SSAATTBB choir SKU: C4.9790902260480
Composed by Brooke Shelley. Classical. Score. Crescendo Music Publications #9790902260480. Published by Crescendo Music Publications (C4.9790902260480). ISBN 9790902260480. 8.27 x 11.7 inches.
Heavenly Father was commissioned by Sydney Chamber Choir for a concert in 2022 which featured Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien. Melodic lines from Schütz’s work are used throughout Heavenly Father: the first soprano melody in the opening chorus at ‘Herr Gott Vater in Himmel’ is featured at the beginning and repeated throughout, as are the melodies, for example, at ‘Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt’, and at ‘seinem verklärten Leibe’, among other places.
In a conversation about what this commission would be, it was agreed that the sense of the work would be about the circle of life expressed in Musikalische Exequien rather than about death itself. It is because of this ‘sense’ that the end of Heavenly Father is reversed, illustrating a musical circle: the lower voices sing the ‘Herr Gott Vater in Himmel’ phrase backwards, and the upper voices sing the melodies backwards that were sung by the lower voices at the beginning.
