The eighth-tone Magnificat setting is constructed on similar lines to
Confitebor tibi, Domine, though exhibiting a greater degree of freedom in paraphrasing the chant. Verse 5, for example (‘Et misericordia eius’) is imitative rather than chordal, and a strong contrast is effected between verses 7 (‘Deposuit’) and 9 (‘Suscepit Israel’). The final polyphonic verse expands the texture to five voices, with a canon at the upper fifth between the tenor and the added voice: the soprano part, too, is almost all canonic at the octave with the tenor, requiring only a single amendment so that its second note is consonant with the lower voices.
from notes by Roger Jacob & Stephen Rice © 2009
;)
