motet notes - Purcell

Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei, a setting of Psalm 3, is one of only two sacred Latin motets by Henry Purcell (1659 1695). Composed around 1680, it is one of Purcell’s finest and most astonishing early sacred works. The declamatory solo and choral writing shows Purcell in his most Italianate style, including passages of quasi-recitative and heroic bass solo writing with wide tessitura and vivid imagery. Harmonically adventurous, Edward Elgar when orchestrating ‘Jehova’, is said to have enquired whether the score he was using contained misprints!