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A Stylistic Synthesis

fugues in movements 4 and 7 feature extensive orchestral pendence as often as hybrid approaches. As a result, her
doubling of the choir, broken only during a capella passag- orchestration is much less varied than Handel’s within
es or episodes (movement 4 mm. 58-62 and movement movements but much more varied between movements.
7 mm. 43-46). Movement 5 juxtaposes passages of dou- Over the course of her seven-movement form, she cre-
bling (mm. 81-82, 84, 86-88) and independence (mm. ates variety by juxtaposing long blocks of consistent

83, 85, 88ff.) in quick succession. Thus, Martines creates textures, rather than by interspersing them quickly or
variety throughout the entire multi-movement form by blending them.
shifting between choral/orchestral independence, dou- Martines also presents a wide variety of choral tex-
bling, and free combination of these two extremes. tures, ranging from quasi-homophony and non-imita-
In contrast, Handel’s Dixit makes little use of the ex- tive counterpoint to stark juxtaposition of homophony
tremes, relying much more heavily on hybrid approach- and imitation. Movement 1 relies heavily on quasi-ho-
es. Even in his fugues, which are largely doubled, Han- mophonic textures that are somewhat contrapuntal but
del includes purely instrumental statements of subjects rarely imitative—for example, where four parts move
or countersubjects (for example, in movement 5 m. 8). together while the fi fth is independent, or where two or
Handel also writes unison passages for his full orches- three parts move together in note-against-note coun-

tra, such as in movement 6, m. 81ff. Here, the orchestral terpoint. She takes the former approach in the opening
instruments play independently of the choir but not of choral phrase (mm. 26-31), and the latter in mm. 36-
each other. Both of these approaches represent hybrid 39 (and various parallel spots), where the top three parts
textures somewhere in between total independence and move in (largely parallel) melisma while the bottom two
doubling. establish a dominant pedal (Figure 4).
Martines’s approach is thus much clearer and simpler Movements 1 and 5 also feature choral duets, another
than Handel’s, featuring doubling and extreme inde- form of quasi-homophonic note-against-note counter-

CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9 15