The story of Jephthah is a grim tale from the Book of Judges in the Bible that involves human sacrifice. Jephthah (Jephte in Italian) promises the Lord that if he defeats the enemy Ammonites in battle, he will offer as a burnt offering the first living creature he sees when he returns home. But upon his victorious return, the first thing he sees is not the animals of his flocks, but his daughter, his only child, who has run out to greet him with joy.
Jephthah immediately tears his clothes in mourning and blames his daughter rather unfairly: "That you should deal me this blow, that it is you who have brought me misfortune! I have made a vow to the Lord, and I cannot go back on it. The daughter agreed to be sacrificed, but asked for two months to mourn her fate as a single woman. "After that, it was the custom in Israel for young girls to mourn Jephthah's daughter for four days every year.
As gruesome as it is, Jephthah's story lends itself to an oratorio, a form of musical performance that emerged in Rome in the late 16th century. Unlike opera, oratorios were not intended for staged performances, but were performed in informal gatherings as part of Catholic worship. The genre of oratorio was named after the place where these performances took place, the oratorio hall.
Giacomo Carissimi, a priest and director of music at Sant'Apollinare in Rome, was a leading oratorio composer in the mid-17th century. He composed Historia di Jephte around 1650, using a narrator, chorus, and musical elements to tell the story of Jephthah's victory and the tragic fulfillment of his vow to God. The music of the early Italian Baroque is narrative and dramatic, like a Caravaggio painting. The piece begins with joy, but quickly turns to sorrow as the daughter's fate is revealed, ending with her lament and a chorus of mourning.
Handel was so moved by Carissimi's work
that he borrowed the final chorus of Jephthah for his own oratorio,
Samson.
Listen to Ad Mosam Barock, Huub Ehlen (conductor), and Channa Malikin (Filia) and Thilo Dahlmann (Jephte):
Choral Masterworks