www.signumrecords.com/catalogue/sigcd501/index.htm SATB soli, SATB/SATB and organ Duration: ca 17'30" This work was commissioned for the 2002 Southern Cathedrals Festival For more information about the score please visit the Contacts page This work is on world release on Signum Records SIGCD 501, in a performance by Tenebrae under Nigel Short, with Jeremy Filsell, organ. Click on the notes below to take you to the relevant section
(text Samuel Crossman 1624 - 1683) This anthem sets all of Samuel Crossman's verses but one (commonly omitted when the poem is sung metrically as a hymn). The music begins with offbeat repeated chords prompted -not inappropriately -by the opening to Richard Strauss's tone poem, Death and Transfiguration. In its early stages only trebles and altos are heard. The sequential flow of Crossman's poem is soon disrupted with particular dramatic ends in mind. After a seemingly anxious harmonic distortion of the opening chords, the word 'crucify' arises initially as a mere mutter from the lower voices, so timed as to afford assonance with other words in the upper parts and thus remain barely discernible, as if only imagined. In due course, however, cries of 'Hosanna' find themselves on a collision course with a rising tide of 'Crucify', during which the 'Hosanna' faction gradually loses heart and, sheep-like, defects until a single treble voice -plaintively daring to repeat the 'offending' word -is swept aside by a murderous outcry. In due course 'Crucify' recurs as a further angry climax before the opening music returns, this time expanding into an extended polyphonic final section for double choir and SATB soloists. The principal climax of the work subsides into a form of epilogue, crowned sorrowfully by a treble soloist to whom the music in toto has by now presented many challenges. The anthem ends in the key and mood of its opening. The character of its demanding organ part reflects the possibility that it may one day be orchestrated.
My
Song is Love Unknown was
composed in memory of Michael Renton, beloved of many in the Winchester
Cathedral community; a true and humble artist, of whose rare order
Traherne surely spoke when he wrote: '...Whosoever
will profit in the mystery of Felicity, must see the objects of his
happiness, and the manner how they are to be enjoyed, and discern also
the powers of his soul by which he is to enjoy them'. F.P., 2002
Music Web, 2003 I have, however, deliberately left to last the piece which has made the greatest impact on me. This is the other offering from Francis Pott, The souls of the righteous Pott has perfectly realised the serenity and consolation conveyed in these lines and has constructed a truly beautiful piece of choral music… Sustains the mood of subdued ecstasy right through to the seraphic concluding Amen. An exceptional piece. International Record Review,
2003 Classical News, 2003 Classic FM Magazine, 2003 BBC Music Magazine, 2003
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