Alessandro De Marchi presents another exciting story at the Festival taken from the cornucopia of dramatic Italian oratorio. In the orchestral instrumentation of «Davidis pugna et victoria» Alessandro Scarlatti contrasts a concertino group with the concerto grosso. When the two groups play together the moment has come for Goliath to sound the call to arms. He enters into combat together with an eight-part chorus of Philistines and five-part strings. But all the vocal and instrumental might does not save the giant. With God’s help, the gentle shepherd boy David defeats him in the end. During his time in Rome, Scarlatti wrote in the style of Carissimi, the «creator» of the oratorio, and used a narrator («Historicus») and a double chorus to depict the confrontation between the Philistines and the Hebrews. Alessandro De Marchi calls this «space music in stereo».

The libretto is in Latin because the oratorio was performed in front of an educated Roman audience. It may therefore also be assumed that these spectators recognised the only non-biblical passage, which compares David with the founder of Rome – an allusion to Virgil’s «Aeneid». Scarlatti’s oratorio thus provides a link to the opera «Didone abbandonata» and the Trojan hero Aeneas, who embarks on a journey from Catharge towards Rome at the 2018 Innsbruck Festival, with the music supplied by Mercadante.