Although the authorship of the "Handel" Gloria has been disputed in past studies, an analysis of an overlooked borrowing shared between the Gloria and one of Handel's earliest-known compositions, Laudate pueri in F, supports the Handel attribution. Both are scored for solo soprano, two violins, and continuo, which is uncommon in other German and Italian mass and psalm settings of the period. The material shared between the works, a sixteenth-note melismatic progression through the circle of fifths, appears in the sixth movement of Laudate pueri in F on the text "Ut collocet eum" and in the Gloria in the "Cum Sancto Spirito" section. In the Gloria, the melisma occurs on "Amen," linking it with two of Handel's later works, Laudate pueri in D and Zadok the Priest, which both contain similar Amen flourishes. Accepting that the Laudate pueri in F was composed first, it is quite plausible and chronologically fits within the young composer's oeuvre that Handel composed the Gloria, expanded the melismatic embellishment from his earlier Laudate pueri, and used it as an Amen motif, a practice which he continued in his later Laudate pueri and Zadok the Priest. It is right to be circumspect about accepting a new work into Handel's output, but the attribution of the Gloria to Handel finds support in the earlier and later usages Handel made of material found within this piece.

Works: Handel(?): Gloria (75-90); Handel: Laudate pueri in D, HWV 237 (76-83, 86), Zadok the Priest, HWV 258 (77-83, 86).

Sources: Handel: Laudate pueri in F, HWV 236 (75-90); Handel(?): Gloria (76-78).

Index Classifications: 1700s

Contributed by: Mary Ellen Ryan