Dilectus meus

Giovanni Domenico Rognoni Taeggio, an Italian composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque, wrote this sacred motet for SATB voices. The Latin text is taken from the Song of Songs and expresses passionate devotion and anticipation. It opens with the lover's beloved calling out, 'My beloved is mine and I am his.' The music reflects the text's imagery of the beloved's arrival, described with phrases like 'See, he comes leaping upon the mountains' and inviting the singer to 'Come, my beloved, hasten, my dove.' The text's lush, poetic language describing beauty and sweetness, culminating in 'Alleluia,' makes this a deeply expressive work for a choir.