Choral
SKU:
HL.14042246
SSAATTBB. Composed
by Henry Purcell. Edited
by Watkins Shaw. Music
Sales America. General
Worship, Sacred.
Softcover. 7 pages. Music
Sales #NOV292369.
Published by Music Sales
(HL.14042246).
ISBN
9781780382227. UPC:
884088922061.
6.5x9.75x0.045
inches.
This
setting of the opening to
Psalm 102 was composed in
the early 1680s. Purcell,
who was in his early
twenties, had succeeded
John Blow as organist of
Westminster Abbey around
the beginning of the
decade and his star was
in the ascendant as a
court composer.
In
this piece he pulls off a
remarkable compositional
coup: a single, gradual
climax, lasting over two
minutes and culminating
on the final repetition
of the word 'come', is
achieved through a
sublime, freely
developing eight-part
weave of the opening
material. The
harmonies that
result from the chromatic
inflections on the word
'crying' all serve the
mounting tension in this
extraordinary
miniature.
Studyof
the autograph manuscript
suggest that this anthem
was intended to be the
opening part of a larger
work which was never
completed.
