Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12: V. Duo (soprano & bass)

In looking into the Latin Vulgate recently, I found the source of the text for the fifth movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12.  Of course, sections of the text are repeated, but it's basically:  "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini!  Deus Dominus, et illuxit nobis.  Deus meus es tu, et confitebor tibi.  Deus meus es tu, et exaltabo te."  This comes from parts of Psalm 118:26-28:  "26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!  We bless you from the house of the LORD.  27 The LORD is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us.  Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!  28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you."

Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12: IV. Air et chœur

I've been going through John in the Latin Vulgate, and last week, I stumbled upon what I think is the source for the text in a movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12.  In her conversation with Jesus after Lazarus' death, Martha says, "Utique Domine ego credidi quia tu es Christus Filius Dei qui in mundum venisti" (John 11:27).  In the ESV, this is rendered as:  "Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world."

In the fourth movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, the text is "Domine ego credidi quia tu es Christus Filius Dei vivi qui in hunc mundum venisti."  Aside from "vivi" and "hunc," this matches the verse from John exactly.

Vivi is an adjective (from vivus, viva, vivum) that means "living," so this text seems to incorporate a bit of Matthew 16:16 too:  "Simon Peter replied, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'"

Hunc is a demonstrative adjective.  The Oratorio text is just a bit more specific than John; instead of simply "into the world," it's "into this world."

Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12: X. Chœur

The tenth movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio begins with "Tollite hostias" ("Raise offerings"), and this is demonstrated in the music.  In the soprano part, there's an interval of a fourth (D to G) between the notes for "Tollite" and the note for the first syllable of "hostias" (which is also the highest note in the phrase).  In the other vocal parts, there are smaller (but still upward) intervals between "Tollite" and "hostias."  In the tenor and bass parts, the word "Tollite" itself is sung to an ascending group of notes:

The rest of this line is "et adorate Dominum in atrio sancto eius" ("and worship the Lord in His holy hall").  The notes to which "adorate" is sung generally descend, as if to illustrate bowing in worship.

Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12: V. Duo (soprano & bass)

There are more cross inscriptions in the fifth movement of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, but I don't know if there's any significance to these.

The text here is a copulative sentence ("Deus meus es tu" - literally "God mine are you," but in a smooth translation, it's "You are my God"), and as one voice sings the subject and verb ("tu es"), the other sings the predicate nominative ("Deus"), so the overlap of these two voices illustrates the meaning of the sentence.

Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12: II. Recit et chœur

I'd forgotten about this, but one of my goals for 2020 was to post some old notes on Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio.

In the second movement, when the soprano sings "Et hoc vobis signum" ("And this to you a sign" - the first part of Luke 2:12), the musical setting of "vobis signum" forms a cross:

I feel that this has significance, but I can't come up with a good explanation for it.

The chœur section of the second movement has the text "Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax..." ("Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace..." - Luke 2:14).  "Gloria in altissimis Deo" is first sung by the sopranos and the altos, the higher voices, and "Et in terra pax" is first sung by the tenors and the basses, the lower voices:

Distributing those parts of the text among those particular voices results in an audible representation of the highness of heaven and the lowness of earth.

Furthermore, the "altissimis" ("highest") is set across a series of rising notes, indicating that height: