practical application. In 1509 the well-known mathematician Luca Pacioli published in Venice a widely circulated Italian-language treatise on the Divine Proportion, with illustrations attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Pacioli stressed this proportion as embracing five attributes of God: unity and uniqueness, trinity, immutability, the impossibility of defining God in terms of human ratio, and the quintessence of nature.^[50] Sebastiano Serlio’s five books on architecture published during his lifetime in Venice and Paris from 1537 to 1545, make frequent reference to the “diagonal proportion,” which is, in fact, the Divine Proportion.^[51] A detailed study of Andrea Palladio’s Villa Emo has also revealed a consistent set of nested Divine Proportions in its structure.^[52]

10.7 But in Monteverdi’s first 1650 version of Dixit Dominus, I am unable to discern any significant structural pattern based on the temporal durations of the succession of verses (i.e., the Malipiero-Arnold barring). Neither duple nor triple subdivisions have any relevance for a rationalization of the overall structure, nor do golden section proportions. The length of successive sections, organized principally around pairs of verses, seems random from a structural point of view except for the gradually increasing length of each pairing from verse 3 onward, as noted by John Whenham.^[53] Yet the durations of those increases seem themselves to be structurally random. If these increases tend to weigh the setting more towards the later verses, at least in terms of length, it is precisely the reverse weighting toward the first two verses that the adaptation for the Selva morale accomplishes.

10.8 Indeed, the situation is quite different with respect to the structure of the 1641 Dixit Dominus primo. I have studied the organization of this setting in detail in a previous publication,^[54] and do not intend to reiterate the results fully here; a summary of a diagram given there will suffice. There are two principal organizational criteria applied by Monteverdi to durations in this re-worked version of the psalm: (1) golden section proportions, and (2) equally balanced verses. However, we should not expect that Monteverdi is necessarily interested in absolutely precise numbers. If, as I’ve suggested, it is relative time durations that interest him, we should also be aware that relative time perception of successive elements in a musical structure is less precise than the simultaneous perception of visual structural elements in a painting, sculpture, or building. In fact, Monteverdi often displays an intentional pattern of reliance on golden section and equal-length proportions, clearly sufficient to demonstrate the organizing principle, but without being necessarily pedantically exact. Similarly, the measurements illustrated in Palladio’s descriptions of his own buildings in his architectural treatise are often not so precise when it comes to their concrete realization in the buildings themselves.^[55] Practical issues often intervene, requiring adjustments, but that does not argue against the underlying mathematical principles as governing factors in the conception and structure of the whole.

10.9 Monteverdi’s organization of the Selva morale version of Dixit Dominus is illustrated by the diagram in Figure 1. The largest structural feature to notice is the subdivision of the entire psalm into two groups of verses. Verse 5, “Dominus a dextris,” begins, in both Monteverdi settings, with the return to full-textured chordal homophony, cited above (par. 9.11) as the anchor near the midpoint of the psalm, referencing the eight-voice textures in both the opening verses and the closing doxology. In the Messa et salmi version, verse 5 begins at bar 103, 40% through the composition. But in the Selva morale adaptation, with its greatly expanded settings of verses 1–2, verse 5 begins at bar 184, very close to the golden section (G.S.) subdivision of 187 of the entire piece (see the uppermost bracket in Figure 1 and compare it with the verse timeline at the bottom of the figure). Thus, the first four verses occupy the larger segment of a structure informed by the golden section proportion, and the last five verses occupy the smaller segment.

10.10 Each of the two parts of this bipartite subdivision of the psalm encompasses two sections of very nearly equal length: 92 and 91 bars in the larger opening segment, and 61 and 59 bars in the smaller closing segment (see the relevant row of brackets in Figure 1). In the larger golden-section portion, the first subdivision encompasses verse 1 and the second verses 2–4. In the smaller golden-section portion, from bar 184 to the end, the first subdivision contains verses 5–7 and the second verses 8–9 (doxology and “Amen”). My more detailed examination will concentrate on the first, larger segment, bars 1–183, before moving on to the second, smaller segment, bars 184–303.

10.11 At the beginning of the piece, smaller structural units are articulated principally by texture. The first verse begins with 16 bars of solo soprano, followed by another 16 bars for the full choir and violins. In bar 33 the solo soprano returns for another 29 bars, succeeded in bars 62–92 by another section for eight voices and two violins (see the timeline and bottom set of brackets in Figure 1). The three sections are all of approximately equal length: 32, 29, and 31 bars. The second verse, “Virgam virtutis,” encompasses a total of 57 bars, concluding in bar 149, which is almost precisely the golden section point (bar 148) of the 91-bar segment comprising verses 2–4 (see the third bracket from the top in Figure 1). This second verse is divided into an initial duet section, followed by the section borrowed from the 1650 setting that mixes duets with full-choir homophonic and imitative textures. The time relationship between these two sections, 20 and 37 bars respectively, is not far off from the Fibonacci number series elements of 21 and 34.^[56] In other words, a precise “reverse” (i.e., with the smaller segment first) golden-section subdivision of the third verse would begin in bar 114 (see the bracket immediately above the timeline in Figure 1). The following two verses, “Tecum principium” and “Juravit Dominus,” the latter an only slightly varied repetition of the first, are again of almost equal length.

10.12 Thus, we see both the golden section proportion and equal-length segmentation informing the structure at the smaller levels below the overall golden section proportion and dual subdivisions indicated by the first- and second-level brackets. An interesting, perhaps coincidental, aspect of the structure of the opening large unit of 183 bars is that Monteverdi’s close adaptation of material from the 1650 Dixit Dominus setting begins with the repetition of the second verse, Virgam virtutis, at bar 113. Bar 113 is precisely the golden section point of the first four verses (not bracketed in the diagram).

10.13 The second segment of the psalm, bars 184–303, exhibits similar structural considerations. Verses 5–6, “Dominus a dextris / Judicabit,” which interlock to make up a single unit of 44 bars shown in Table 3, can be divided into approximately equal units (see the brackets immediately above the timeline in Figure 1), followed by the seventh verse, De torrente, of slightly shorter length. The complete doxology occupies the next 36 bars, and the “Amen,” the final 23. The precise golden section subdivision of the doxology and “Amen,” is at bar 280, the point where the doxology per se ends and the “Amen,” begins. The “Amen,” itself is of comparable duration to verses 5 and 6.

10.14 As noted above, I am unable to find any such structuring, based on either breves or tactus, in the 1650 Messa et salmi setting. The evidence of the musical structure supports the hypothesis that Monteverdi’s significant reworking of verses 1–2 and verse 7 for the Selva morale was motivated, to a large degree, by the desire to create a complex and coherent organization that was lacking in the 1650 setting. Thus, he adds far more duration and weight to the first two verses, comprising the larger segment of a structure reflecting the golden section principle, and radically curtails the seventh verse, “De torrente,” which would become the shortest of the psalm’s verses in the smaller segment of that overall golden section structure. If the psalm was specifically fashioned for Eleonora Gonzaga, the motivation for that desire might have been to open the Selva morale’s psalm section, the most extensive of the sections in the massive print, not only with solo and duet sections for singers in her chapel, but also with one of his most artistically sophisticated efforts—a tribute to the collection’s dedicatee, and a worthy contribution to the repertoire of her newly established private chapel. That, however, is more speculation than hypothesis. But whatever the reason for constructing the one psalm out of the other, a close comparison of the two reveals important information about Monteverdi’s compositional thinking and the musical values that motivated both his imagination and his choices.

Appendices

Appendix 1. Verse subdivisions in Dixit Dominus

Appendix 2. Analytical details in the comparison of verses 3-6 and the doxology

Examples

Example 1. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 1, bars 1–20

Example 2. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 1, bars 21–35

Example 3. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 2, bars 36–55

Example 4. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 2, bars 56–72

Example 5. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 1–5

Example 6. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 6–16

Example 7. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 17–35

Example 8. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 36–61

Example 9. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 62–75

Example 10. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 1, bars 86–92

Example 11. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 2, bars 93–112

Example 12. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 7, bars 147–63

Example 13. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 7, bars 228–44

Example 14a. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: verse 3, bars 73–86

Example 14b. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 3, bars 150–66

Example 15. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 5, bars 184–98

Example 16. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verses 5–6, bars 199–208

Example 17. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: verse 6, bars 209–27

Example 18. Eighth psalm tone; and Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus, excerpts

Example 19. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: “Sicut erat,” bars 211–33

Example 20. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: “Sicut erat,” bars 277–88

Example 21. Messa et Salmi (1650), first Dixit Dominus: “Amen,” bars 246–59

Example 22. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: “Amen,” bars 289–303

Figure

Figure 1. Selva morale (1641), Dixit Dominus primo: structural organization

Tables

Table 1. Choral scoring in the two settings of Dixit Dominus

Table 2. Length of verses by breves and distribution of meters in the two settings

Table 3. Verse-by-verse comparison of number of bars (1 bar = 1 tactus)

Appendix 2

Analytical details in the comparison of verses 3-6 and the doxology

a. Verse 3

The two alto voices exchange roles in the later setting: the leading voice is the alto primo in the 1650 original, but the alto secondo in the Selva morale. There is no particular reason—this difference may have resulted from the publishing process—nor is there a rational explanation other than a manuscript or typesetting error for the difference in rhythm between the two entries of the subject in its second semibreve in the Selva morale (compare Example 14b, Alto I, bar 153, with Alto II, bar 151).

But a more substantial difference between the two settings can be seen in comparing bars 78–86 of the 1650 setting (Example 14a) with bars 155–66 of the Selva morale version (Example 14b), where nine bars of the original version expand to twelve bars in the adaptation. In Example 14a, bar 78, the leading voice (Alto I) concludes its phrase with two minims followed by rests before continuing with “ex utero” in bar 79. But in Example 14b, bars 155–56 (the bars parallel to 78–79), the leading voice (now Alto II) fills out the original final minim and rests with an eighth-note passaggio, in parallel thirds with Alto I, and continues directly to “ex utero” in semiminims and a dotted minim without any intervening rests. It is in bar 156 that the second bass begins anew with the phrase “in principium sanctorum: ex utero,” followed by the first bass’s “ex utero” (bars 158–59), which overlaps with the second bass beginning in bar 159, and the two basses then join in parallel thirds to the end of the phrase at bar 166. One or the other bass duplicates the basso continuo (the other in parallel thirds above it), which proceeds identically to that in Example 14a, bars 79–86. However, the basso continuo in Example 14b is extended at bar 163 by means of repetition and rhythmic augmentation, lengthening the verse by three full bars.

Against this duplication of the original version’s basso continuo, the alto duet is modified for the Selva morale. In Example 14b, bars 155–58, the Alto II is identical to the Alto I of the Messa et salmi (Example 14a, bars 78–81). From this point forward, the two altos are altered: compare Example 14a, end of bar 81 to bar 86, with Example 14b, end of bar 158 to bar 161. Alto I in the Selva morale version (Example 14b, end of bar 158 to bar 160) begins identically to Alto II in the Messa et salmi setting (Example 14a, end of bar 82 to bar 85), and the melodic shape of the later Alto II at “ante luciferum” (Example 14b, bars 159–60) is the same as that of the original Alto I (Example 14a, bars 83–84), but at a step lower in order to cadence on cʹ in Example 14b, bar 160, instead of the original version’s cadence on dʹ (Example 14a, bars 85–86). In the Selva morale, the leading Alto II has adumbrated Alto I’s descending fifth to make a unison cadence on the cʹ (Example 14b, bars 158–60). In bar 161 the Alto II once again anticipates the imitation of Alto I in bar 162, the two voices continuing in parallel thirds in bars 162–64, echoing the Messa et salmi version’s bars 83–85. In the passage in bars 158–64, Monteverdi has introduced four statements of the phrase “ante luciferum” in the altos where the Messa et salmi features only one such statement (Example 14a, end of bar 83 to beginning of bar 85). The Selva morale setting then concludes with a unison cadence on dʹ modifying slightly the dʹ cadence of the Messa et salmi. In the meantime, the first bass in the Selva has introduced an ornamental passaggio in bar 164 (Example 14b). Whereas the expansion of the Selva’s basso continuo begins with repetition in bar 163, it is in bars 158–61 where the expansion of the alto duet occurs.

Return to paragraph 9.2.

b. Verse 3: other settings

Interestingly, the Dixit Dominus secondo from the Selva morale and the Dixit alla breve from the Messa et salmi both utilize a rhythmically steady descending figure in a mid-range duet for the first hemistich—imitative in the Dixit alla breve, with the soprano intoning the psalm tone, and as a double duet in the Dixit Dominus secondo, with the same kind of contrary rising counterpoint as the basses provide in the double duet of our psalm, the Selva’s Dixit Dominus primo. The short basso continuo ostinato morphing into a steady walking bass that gives a jaunty character to the Dixit Dominus primo becomes a full-fledged ostinato in the Dixit Dominus secondo, modified and extended for multiple, lively repetitions of “ante luciferum genui te,” emphasizing this text to a much greater degree than in the Dixit Dominus primo. Even the Dixit alla breve has a brief but notable melismatic emphasis on “genui te.”

Return to paragraph 9.4.

c. Verse 4

Instead of reversing the leading voices between the 1650 and 1641 versions as in verse 3, the Tenor I leads in both settings. The bass line repeats precisely that of verse 3 transposed down a fourth until the final cadence, which is altered in the 1650 version to accommodate a repetition of the final word, “Melchisedech.” In the 1641 setting, the final cadence expands the cadential “Melchisedech” of 1650 to “secundum ordinem Melchisedech,” requiring an extra semibreve and modification of the cadence itself.

Monteverdi’s other three surviving settings of Dixit Dominus exhibit no pairing of verses 3 and 4 through musical repetition. The treatment of these verses in the Dixits under discussion here is apparently a special case.

Return to paragraph 9.5.

d. Verses 5-6

With the exception of added obbligato violins and optional violas or trombones in the Selva morale, the two-verse complex is virtually identical between the two settings. But as in verse 4, a few dotted minims in the organ bass of the 1650 version are replaced in the 1641 setting by a pitch and its diminished repetition. A few semiminims of the 1650 bass are also subdivided into diminished note repetitions in the Selva morale setting in order to match the vocal basses, and in one passage (repeated), a single note is displaced by an octave downward in the 1641 version (in the full score compare the second semiminim of bars 122 and 136 of the 1650 version with bars 203 and 218 of the 1641 setting).

Both the Dixit Dominus secondo of the Selva morale and the Dixit alla breve of the Messa et salmi also create some kind of connection between verses 5 and 6. As one would expect, the second hemistich’s “conquassabit” elicits “beating” by various means. In the Dixit secondo it’s conveyed through repeated-note figures imitatively thrown about among the voices, even conflating portions of text of the two verses with the verbal sequence “confregit reges, implebit ruinas” in multiple repetitions. “Conquassabit” in the Dixit alla breve is rendered through a rising scale in dotted rhythm, staggered temporally with a sequence of upward leaping fourths, also in dotted rhythm. The approach to the verse “Judicabit in nationibus” in the 1610 Vespro (the previous verse is one of the falsobordone settings) comprises repetition of the psalm tone repercussio in parallel thirds throughout.

In the Dixit secondo, Monteverdi concludes verse 5 by fragmenting and conflating the text to “Dominus confregit reges” before moving on after only the briefest rest to “Judicabit in nationibus,” although the new verse is marked by a radical harmonic shift from B-flat to G major. Later in the first hemistich of verse 6, verse 5’s “confregit reges” returns before repetition of the entire verse 6 hemistich’s text with further quick repeated-note “beating.” In the Dixit alla breve, verse 5 is followed immediately without any pause by verse 6, though the texture shifts from all eight voices to the first choir only at the beginning of the latter verse. Here, too, there is a radical harmonic shift from a cadence on A major to an F major harmony on the third semibreve of the new verse. “Implebit ruinas” is also reinforced through homophonic repetition (in duple time) in the Dixit secondo, but by multiple imitations of a descending scalar pattern in the Dixit alla breve.

Return to paragraph 9.11.

e. Doxology: “Et in saecula”

As in earlier verses of the psalm, the duet is succeeded at “et in saecula saeculorum” by a homorhythmic, homophonic eight-voice passage in semiminims, closing in A with unisons and open fifths (Example 20, bars 277–80). At that point the two basses, briefly in imitation, slowly intone the first “Amen” before repeating “et in saecula saeculorum” in a re-voiced version of its first statement, transposed down a fourth, but closing in C, this time with the full triad (Example 20, bars 285–88). Unfortunately, the two vocal bass parts paralleling the Selva’s bars 281–85 are missing from the 1650 print, the vacuum filled by Vincenti with rests, but because these passages are identical from one psalm to the other, the two bass parts from the Selva morale may obviously be taken to supply the missing bass parts for the Messa et salmi. (Neither the Malipiero-Arnold edition nor the Cremona edition [ed. Sala, Opera omnia, vol. 18] supplies the missing parts, but both editions place them in their editorial continuo realizations in upper octaves in the right hand.)

Return to paragraph 9.12.

f. Doxology: “Amen”

The 1650 version’s “Amen” presents the opening motive of the “Sicut erat” in paired imitative duets, first in the sopranos on eʹ, then in the basses on A, and finally in the sopranos again, on dʹ so that the psalm can close in G, with all voices joining the sopranos in the final slow-moving cadence, ornamented by the second tenor with a rising arc-shaped motive (see Example 21). Altogether there are four iterations of “Amen”—three duets and the eight-voice close.

In the 1641 setting Monteverdi disposes the four iterations of “Amen” differently, while expanding the closing and introducing more complicated counterpoint (see Example 22). The initial ascending soprano duet is overlapped by the second “Amen” imitatively in the two tenors, Basso I and Alto I singing a scalar descent in contrary motion to the sopranos. The third “Amen” overlaps the cadence of the second and is presented in all the voices with both sopranos, Tenor II, and both basses in staggered imitation employing the descending motive, while Alto I and Tenor I mimic the soprano duet’s original ascending motion; meanwhile, Alto II supports the middle with a static dʹ. The final reiteration of “Amen” consists of the final full-textured cadence to G, but with the word itself reiterated only in the two altos, Tenor I (bars 301–3), and Basso I (bars 300–3). The violins and optional instruments join at the tutti in bar 297, the first violin providing an independent line in the highest register, reaching to a″, while the second doubles at the octave the ascending line of Tenor I.

Return to paragraph 9.13.