When George Frideric Handel moved from northern Germany, his lifelong home, to Italy in 1706, it was for the purpose of gathering firsthand knowledge of Italian opera. However, Handel's decision to travel to Rome near the end of that first Italian year (or perhaps at the start of the next) must have been a bit counterproductive, since Papal edict had put an end to all theatrical entertainment in the city all the way back in 1677. Handel had no trouble finding employment as a composer of pure sacred music, however, and spring and summer of 1707 saw the composition of a large proportion of his wonderful Latin-texted choral works, including the large-scale Dixit Dominus for vocal solists, chorus, and string orchestra, HWV 232.

The Dixit Dominus is a musical setting in eight sections of Psalm 109, to which is added a setting of the Lesser Doxology that normally follows the reading of a psalm. Handel essentially crafted the text into a half-hour oratorio, finding, as so many Italian composers had already done, that Church authorities didn't seem to mind if one indulged in full-blown operatic style as long as the subject remained appropriate for sacred services. The lyric arias and dramatic choruses in the work are very similar to those one finds in Handel's English oratorios of many decades later, even if they show a little less aristocratic flair.

A sizable instrumental introduction, full of dramatic violin arpeggios, ushers in the opening chorus, "Dixit Dominus Domine meo." The alto (or, more properly, countertenor) aria "Virgam virtutis" is by comparison far more relaxed, while the soprano's first aria offers the opportunity for both exquisite cantabile and refined melismatic exercise. The second chorus, "Iuravit Dominus," is a striking thing, bursting forth rapidly after a mysterious opening, but then moving almost immediately back—via a very dramatic grand pause—to the chromatic quagmire of the opening; again things rush forth, this time maintaining velocity until the end. The second half of the psalm verse begun in "Iuravit Dominus" is given in the next chorus, "Tu es sacerdos." The chorus and five soloists (two sopranos, alto, tenor, and bass) join forces for the next two numbers, "Dominus a dextris" and "Iudicabit in nationibus." "De torrente in via bibet" is a very dissonant duet for two sopranos, while the final Doxology ("Gloria Patri...") moves forward along very melismatic lines. The final Amen is in the traditional fugal style.

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