Handel: Ode For The Birthday Of Queen Anne, Dixit

Helene Guilmette, soprano; Andreas Scholl, countertenor; Malcolm E.Bennet, tenor; Andreas Wolf, Bass with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Vocalconsort Berlin, conducted by Marcus Creed

Georg Friedrich Haendel (1685-1759) Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne, Dixit Dominus

Composed to celebrate the birthday of Queen Anne of England, this Ode was subtitled ‘Ode for the Peace’ in reference to the Treaty of Utrecht which the monarch was about to sign, marking the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. Six years earlier, the twenty-two-year-old composer exploited in his sacred music what he had just learnt from Italian opera: the result was the powerful, intensely passionate Dixit Dominus.