Exsultet (2014, rev. 2024)
Organ
Commissioned by the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music for the 2014 festival.
Duration:
6′
First performance:
14 May 2014
Leon Charles, St Pancras Church, Marylebone, London, UK
Scottish première:
20 January 2020
Jonathan Clinch, King’s College Chapel, Aberdeen, UK
French Première:
11 May 2024
Florence Rousseau, Eglise de Paramé, Saint-Malo, France
Score
Programme note
Exsultet take its title from the opening line of the Easter Proclamation – the hymn of praise sung before the lighting of the paschal candle during the Easter Vigil. My work is an attempt to distil much of the exultation and rejoicing of this moment in the church year, but being fully aware of what has passed and what is still to come. Exsultet is essentially in a sort of Rondo form with the opening material returning in several different and progressively more complex guises, this is interspersed by slower, more reflective material with a characteristic arabesque fragment. The two groups of material gradually interfere with each other, and elements of one seeps into the other.
PAC
Recording
Exsultet (2014) by Phillip Cooke, performed by Leon Charles on the organ of St Pancras Church, London, on 14 May 2014.
