diXit - George Frideric Handel and Thomas Jennefelt: Dixit Dominus

Performers:
John Sheppard Ensemble Freiburg (conductor: Bernhard Schmidt)
Kammerchor am Würzburger Dom (conductor: Domkapellmeister Alexander Rüth)
with soloists and orchestra

This special concert project focuses on settings of the 110th Psalm (Dixit Dominus) by Handel and Jennefelt. Psalm 110 belongs to the classic series of Sunday Vespers psalms and is therefore one of the most frequently set biblical texts.

"Dixit Dominus" is Handel's first major work in the field of church music. Around 300 years later, Jennefelt combined the psalm text with Pope Urban II's call to crusade and dedicated his work to the "Women in Black", the widows of Srebrenica: his "Dixit Dominus" not only sets the sometimes quite drastic statements of the text to music with painful clusters and relentless ostinato rhythms, but also appeals to compassion and humanity, for example by embedding a (textless) lament of a surviving woman (mother / daughter / widow). The composer wants to raise awareness of the danger of totalitarianism inherent in every religion/ideology. His work is intended to encourage us to see conflicts between "them" and "us" from the individual perspective of "you" and "me" in order to show a path to mutual understanding, more compassion and ways to each other.