"Dāvids Zaula priekšā" (David Before Saul)

Written and also performed in 1928 (first published 1933), this work is the most monumental of Vītols' choral ballads. In the epilogue to his Collected Songs (Kopotas dziesmas, Riga, 1933) the composer refers to it, half-seriously, as being almost too complicated for performance, yet considers it to be his masterpiece.
 The song makes use of a ballad with the same title (first published 1918) by Fricis Bārda, which the composer modified and abridged to some degree. The biblical subject matter is the relationship between Saul, King of the Hebrews in the 12th century BC, and David, the shepherd who miraculously escaped death from a spear thrown by his infuriated king, and later became the King's musician and eventually his heir.