The present Magnificat setting has been anonymously handed down as a complete handwritten set of voices in the Düben Collection at Uppsala University Library. Gustav Düben (1628-1690) began to build up an extensive collection of over 2000 instrumental and vocal compositions of his time, at the latest when he was appointed organist and kapellmeister at the Swedish court in Stockholm in 1660. The collected transcriptions and prints he acquired partly on his own journeys through Central Europe, but also through extensive international correspondence he received originals, which were sent back after copying. [...] The collection, which was later continued by Düben's sons, is today considered one of the most comprehensive and important sources of European music of the 17th and early 18th centuries and at the same time provides an impressive picture of the stylistic diversity and international cultural networking of this period. Bruno Grusnick was able to prove, on the basis of the ink numbers Düben used for cataloguing the title pages of the sacred vocal works, that the present Magnificat with the number 410 was added to the collection in 1671 and must therefore have been composed at an earlier date. [...]
In its undisguised bliss of thirds, the stylistic arrangement of the piece points more to the southern German or Alpine region, and especially the use of the two concertante trombones in alto register, set high, usually in parallel in thirds or sixths and only occasionally split up briefly for imitative purposes, could be an indication of the piece's origin in the environment of the Habsburg court in Vienna. Antonio Caldara (1670-1736), who later became vice-kapellmeister of the Viennese court, for example, uses a very similar instrumentation and handling of the trombones both in sacred music (e.g. Stabat mater) and in various arias from operas and oratorios. [...]
This is undoubtedly a worthwhile, virtuoso Magnificat setting which captivates precisely because of the rich tonal possibilities of its unusual instrumentation.
By the preface of Carl-Philipp Kaptain
