SATB [SSAA also available] Unaccompanied (with rehearsal piano part) Duration: ~ 2 minutes Difficulty: Moderate (some close/clustered harmony)
This quietly emotional anthem with text by the poet Alice Meynell focuses on an unheard, hidden moment at the very centre of the Easter story.
All night had shout of men and cry Of woeful women filled His way; Until that noon of sombre sky On Friday, clamour and display Smote Him; no solitude had He, No silence, since Gethsemane.
Public was Death; but Power, but Might, But Life again, but Victory, Were hushed within the dead of night, The shutter’d dark, the secrecy. And all alone, alone, alone, He rose again behind the stone.
A setting of the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei for women’s voices (or upper voices). This piece takes inspiration from medieval chant as well as other traditional and modern styles to create an experience that is meditative, moving and exciting. Missa Brevis is suitable for either church use or concert performance. It can be sung as a whole piece or sections performed individually.
The Kyrie is built around a sevenfold repetition of a single line and set of wordless chords. The Gloria and Sanctus are fast and upbeat, influenced by traditional Estonian work-songs to emphasise how the glory of God fills the heavens and the earth. The Benedictus is warm and peaceful, and the Agnus Dei the most emotionally charged and containing the most dissonance.
The choir is divided into SSAA with further divisi in the Benedictus and Agnus Dei, but often uses a unison or two-part texture. There are several opportunities for soloists or small groups to shine.
Performances: St Paul’s Church, Bristol, 28 March 2018 Bristol University Schola Cantorum conducted by Emma Hornby
Mass, sacred, choral, mass ordinary, short mass, church, liturgy.
Two separate texts appearing on his memorial in St. Giles Cathedral. The first part is flowing, irregular, folk-like; the second a solemn but joyful hymn.
2019
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.
Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotland, prayer, thanksgiving, memorial, funeral, remembrance, folk, anthem.