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The German College was established in 1552 to train Jesuit priests to serve as missionaries in German-speaking Protestant lands. By the 1570's, under maestri di cappella such as the Renaissance master Tomás Luis de Victoria, the German College developed a following for its music and musicians. By 1608, reports described "cardinals, ambassadors, prelates, etc." attending church services at Sant'Apollinare because of the fine music there, and this reputation was cemented during Carissimi's lifetime.

In his lifetime, Carissimi apparently displayed extraordinary ability as a composer and musician, matched only by an equally extraordinary lack of ambition. The German College was a highly desirable and stable post, and in his lifetime, Carissimi was known to have turned down at least three offers for major posts elsewhere (including an offer to replace Claudio Monteverdi at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice after the composer's death in 1643). Because Carissimi never applied for any position after 1629, and because he never felt any need to ingratiate himself with any nobleman, Carissimi never published any of his music in his lifetime. After the Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773 and Napoleon's troops sacked Rome some thirty years later, the German College's official records and manuscripts were destroyed. As a result, we have very little documentation of Carissimi's official duties, and the only compositions that we know about come from copies made by his pupils.

We do know that Carissimi worked extensively with the growing Congregation of the Oratory. This was a community of lay worshippers organized by Philip Neri in the 1540's. Neri sought to educate and convert the common people with informal "spiritual exercises." These exercises included colloquial sermons and vernacular dramatizations of Bible stories which sought to explain the significance of the story for the laity. The community and its spiritual exercises were soon named for the prayer hall (Italian Oratorio) in which the groups met. Musical dramatizations began to dominate the oratorio around 1600, and these dramatizations began borrowed the techniques of recitative and accompanied aria with basso continuo so that by the 1620's, oratorios became something akin to opera without costumes or stage action. Oratorios were the only music performances allowed during Lent, and this furthered their evolution into music designed to satisfy a public increasingly infatuated with opera.

The story of Jephthah is told in the Old Testament book of Judges 10:6 to 12:7. Judges is the history of the settlement of Canaan, after the age of Joshua. Judges preserves the stories of various heroes or "judges" (including Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson) who fight battles to help consolidate the Israelites' hold on the land of Canaan. The Jephthah narrative has three main sections -- Jephthah's origin and rejection by his countrymen, his victory over the armies of Ammon, and his victory over the armies of Ephraim. Carissimi's oratorio restricts itself to the middle story of the battle with Ammon.

The origin segment describes Jephthah as the son of a man of Gilead and a harlot. Jephthah's father subsequently marries and has additional, legitimate children. These half-brothers drive Jephthah from Gilead and deny him a share in their father's inheritance because of his illegitimacy. He becomes a wandering brigand, and develops into a cunning and skillful warrior. Then, when Ammon threatens Gilead, the tribal elders beg Jephthah to return and lead Gilead into battle, promising him dominion over Gilead in return. Jephthah accepts the offer, and sends emissaries to the king of Ammon to ask why he attacks Gilead. The king of Ammon claims that the land of Gilead is rightfully his, and the Israelites are unwanted intruders. Jephthah recaps the story of the Israelites' wandering through the wilderness, told in the book of Numbers, and God's intervention on Israel's behalf. Jephthah suggests that Gilead rightfully belongs to the Israelites because of God's intervention (much of this argument doesn't seem to have changed much in the last five thousand years).

Carissimi's oratorio sets an adaptation of the Latin Vulgate text (Iudicum 11:28-40) of Jephthah's war with Ammon. Jephthah rashly swears that if the Lord helps him to overthrow Ammon, he will offer to the Lord as a sacrifice the first person that greets him when he returns home. He leads Gilead to victory over Ammon, and there is much rejoicing. However, the first person to greet Jephthah home is his only child, a virgin daughter. Jephthah rues his impetuous oath, but must carry it out. He grants his daughter's last request, to go into the mountains and bewail her fate. (In Biblical times, all Hebrew women strove to bear children, in the hopes that one of them might be the Messiah. Thus, Jephthah's daughter will die in shame, because she must die childless.) The daughter sings a moving lament, and the oratorio ends with the chorus echoing this sorrowful lament.

The book of Judges tells one other story of Jephthah, in which the men of Ephraim rise against Gilead in retaliation for the slight of not being asked to take part in the battle against Ammon. Jephthah thrashes the Ephraimites as well, seizing territory up to the Jordan River. He then ferrets out Ephraimite refugees by using the word shibboleth, which the Ephraimites cannot pronounce, as a password required to cross the Jordan.
 

Carissimi's setting pioneers many devices that would become the hallmarks of the oratorio form. A narrator (called the Historicus in Latin or testo in Italian) tells the Bible story, often in direct quotation from the original text. Individual characters are portrayed by solo singers, again often quoting from the Bible directly, and using Monteverdi's techniques of recitative (a word-for-word setting with basso continuo accompaniment) and arioso (a more lyrical setting in which phrases can be repeated and more complex musical figures introduced for expressive effect). The chorus portrays various characters participating in the scene, reacting to and commenting on the action at hand. For all its relative brevity (most performances of Jephte last half an hour or less), it does have some exemplary musical depications of prototypical musical moods, including battle scenes, songs of triumph, painful parting, and mournful lament. Carissimi introduces a number of musical devices which illustrate these moods (e.g. the repeat of a gradually descending bass line in the final choral lament to signify mourning, the contrast of untroubled harmonies in the songs of victory with anguished chromaticisms and dissonances in the lament); these musical/rhetorical figures become standard practice in later oratorios.

However, a Carissimi oratorio does have significant differences from, say, the oratorios of Bach and Handel. (Handel actually set this same episode in his own oratorio; Handel's libretto illustrates some of these differences). For example, later oratorios have a single soloist, usually a tenor, narrate the Bible story. In Jephte, the role of the narrator shifts between three different soloists, and sometimes is even depicted by small groups of two, three, or four distinct voice parts singing at the same time. Moreover, Carissimi's oratorio does not have the long and expressive arias that Bach and Handel used to depict the listener's personal reaction to the events being described. In fact, apart from the final lament, most of the oratorio sets the text with few or no repetitions of the text.

The librettist of Jephte also altered the Bible story for dramatic clarity; Bach and Handel, for all their operatic arias and dramatic choruses, are much more faithful to the Bible original. Carissimi's text omits laundry lists of city names where such lists fail to advance the story. Additions to the Biblical narrative include a suitably dramatic enactment of the Israelite victory, a song of victory sung by Jephthah's daughter, fleshing out a dialogue between Jephthah and his daughter fleshing out why the oath must be fulfilled, and, most strikingly, a moving lament in which the daughter bemoans her unfortunate plight. The texts are reminiscent of the Biblical Psalms in their depictions of triumph and woeful abandonment.

The dialogue and lament subtly change the focus of the story. The original story in Judges reads more like a Greek tragedy or a Grimm fairy tale than a Bible story, what with its abandoned son returning as a triumphant hero, only to fall victim to the cruel irony of having his prayers fulfilled (and having to fulfill his own cruel promise in exchange). The texts of the dialogue and lament repeat the word unigenita (only-born), and enlarge upon the image of an innocent child willingly sacrificed for the salvation of a nation and the glorification of her father, who seeks to become king. The same word unigenite is used in the Latin text of the Mass (e.g. the Gloria and the Credo) to describe Jesus, another innocent whose ultimate sacrifice is necessary to achieve his father's greatest triumph and establish an eternal kingdom. Thus Carissimi's alterations turn an Old Testament story into a kind of New Testament sermon, an opera suitable for Lent.

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Thanks to Jim Wilkinson of the Back Bay Chorale for invaluable assistance with the Latin translation.

Historicus recitative solo Alto Judges 11:28-30		Cum / vocasset / in / proelium / filios when / called / to / battle / (against) children Israel / rex / filiorum / Ammon Israel / king / of children / Ammon et / verbis / Jephte / acquiescere / noluisset, and / to words / Jephthah / acquiesce / refused factus / est / super / Jephte / Spiritus / Domini made / was / upon / Jephthah / Spirit / of the Lord et / progressus / ad / filios / Ammon and / advanced / towards / children / Ammon votum / vovit / Domini / dicens: vow / vowed / to the Lord / saying	When the king of the children of Ammon   made war against the children of Israel,   and disregarded Jephthah's message,   the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah   and he went on to the children of Ammon,   and made a vow to the Lord, saying:
Jephte recitative solo Tenor Judges 11:30-31		"Si / tradiderit / Dominus / filios / Ammon if / will hand over / Lord / children / Ammon in / manus / meas, / quicumque / primus in / hands / mine / whoever / first de / domo / mea / occurrerit / mihi, from / home / my / will meet / me offeram / illum / Domino / in / holocaustum." I will offer / him / to the Lord / as / burnt offering	"If You will indeed give the sons of Ammon   into my hand, then whoever comes first   out of the doors of my house to meet me,   I will offer him to the Lord as a complete sacrifice."
Chorus à 6 narrative Judges 11:32		Transivit / ergo / Jephte / ad / filios / Ammon, passed over / then / Jephthah / to / children / Ammon ut / in / spiritu / forti / et / virtute / Domini so that / in / spirit / strength / and / valor / Lord's pugnaret / contra / eos. he fought / against / them	So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon   with the spirit, strength, and valor of the Lord   to fight against them
Historicus à 2 narrative solo Soprano 1 & 2		Et / clangebant / tubae / et / personabant / tympana and / sounded / trumpets / and / resounded / drums et / proelium / commissum / est / adversus / Ammon. and / battle / joined / was / against / Ammon	And the trumpets sounded, and the drums resounded,   and battle against Ammon ensued.
Solo arioso solo Bass		Fugite, / cedite, / impii, / perite / gentes, flee / give way / godless ones / perish / foreigners occumbite / in / gladio. / Dominus / exercituum fall and die / against / sword / Lord / of Hosts in / proelium / surrexit / et / pugnat / contra / vos. in / battle / has risen / and / fights / against / you	Flee and give way, godless ones; perish, foreigners!   Fall before our swords, for the Lord of Hosts has raised   up an army, and fights against you.
Chorus à 6 address		Fugite, cedite, impii, / corruite, flee, give way, godless ones / fall down et / in / furore / gladii / dissipamini. and / with / raging / swords / be scattered	Flee, give way, godless ones! Fall down!   And with our raging swords, be scattered!
Historicus recitative solo Soprano Judges 11:33		Et / percussit / Jephte / viginti / civitates / Ammon and / struck / Jephthah / twenty / cities / Ammon plaga / magna / nimis. blow / great / beyond measure	And Jephthah struck twenty cities of Ammon   with a very great slaughter.
Historicus à 3 narrative solo Soprano 1 & 2, Alto Judges 11:33		Et / ululantes / filii / Ammon, / facti / sunt and / howled / children / Ammon/ made / were coram / filiis / Israel / humiliati. in the presence of / children / Israel / humble	And the children of Ammon howled,   and were brought low before the children of Israel.
Historicus recitative solo Bass Judges 11:34		Cum / autem / victor / Jephte / in / domum / suam when / however / conqueror / Jephthah / to / home / his reverteretur, / occurrens / ei / unigenita / filia / sua returned / running to meet / him / only-born / daughter / his cum / tympanis / et / choris / praecinebat: with / timbrels / and / dances / sang	When Jephthah came victorious to his house, behold,   his only child, a daughter, was coming out to meet him   with tambourines and with dancing. She sang:
Filia aria solo Soprano		"Incipite / in / tympanis, / et / psallite / in / cymbalis. begin / to / timbrels / and / play / upon / cymbals Hymnum / cantemus / Domino, / et / modulemur / canticum. hymn / let us sing / to the Lord / and / play / song Laudemus / regem / coelitum, let us praise / king / heaven laudemus / belli / principem, let us praise / war / prince qui / filiorum / Israel / victorem / ducem / reddidit." whom / children / Israel / victory / lead / gave back	"Strike the timbrels and sound the cymbals!   Let us sing a hymn and play a song to the Lord,   let us praise the King of Heaven,   let us praise the prince of war,   who has led the children of Israel back to victory!"
Duet response solo Soprano 1 & 2		Hymnum cantemus Domino, / et modulemur canticum, hymn / let us sing / to the Lord / and / play / song qui / dedit / nobis / gloriam / et / Israel / victoriam. who / gave / to us / glory / and / Israel / victory	Let us sing a hymn and play a song to the Lord,   who gave glory to us and victory to Israel!
Filia aria solo Soprano		Cantate / mecum / Domino, / cantate / omnes / populi, sing / with me / to the Lord / sing / all / peoples laudate / belli / principem, praise / war / prince qui dedit nobis gloriam et Israel victoriam. who / gave / to us / glory / and / Israel / victory	Sing with me to the Lord, sing all you peoples!   Praise ye the prince of war,   who gave glory to us and victory to Israel!
Chorus à 6 response		Cantemus / omnes / Domino, let us sing / all / to the Lord laudemus / belli / principem, let us praise / war / prince qui dedit nobis gloriam et Israel victoriam. who / gave / to us / glory / and / Israel / victory	Let us all sing to the Lord,   let us praise the prince of war,   who gave glory to us and victory to Israel!
Historicus recitative solo Alto Judges 11:35		Cum / vidisset / Jephte, / qui / votum / Domino / voverat, when / saw / Jephthah / who / vow / to the Lord / had sworn filiam / suam / venientem / in / occursum, / in / dolore daughter / his / coming / to / meet him / in / anguish et / lachrimis / scidit / vestimenta / sua / et / ait: and / tears / he tore / clothes / his / and / said	When Jephthah, who had sworn his oath to the Lord, saw   his daughter coming to meet him, with anguish   and tears he tore his clothes and said:
Jephthah arioso solo Tenor Judges 11:35		"Heu / mihi! / Filia / mea, alas / to me / daughter / mine heu / decepisti / me, / filia / unigenita, alas / you have undone / me/ daughter / only-born et / tu / pariter, and / you / alike heu / filia / mea, / decepta / es." alas / daughter / my / undone / are	"Woe is me! Alas, my daughter,   you have undone me, my only daughter,   and you, likewise,   my unfortunate daughter, are undone."
Filia recitative solo Soprano		"Cur / ergo / te / pater, / decipi, how / then / you / father / you are undone et / cur / ergo / ego and / how / then / I filia / tua / unigenita / decepta / sum?" daughter / your / only-born / undone / am	"How, then, are you undone, father,   and how am I,   your only-born daughter, undone?"
Jephthah arioso solo Tenor		"Aperui / os / meum / ad / Dominum I opened / mouth / my / to / Lord ut / quicumque primus de domo mea that/ whoever / first / from / home / my occurrerit mihi, offeram illum Domino will meet / me / I will offer / him / to the Lord in holocaustum. Heu mihi! as / burnt offering / alas / to me Filia mea, heu decepisti me, daughter / my / alas / have undone / me filia unigenita, et tu pariter, daughter / only-born / and / you / alike heu filia mea, decepta es." alas / daughter / my / undone / are	"I have opened my mouth to the Lord that   whoever comes first out of the doors of my house   to meet me, I will offer him to the Lord   as a complete sacrifice. Woe is me!   Alas, my daughter, you have undone me,   my only daughter, and you, likewise,   my unfortunate daughter, are undone."
Filia arioso solo Soprano Judges 11:36-37		"Pater / mi, / si / vovisti / votum / Domino, father / my / if / you vowed / vow / to the Lord reversus / victor / ab / hostibus, returned / victorious / from / enemies ecce / ego / filia / tua / unigenita, behold / I / daughter / your / only-born offer / me / in / holocaustum / victoriae / tuae, offer / myself / as / whole sacrifice / to victory / your hoc / solum / pater / mi / praesta but / only / father / my / fulfill filiae / tuae / unigenitae / antequam / moriar." daughter / your / only-born / before / will die	"My father, if you have made an oath to the Lord, and   returned victorious from your enemies,   behold! I, your only daughter   offer myself as a sacrifice to your victory,   but, my father, fulfill one wish to   your only daughter before I die."
Jephthah arioso solo Tenor		"Quid / poterit / animam / tuam, / quid / poterit / te, what / can / to soul / your / what / can / to you moritura / filia, / consolari?" will die / daughter / to comfort	" But what can I do, doomed daughter,   to comfort you and your soul?"
Filia arioso solo Soprano Judges 11:37		"Dimitte / me, / ut / duobus / mensibus send away / me / that / two / months circumeam / montes, / et / cum I will wander / mountains / and / with sodalibus / meis / plangam / virginitatem / meam." companions / my/ bewail / virginity / my	"Send me away, that for two months   I may wander in the mountains, and with   my companions bewail my virginity."
Jephthah arioso solo Tenor Judges 11:38		"Vade, / filia / mia / unigenita, go / daughter / my / only-born et / plange / virginitatem / tuam." and / bewail / virginity / your	"Go, my only daughter,   go and bewail your virginity."
Historicus à 4 narrative S-A-T-B		Abiit / ergo / in / montes / filia / Jephte, et went away / then / to / mountains / daughter / Jephthah / and plorabat / cum / sodalibus / virginitatem / suam, / dicens: bewailed / with / companions / virginity / her / saying	Then Jephthah's daughter went away to the mountains, and   bewailed her virginity with her companions, saying:
Filia aria accompagnata solo Soprano		"Plorate / colles, / dolete / montes, bewail / hills / grieve / mountains et / in / afflictione / cordis / mei / ululate! and / in / affliction / heart / my / howl	Mourn, you hills, grieve, you mountains,   and howl in the affliction of my heart!
Echo solo Soprano 1 & 2		Ululate!	Howl!
Filia aria accompagnata solo Soprano		Ecce / moriar / virgo / et / non / potero behold / will die / virgin / and / not / will be morte mea / meis filiis / consolari, death my / my children / to comfort ingemiscite / silvae, / fontes / et / flumina, sigh / woods/ fountains / and / rivers in / interitu / virginis / lachrimate! on / destruction / virgin / weep	Behold! I will die a virgin, and shall not   in my death find consolation in my children.   Then groan, woods, fountains, and rivers,   weep for the destruction of a virgin!
Echo solo Soprano 1 & 2		Lachrimate!	Weep!
Filia aria accompagnata solo Soprano		Heu / me / dolentem / in / laetitia / populi, alas / to me / I grieve / amidst / joy / of people in/ victoria / Israel / et / gloria amidst / victory / Israel / and / glory patris / mei, / ego, / sine / filiis / virgo, of father / my / I / without/ children / virgin ego / filia / unigenita / moriar / et / non / vivam. I / daughter / only-born / will die / and/ not / live Exhorrescite / rupes, / obstupescite / colles, / valles tremble / rocks / be astounded / hills/ valleys et / cavernae/ in / sonitu / horribili / resonate! and / caverns/ with / sound / horrible / resound	Woe to me! I grieve amidst the rejoicing of the   people, amidst the victory of Israel and   the glory of my father, I, a childless virgin,   I, an only daughter, must die and no longer live.   Then tremble, you rocks, be astounded, you hills,   vales, and caves, resonate with horrible sound!
Echo solo Soprano 1 & 2		Resonate!	Resonate!
Filia aria accompagnata solo Soprano		Plorate / filii / Israel, bewail / chldren / Israel plorate / virginitatem / meam, bewail / virginity / my et / Jephte / filiam / unigenitam / in and / Jephthah / daughter / only-born / with carmine / dolore / lamentamini." songs / anguish / lament	Weep, you children of Israel,   bewail my hapless virginity,   and for Jephthah's only daughter,   lament with songs of anguish."
Chorus à 6 response		Plorate / filii / Israel, bewail / children / Israel plorate / omnes / virgines, bewail / all / virgins et / filiam / Jephte / unigenitam / in and / daughter / Jephthah / only-born / with carmine / doloris / lamentamini. songs / of anguish / lament	Weep, you children of Israel,   weep, all you virgins,   and for Jephthah's only daughter,   lament with songs of anguish.
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