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Marianna von Martines's Dixit Dominus

Overall Structure and Tonal Plan creates an exact balance between sharper and fl atter key
Handel’s famous Dixit Dominus, composed in Rome in signatures, and a 2:1 ratio of minor to major keys (given
1707, is an extended cantata-like setting featuring a mix the home key of G minor, it is logical that the minor
of movements for soloists and choir, and lasting over half mode should predominate slightly) (Table 1).
an hour. The existence of similarly structured settings of Martines, on the other hand, uses key signatures that
this and other important psalms by Italian baroque com- are up to three steps away from the home key on the cir-
posers like Antonio Vivaldi and Antonio Lotti attests to a cle of fi fths. She makes no attempt to balance fl atter and
tradition in early eighteenth-century Italy of employing sharper keys, and her ratio of major to minor tonalities
this extended cantata format in certain especially grand (2.5:1) is more skewed than Handel’s. All her non-tonic
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psalm settings. The date, location, structure, and forces movements are in “fl atter” keys, and she frequently uses
of Handel’s setting all place the piece strongly within this major keys without their relative minor (Table 2 on page
compositional tradition. 9). Whereas Handel creates variety by balancing major
In contrast, late eighteenth-century Austrian settings and minor tonalities from within a small and balanced
of the Dixit are often single-movement treatments as palette of key signatures (and employing striking mod-
part of larger Vespers cycles. With seven movements ulations within certain movements), Martines relies on
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lasting roughly twenty-five minutes, Martines’s setting a wide variety of key signatures to create tonal contrast

offers an intermediate approach: it is signifi cantly short- between movements. 15
er than Handel’s, reducing both the number of move- Like her use of tonality, Martines’s orchestration is
ments and the overall duration, but still retains an ex- much more varied than Handel’s. To begin with, she
tended multi-movement structure. Thus, the very scale writes for a larger orchestra. Whereas Handel’s Dixit
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and conception of the work represents a synthesis of is scored for strings (including divided violas) and bas-
Baroque extravagance and galant brevity. so continuo, Martines’s setting employs two fl utes, two
An examination of the keys of individual movements oboes, two trumpets, timpani, strings, and basso contin-
reveals an adventurous overall tonal plan that moves well uo. The fl utes and oboes never play together. Martines
beyond Handel’s palette of keys. Handel’s Dixit uses only scholar Irving Godt notes that “[w]ith the exception of
key signatures that are within one step of the home key just one of her surviving compositions, oboes and fl utes

on the circle of fifths: the piece begins and ends with a never appear in the same movement,” and argues that

key signature of two flats, and every movement bears a this “orchestration refl ected her expectation that oboists
key signature of either one, two, or three fl ats. Handel would double on the fl ute.” 16
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Table 1

Tonal plan of Handel’s Dixit Dominus

Mvt. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Key g B« c g B« d F c g

Key distribution in Handel’s Dixit Dominus

Key signature 1 step flatter HOME 1 step sharper

Minor mode 2 3 1
Major mode 0 2 1

8 CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9