Comunicación Interna y Cultura Institucional

Place and date of composition

There is no date or place of composition on the manuscript, however as it is dedicated to the Malta based castrato, Gennaro Oliva, then the obvious place of composition is Malta.

Text and Liturgical function

The liturgy uses verse three of Psalm 44(45), but with parts omitted on several feasts, namely as an Offertory of the Mass for the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 2 February, which is sometimes known as Candlemas. It is also adopted as the Gradual of the Mass for Mary, the Mother of God, on the 1st of January. In the baroque period it was often used liturgically as a Gradual and Offertory for the Common of a Holy Woman not a Martyr.18 The words are also used as an antiphon and versicles in the Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the Mass for Marian Feasts. It is also used as a Gradual (GT

18 _{Mauricio Dottori, The Church Music of Davide Perez and Niccolò Jommelli (São Paulo: DeArtes-UFPR, 2008),}

408.7), an Offertory (GT 421.2), an Antiphon (GT 413.5) and a Communion Antiphon (GT 423.4).19

The original text of the psalm in Latin is:

Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis;

propterea benedixit te Deus in aeternum. Myrrha, et gutta, et cassia a vestimentis tuis, a domibus eburneis,

ex quibus te delectaverunt filiae regum in honore tuo.

The liturgy only utilises the first and second lines, adding another line as follows:

Diffusa est gratia in labiis tuis.

Propterea benedixit te Deus in aeternum. Et in saeculum saeculi.

Instrumental/vocal forces

Clarinets I and II in B flat, bassoon, horns I and II in E flat, strings, including violas with organ continuo, and soprano castrato solo.

The source

F-Pn, Ms 8113A, pp. 204-219

The cover page of the work is entitled Diffusa est Gratia, Motetto per Soprano con Clarini, Fagotto, Corni obl[igati], poi Strumenti orig[inale] Nicolò Isouard Maltese. Scritto per uso del Sig[nor]. Gennaro Oliva. It is written in the key of E flat major on thirty pages of manuscript, including the cover page. In the orchestration listing on page one of the music, the term

Fagotto on the cover is replaced in the score by the plural Fagotti.

The manuscript consists of twelve staves - the top line and the two lowest lines are not utilised. The orchestral layout of the score consists of Violini I and II on the upper two lines, followed in descending order by the Clarinetti I and II on separate staves, two Corni on one stave, Fagotti, Viole, Canto, and a general Bassi line, which includes figured bass notation for the organ continuo. The work is scored for solo soprano castrato and orchestra with organ continuo. The work is 162 bars in duration.

19 _{GT. Graduale Triplex –The Roman Graduale with the additions of Neums from Ancient Mansucripts}

The Diffusa est gratia was composed for the soprano castrato Gennaro Oliva (date of birth and death are unknown), who was a staff singer on the roster of the Conventual Church of The Order of St. John in Valletta. Oliva, known professionally as Gennarino, was appointed to the Conventual Church in September 1782 and was still on the salaried roster of singers at the time of the French invasion of Malta in 1798.20 Neapolitan by birth, Oliva also served in the vocal roster at the Cathedral in Mdina, and his name appears in the records there. In 1784 he was dismissed from the Conventual Church after coming to blows with a priest, but was immediately employed at Mdina.21 Oliva later returned to St John’s after petitioning the authorities at the Conventual Church.22

Composers who set this psalm to music include Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, William Byrd, Giovanni Maria Nanino (1543/4-1607), the Spanish composer Francesco Valls (1665-1747), and Michael Haydn. One excellent example of this work was composed in 1751 by Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), probably for use in the Church of Santa Maria Dell’Anima, where he was then employed, or even possibly for St Peter’s Basilica. It is written for two sopranos and one alto voice with continuo. Jommelli was a composer whom Isouard admired, and he completed a full re-orchestration of that composer’s Missa pro defunctis.23 From a perusal of the Mdina Catalogue, neither Isouard’s main teacher on Malta, Francesco Azopardi, or Benigno Zerafa, the long serving maestro di capella at St Paul’s Cathedral in Mdina, wrote any settings of this text. But there is a score by an anonymous composer at the Wignacourt Museum, in Rabat.24 The initiative for setting these words may have emanated from a personal request from Gennaro Oliva to the composer. Although the entire text is quite short, sections of these three lines are interwoven and repeated by the composer.

The score is divided into several tempo sections - an opening Andante con moto of 65 bars of 2/4, and an Allegro vivo in 4/4 of 24 bars, which leads into a passage marked con meno

20

AOM 1000, f.21: AOM 1001, f. 21

21 _{Bruni, Musica e Musicista, 68.} 22

AOM 1194, f. 263.

23 _{See Appendix. The Score of the Jommelli Diffusa est gratia is held in the Conservatorio di Musica S. Pietro a}

Majella in Naples. I-Nc/Mus. Re. 965. 4f. See Hochstein, cit., 38-9.

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moto of seventeen bars. The work concludes with a più moto section of 56 bars. The vocal range extends to a top B flat and sits generally in the upper part of the tessitura, indicating that Oliva had a castrato voice of high range and flexibility but also of strength. That strength and the virtuosity of his singing are testified by the Conventual Church authorities, who describe him as a virtuoso.25

This work is unusual in that, apart from the single solo movement sections of sections of the Mass, it is only one of two major ‘stand-alone’ sacred works composed by Isouard for solo voice and orchestra. The other work is the large scale setting of Virgam Virtutis in C major for solo tenor.

Orchestrally, the work is written with fully independent parts for the clarinets and horns, and also for the string passages, especially in the extended semiquaver passages in the final tempo section, which suggest the musical influence of Ètienne-Nicolas Méhul and André Grétry. The work can possibly be dated on stylistic grounds, as coming from the period after 1795, one where Isouard’s arpeggio quaver trademark bass endings are not utilised anywhere in the piece.

Commentary

In the opening Andante section, a floating descending phrase appropriately introduces the first mention of the words in labiis tuis. The same treatment is given to the word benedixit in bars 36 and 40, whilst gentle coloratura is utilised to amplify the meaning of the same latter word (bars 46, 50 and 64). Finally in this section, in the ultimate use of the word Deus, a majestic and again floating descending phrase is used.

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The words Et in saeculum saeculi are given strength and firmness in the opening lines of the

Allegro vivo and an effective use of a cadenza pause provides additional force to these same words (bar 89). The opening text reappears in the con meno moto in long ‘Haydnesque’ melodies in 4/4, and the works ends with soaring phrases reaching to a high B flat with the words In aeternum.