Dialogue takes the ‘Sanctus’ of my 2017 work Missa Sancti Albanus as the source for a spirited exploration of the material and its possibilities on the organ. It largely follows the shape of the original but expands on each section aiming to realise the inherent potential of the music therein. The main deviation is at the end of the work, where the affirming ending of the Sanctus is replaced with a quiet dissipation of the dialogue between voices and musical material.

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.

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.

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’.

My second setting of the Te Deum is more expansive than the first, split into four movements and featuring a prominent solo soprano part. It takes a short self-quotation from an earlier work as the basis for a fifteen-minute modal fantasia.

Fantasia is my longest single-movement organ work to date and forms part of a current preoccupation with transforming or transfiguring previous musical materials into something of a more beautiful or spiritual state. In this case, the Fantasia is a transfiguration of a motet of mine Veni Sancte Spiritus (‘Come Holy Ghost’) that I finished in 2012 but had begun much earlier in c.2004.

When in Our Music is a ‘festival’ anthem for choir, brass, percussion and organ, written to be a celebratory and optimistic offering full of vibrancy and verve.

Two Hymn Tune Preludes were written for the Oxford University Press anthology Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists: Holy Communion and are new arrangements of exisiting well-known hymn tunes.

This setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimmitis has been performed all across the world. It was commissioned by the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music in 2018.

Twelfth Night is a simple setting of Laurie Lee’s much-loved poem of the same title in which the poet vividly depicts a winter scene to emphasise the coming of the Wise Men.

For He is Our Peace is a dramatic anthem on this simple text of reconciliation. The piece is in a simple ABA form with associated harmonic areas to emphasise the change of material.

Noah’s Fire is my largest work to date, as well as the most ambitious and with the longest gestation. This work is envisaged as an oratorio in the ‘British Oratorio Tradition’, a tradition of large-scale, choral-orchestral works.

Epitaph is based around simple harmonic devices and fragments that are varied throughout. The work is significantly coloured by the minor ninth harmony which is present in all the key moments of the piece.

In modo elegiaco are three simple studies in sustained, elegiac organ writing. All are homophonic, slow and chordal and are studies in a particular sonority rather than a designated set or suite.

PAC

My Second Service treads a similar path to the first setting of 2009, though perhaps this one is a little more expansive and goes to greater length to stress sensual, mystical elements.