Programme notes A - MAngelorum
This piece has a key signature of Eb major. Apart from a momentary modulation at the climax there are no accidentals. There is no counterpoint or polyphony, only block chords, simple diatonic melodies and pedal notes in the left hand.
Angelorum was commissioned by Thalia Myers with funds provided by the Michael Tippett Foundation and South East Arts, and was first performed by Thalia Myers at Trinity Arts Centre, Tunbridge Wells, on 19 November 1987.
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Cecilia Virgo
The florid, ecstatic music of the Eton Choirbook is a particular obsession of mine so I was very excited that Cecilia Virgo was to receive its first performance alongside pieces from that miraculous repertoire. My first attempt to engage with this extraordinary music, A Vision of Aeroplanes (premiered by the BBC Singers in 1997) took its cue from the ever-changing combinations of voices and ornate, complex counterpoint characteristic of early Tudor polyphony. Cecilia Virgo is more concerned with sonority and density of texture, which relates it to the multi-part 16th-century tradition as exemplified by Tallis's 40-part 'Spem in alium' and Carveri's 19-part 'O bone Jesu'; the harmony is often static, animated rhythmically from within, as befits a piece designed for the resonant acoustic of Canterbury Cathedral.
The opening invocation, whose music recurs, extended, at the end, is written in twelve parts - a series of overlapping descending scales (at different speeds) spreads through the choir until it coalesces onto an F major chord; much of what follows is homophonic, with contrasts of scoring and rich harmony (hushed at Iuncta voce and fiercely bright at in paradisi gloriam) and at tuosque pupilos there is an extended section for six solo sopranos which harks back to the Tudor practice of gimell - the division of a line into multiple parts of equal range.
Cecilia Virgo was commissioned by the BBC and was first performed by the BBC Singers, directed by Stephen Cleobury, in Canterbury Cathedral on 26 October 2000.
Cecilia Virgo, tuas laudes universa concinit musicorum turba, et tuis meritis supplices a Deo exaudiri possint. Iuncta voce et uno corde tuum nomen invocant, ut luctum mundi in paradisi gloriam mutare digneris; tuosque pupilos, tutelaris Virgo, aspicere velis, piam Dominam, inclamantes, et semper dicentes: Sancta Cecilia, ora pro nobis.
"Virgin Cecilia, all musicians celebrate thy praises, and through thy merits, supplicants can be heard by God. With one voice and with one heart, they call upon thy name, that thou mayst deign to change the mourning of the world into the glory of Paradise; and be willing, O protecting Virgin, to look upon thy wards, calling upon the pious lady, and always saying: Saint Cecilia, pray for us."
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Clarinet Quintet: In Prarial and Thermidor
Clarinet Quintet: In Prairial and Thermidor is the third of three pieces based on works by the great Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay, each work being in a different medium, though all are text-based. The quintet, in two movements - 'A Litany for Prairial' and 'A Requiem for Thermidor'- is derived from an artist's book, A Litany A Requiem. Printed on, alternately, red, white and blue paper, a list of plants from the month of Prairial (May-June in the French Revolutionary Calendar) is set against a list of those revolutionaries guillotined along with Robespierre in the month of Thermidor (July-August). A note explains that the fatal day was named Arrosoir (watering can).
Each movement is in six sections (one for each plant, or revolutionary). The proportions, metres and key structures of the two movements are identical, so that the second is an exact structural reprise of the first. The music of 'A Litany for Prairial' is fast, lively and (mostly) pastoral, while 'A Requiem for Thermidor' is slow, largely subdued and funereal. There is no attempt to characterise any plant or person, although Robespierre is commemorated with an anguished shriek, and Saint-Just by a pianissimo chorale over an inexorable cello ostinato.
Clarinet Quintet: In Prairial and Thermidor was written to a private commission and was first performed by Andrew Sparling and the Brindisi Quartet at the Tate Gallery on 13 June 1996.
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Comeragh litanies
The litanies of the title are sixteen discrete sections of music, varying in length from two seconds to a minute. Each of these blocks has a different texture, musical character and registration from its predecessor, and the structure of the piece is articulated by a pattern of contrasts, repetitions and allusions.
'Comeragh Road' is the name of the street where I lived when the piece was written, as well as being a mountain range in the Republic of Ireland.
Comeragh Litanies was commissioned by Rupert Gough with funds provided by the Leche Trust, the Kenneth Leighton Trust and the Percy Whitlock Trust, and was first performed by Rupert Gough at St John's, Smith Square, London on 4 February 1999.
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Eurydice
Eurydice is the first of three pieces based on works by the great Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay, each work being in a different medium, though all are text-based. Eurydice has its origin in a series of six large stones installed in a garden in Provence. The stones, set in a sea of lavender (representing water) are inscribed with a simple poetic text, each line of which begins with "Eurydice" and is followed by a natural phenomenon - 'the mountain-tops', 'the oaks' etc.
The piece is in eleven sections divided into pairs with a single one at the end. Each section begins with a refrain - 'Eurydice' - followed by differently characterised music for 'the woods', 'the clouds' etc. Sometimes this is quasi-onomatopoeic, as in 'the swifts', 'the nightingales'; representational - 'the floods', 'the stars'; or more subtly allusive.
Eurydice was written to a private commission and was first performed by Andrew Sparling at St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate, on 13 October 1995
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Hymn to the Trinity (Honor, Virtus et Potestas)
Hymn to the Trinity (Honor, Virtus et Potestas) was commissioned by Chapelle du Roi with funds provided by the Britten-Pears Foundation and was first performed by Chapelle du Roi, directed by Alistair Dixon, at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Warwick, on 11 July 2000.
As Thomas Tallis lies at the heart of Chapelle du Roi's repertoire I wanted to set a text that he had used; Alistair Dixon suggested a Respond - a form I find particularly satisfying with its rondo-like repetitions - and I chose 'Honor, virtus et potestas' for this small homage to (to my mind) England's greatest composer. Whereas Tallis assigned the 'solo' portions of the text to chant ('Honor, Trinitati lux perennis'... and the 'Gloria Patri'), placing them in a sea of polyphony, in my piece they are stated in stark homophony. There are some Trinitarian references in the music - the metre is always either 3/2, 3/4 or 3/8, and at Trinitati lux perennis the three upper voices move in parallel triads (there is also a hint here of the double gimell so beloved of Tallis and his contemporaries).
Honor, virtus et potestas, et imperium sit Trinitati in Unitate, Unitati in Trinitate,
in perenni saeculorum tempore.
Trinitati lux perennis, Unitati sit decus perpetim.
In perenni saeculorum tempore.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.
In perenni saeculorum tempore.
"Honour, power, might and dominion be to the Trinity in Unity, to the Unity in Trinity, throughout everlasting ages.
To the Trinity be endless light, to the Unity be glory unceasingly.
Throughout everlasting ages.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.
Throughout everlasting ages."
Sixth Respond at Matins, Trinity Sunday
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
I look from afar
This setting of the Matin Responsory for Advent Sunday was commissioned in 1991 by Stephen Darlington and the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (with funds from Southern Arts) as an alternative to the more commonly used setting which is actually an adaptation of a Palestrina Magnificat. The Respond structure, with its rondo-like repetitions, is particularly satisfying and although this piece doesn't contain any chant - as was the case in Renaissance responsaries - when a line of text recurs it always has the same music. The piece is predominantly in a sturdy G minor, with an abrupt shift to E Major for the Gloria.
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
Lux Mortuorum
Lux Mortuorum is the most recent in a series of pieces with specially-written texts by Richard George Elliott. This approach to the writing of vocal and choral works enables words and music to be integrated conceptually from the outset. Very early on we decided that the kind of intimate, personalised sentiments usually asociated with the solo song repertoire would not be appropriate for a choir of some 30-plus singers, so Lux Mortuorum has a more distant, objectified manner consistent with its other-worldly subject.
Lux Mortuorum was commissioned by the Ionian Singers who gave the first performance, directed by Timothy Salter, at St John's, Smith Square, London on 19 November 2005.
Crystal points tug on million year filaments,
Giants flare cold and white in the void,
Shift slowly, gently pulse above.
Outside the coded fringe of space,
Beyond the crest of man's trajectories,
Unfixed by earth's discrete radiance,
Mass in chaos graceless hordes.
Jostling for reward, grieving for emerald life,
Counting down birth as sighted stars,
Luminous souls of the dead.
© Gabriel Jackson, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
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