St Augustine’s Singers: Dixit Dominus

The St Augustine’s Singers, conducted by Paul Jackson, perform Francisco Durante’s Magnificat, and George Frideric Handel’s Dixit Dominus.

A short and compact work, full of charming melodies, the Magnificat was, for many years, attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, although most scholars agree that it was the work Pergolesi’s teacher, the Neapolitan baroque composer Francisco Durante. 

George Frideric Handel’s setting of Dixit Dominus, written when the composer was only twenty two, is a thrilling and virtuosic work for five-part chorus, soloists and orchestra. Fresh from his studies in Italy, Handel’s Dixit Dominus bursts with rhythmic and melodic invention and vitality in a manner he was never to repeat in his later music.

Admission to the concert is free, with a retiring collection in aid of church funds.