and solo soprano and alto lines. This piece is also a part of the vesper psalms used in church. There is use of imitative polyphony within the chorus parts and within the solo lines, but the chorus lines and solo lines did not imitate eachother so in essence, the piece is a duet and a chorus piece put together. There is figured bass present throughout the psalm setting. The text is actually the text to psalm 122. There is octave doubling in the bass, and the fifth occurs often since it was considered to be perfect or somehow godly. What makes this psalm different from Scarlattis other psalms is that it is the only psalm that exhibits an organized concerto style. This psalm is also written in Latin, and has no indicated dynamics. It begins in D major, and switches to A and E major, and b and a minor throughout the setting, and ends back on D major. The piece does have some ornamentation, consisting of argued trills. The argument comes from odd markings on the original manuscript. Some people feel that the markings were just hastily drawn trills, while others feel they may actually be mordants. In the transcription listed here, they are all listed as trills. There probably was not a lot of ornamentation put into the music because there was an idea that if the music became too frilly it took away from the sacred message it was supposed to send.While both pieces are a part of each composers library of sacred music, they are in some respects not very much alike and in others they are very similar. There are the obvious things they have in common such as the fact that they are written in Latin. That is not too suprising considering some churches still used Latin as the primary language in their services, even though in the Baroque period many churches began using the vernacular so the patrons would understand the services. Aside from that, Monteverdi, being more influenced by the Renaissance due to his time of birth, demon...
