motet notes - Britten

The motet Deus in adjutorium meum by Benjamin Britten is a setting Psalm 70, the appointed Psalm for the day in the Revised Common Lectionary.  It was composed in 1945 for the Ronald Duncan play This Way to the Tomb. Duncan, who would soon prepare the libretto for Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia, casts the play in two parts, Masque and Antimasque. While the Antimasque is mostly satirical to the point of containing pop music, the Masque is all vocal, most of it choral, and includes the today’s setting of Deus in adjutorium meum.