Ex Sion Species

Description

EX SION SPECIES (MH 443) was composed on August 28, 1787, in Salzburg, Austria (the trumpet parts were added in 1796). This edition is based upon the autograph score, preserved in the music archive of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich: Mus. mss. 336. The score is laid out over eight pages, eight staves per page. The first page of the autograph score reads:

Graduale pro Dominica 2da Adventus. à 4 Voci in pieno, 2 Violini non obbligati, e l'Organo di G. Mich Haydn mpia ..

This composition is scored for SATB choir, two trumpets in Bb, two violins, cello, bass and continuo. The Latin text, from Psalm 50:2-3, 5, serves as the Gradual for the second Sunday of Advent.

The present edition adheres closely to the above-mentioned source, noting editorial markings in parentheses. Voice parts, where notated in moveable clefs, were rewritten in treble clef; phrase markings in the voice parts were added where two or more notes occurred for a single syllable of text; textual underlay, given generally only in the soprano and tenor parts, was added to the alto and bass parts.

English translation:
Out of Zion, in perfect beauty,
God will clearly come.

Gather my saints to me, those who
have made a covenant with me with
sacrifice.