This setting of O Domine, Jesu Christe, like all the other double-choir pieces by Scheidt included in the present series, is taken from his Cantiones Sacrae Octo Vocum, (Hamburg, 1620). It is a remarkable collection, consisting as it does both of Lutheran chorale settings (Ein feste Burg, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, etc.) and quite Italianate Latin motets on texts that had mostly been set previously by Italian composers (there is a setting of the present text by Giovanni Gabrieli, for instance).
Actually O Domine, Jesu Christe is one of the most bold and dramatic of Scheidt’s Italian pieces. It makes great (perhaps slightly too frequent) use of the chord A-C#-F (and its transpositions), which is a feature of, for instance, Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis from that composer’s posthumous collection of 1615. As in Sic Deus dilexit (ADC95 ↣) the composer makes great use of the dramatic contrast between a high and low choir.
(Bernard Thomas)
Translation:
O Lord Jesus Christ,
I adore you, wounded on the cross,
Forced to drink bitter gall and vinegar,
I pray you that your wounds will be the salvation of my soul.
