Programme Notes
Heaven which never night makes black (SATB Choir & Organ)
Heaven which never night makes black was commissioned by Choir and Organ Magazine in 2007 as part of their New Music series. The piece sets a poem by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585 – 1649).Within the poem, there is a sense of constant growth, from the ‘new sun’ appearing at the beginning to the ‘immortal sun’s bright rays’ in the penultimate line, and I aimed to reflect this in my setting.
The structure of the piece also reflects this, and although the music falls roughly into three sections, there is a feeling of constant development.
The first section sets the first three lines and introduces all the main material. The line ‘my soul time posts away’ can be seen as a transition line to the middle section which begins after the word ‘away’. For this middle section the tonality has moved far away from the tonality of the opening to reflect the words. The final section sets the final four lines of the text. Fragments of all the material are woven together to provide a triumphant conclusion. The organ has more than an accompanying role during the piece, particularly in the final section in which it interweaves canonically with the choir lines.