SKU: HL.48025402
UPC: 196288201038.
Short motet commissioned by St DominicÂ’s Sixth Form College, Harrow-on-the-Hill, UK, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. MacMillan chose a text which is entirely appropriate to young people about to be let loose on the world to fulfil their potential: 'Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire'. But where another composer might have made this a fanfare MacMillan writes with the gentleness of sincerity. The music is very straightforward and in wanting a solo soprano line he outlines all the ways this can be achieved: soloist, group of sopranos, or all the sopranos if the altos can be split into two. The choir repeats the mantra text above throughout the motet, while the soprano solo line is given the prayer which follows. Only at the very end do they all join together in the words 'Jesus, love, Jesus, love' with a lovely E major ending.
SKU: CA.964100
ISBN 9790007143541. Text language: Latin.
The Good Friday Responsory Tenebrae factae sunt for six-part chorus was commissioned in 2012 for Peking University Student Choir and was premiered at the World Choir Games in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA conducted by Hou Xijin. It is an ambitious work with a fervent intensity. Matsushita sets the two last words of Jesus, Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? [My God, why hast thou forsaken me] and Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum [Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit] as pained outcries in Stravinskyian harshness, in chords characterized by tritones, as a truly superhuman work of redemption whose Easter message of hope only appears in the last conciliatory F major chord. Although this work lies slightly beyond the upper limit of the musical and vocal technical demands of the Carus Contemporary series, it is well within the abilities of ambitious chamber choirs.
© 2000 - 2024 Home - New realises - Composers Legal notice - Full version
