Silver is an attempt to write simple, melodic songs that are direct and emotive, but stripped of any unnecessary embellishments or ornaments. The three songs are all poems from Walter De La Mare (1873-1956), one of my favourite poets as a composer and are a return to his work for me after setting it earlier with Two De La Mare Songs (2012) and The Song of Shadows (2016). All three songs relate to moonlight, and all include the word ‘silver’ that gives the set its title.

The Two Recessionals continue the exploration of plainchant in my recent work. The first is a short work based on the St Edmund Antiphon and was written for the Patronal Festival at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. It is in a firm ABA form and progressively builds to a huge climax. The second is a little more subdued and takes the plainchant O lux beata Trinitas as its source material. Again, it exhibits a strong ABA form, but here the B material is taken from my own choral setting of the O lux beata Trinitas text (from 2013) and provides a sonic contrast to the prevailing music.

Although I have written many pieces that utilise different choral groupings and spatial effects, I had until this point never written a piece for a tradition antiphonal double choir. Therefore it was nice to have the opportunity and the double challenge of setting this well known text. Although the ghosts of Vaughan Williams and Leighton were never far away, I hope to have created something new and of worth with these wonderful words.

My setting of the Agnus Dei is in a simple tripartite form, with softer modal writing balanced against more strident homophonic material. This balancing is accentuated by two different harmonic spheres which are in a benign conflict, with one ultimately prevailing over the other. Throughout, the organ acts as both onlooker and participant, providing the necessary detachment to create a meaningful setting of these heartfelt words.

Hodie Christus Natus Est is a homage to that particularly ‘rustic’ element in early medieval church music, where elements of the pre-Christian and Christian rites seemed to coexist in a beguiling symbiosis. The work aims to blend a folksy, communal dance element with more traditional choral writing. It is a light-hearted piece, and the score could be used as a blueprint to a more extreme version of what is composed where the ‘pagan’ aspects of the work could be exaggerated to great effect.

Three Meditations takes three diverse plainchant themes and recolours them in my own harmonic language, each seeking to bring out different aspects of these beautiful, transcendent pieces of music. The suite works as a broad ABA, with the outer meditations being more thoughtful and discursive and the middle piece being a more concise exploration of one phrase from ‘Christus Vincit’.

Christus Resurgens is a dramatic and gestural setting of this short Easter text. The work is in a simple rondo form with the declamatory outbursts of ‘Christus’ interspersed with more introspective matieral. The work is dedicated to Christopher Batchelor in admiration for all his support for my music at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.

Bennachie is a suite for piano taking inspiration from the eponymous hill that is so prominent in the relatively flat, fertile lands of east Aberdeenshire. The hill is prominent, not just in topographical terms, but also that it has such a rich and established cultural and historical legacy that embraces myth, legend and real, visceral events that have shaped the land and the people that live in its lee. Bennachie was commissioned by the Bailies of Bennachie (a charity that not only seeks to preserve the natural environs of the hill, but also to encourage interest in its cultural and historical past) for their 50th anniversary to engender further interest in the hill and to contribute to the existing artistic legacy associated with it.

PAC