... and another started (post 2 of 2)

Barely a couple of weeks after putting the finishing touches to Beati qui lugent, we were celebrating the harvest festival and I was suddenly hit by what I later realised was a bit of a pretentious idea. Even if I hadn't later found the original German version of the hymn "We plough the fields and scatter" to be, well, rather naff, a multilingual cantata would be better suited to a Pentecostal work than a cantata for harvesttide.

So here's the plan - this time with an organ part, 'cos let's face it, there are lots of dramatic bits to this which would be much enlivened by having an accompaniment.

I: Exordium - Creation (solo soprano, organ)
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void. And God said, Let the dry land appear. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit free yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. [Genesis 1:1-2, 9, 11]
This'll probably be more of an organ prelude with the soprano's narration floating over the top, starting off with the rumbles of the 32' pedal and gradually building up from there.

II: The harvest (full choir, organ)
Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe. [Revelation 14:15]
A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey. [Deuteronomy 8:8]
I've half a mind write the word "lustily" above this movement, as it describes the mood to a tee. That line about pomegranates is just asking to be sung suggestively!

III: Thanksgiving (solo baritone, organ)
O almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season, and hast crowned the year with thy goodness: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Scottish Book of Common Prayer, 1912)
A slightly less worldly approach to celebrating the harvest which I envisage setting in a Bachian way, à la 'Mache dich, mein Herze, rein'.

IV: The sower (full choir)
A sower went forth to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell by the way side (the fowls of the air devoured it up), some fell upon stony ground (scorched, it withered away), and some fell among thorns (choked). Other fell on good ground and bare fruit, some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred. [composite of Matthew 13:3-8, Mark 4:3-8 and Luke 8:5-8]
A moment of respite from the high spirits to consider the first of Christ's parables, highlighting the need for fertile ground, in agricultural and spiritual terms.

V: Praise (double choir, organ)
(words - and music! - here)
Verses 1 and 3 of one of my favourite hymns, the first for 8-part choir, with the organ joining in for the second, to bring this work to a joyous close.

One work completed ... (post 1 of 2)

It was with mixed feelings that I completed Beati qui lugent, a piece intended to be for mourners what a Requiem mass is for the deceased, on what would have been my father's 65th birthday. We're even going to be performing part of it - the movement from which the work as a whole takes its name - at evensong on Sunday, 4th November, so that's something more to look forward to.

As I didn't really elaborate on the libretto I posted here last November (click on the link above to read it), the completion of the work seems an ideal opportunity to make up for it, so here we go ... (Note: the scoring in the numbered movements is different every time and the collects are all led by alto and tenor soloists, singing in unison throughout.)

I: O vos omnes (full choir)
"Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" - a standard text, here given a different reading, with the mourner angrily dismissing others' pain as nothing compared to his/her own. This is borne out by unexpected modulations, cross-rhythms and frequent chromaticisms.

Collect for aid against all perils (full choir with soloists)
The one that begins "Lighten our darkness", the words also treated figuratively - if the sense of loss which follows the death of a loved one isn't darkness of a sort, I don't know what is.

II: Beati qui lugent (double female choir)
The second beatitude speaks directly to the bereaved, so its inclusion was more or less a foregone conclusion. There's something incredibly pure about female voices alone, even with trips into unexpected keys at key moments.

Collect for those in sorrow (full choir with soloists)
With the mood moving from a cri de coeur to the fervent hope of comfort, it's clear that it's going to take more than the preceding movement to restore calm, even when it closes in a more positive frame of mind.

III: Dominus reget me (full choir)
Psalm 23 has to be among the texts sure to provide comfort in difficult times - sung in Latin but to Anglican chant, which is somehow adds to the effect.

Collect for All Souls (full choir with soloists)
Finally a prayer for the deceased, suggesting the mourner is coming to terms with his/her loss. There's something almost ethereal about the words, the peace they refer to reflected in the music, finally freeing itself of dark modulations.

IV: Expecto resurrectionem (full choir, splitting into two choirs for a closing fugue)
The words say it all: resurrection and life eternal, a light at the end of an especially dark tunnel.