Cantata Sunday: Carissimi’s Jepthe

In the early 1600s, while some Italian composers were developing the genre of opera, others were applying the same musical techniques to tell sacred stories. Giacomo Carissimi was the great pioneer of this new genre, called the oratorio. His Jephte, taken from the Book of Judges, tells a cautionary tale of pride, devotion, and lament amid the destruction of war. Carissimi’s writing, especially in the famous final chorus, shows the power of music to move the soul and express our most profound human emotions.