What Sudden Blaze of Song is a setting of sections of John Keble’s beloved Christmas Day, famous for its powerful, memorable opening lines. Keble’s poem runs to eleven verses and for practicalities sake, I have taken the first two and sections of the final verse with the beautiful closing statement of ‘And in the darkness sing your carol of high praise.’ My piece aims to capture the atmosphere and majesty of this ‘blaze of song’ with solo lines and choral clusters alternating with more declamatory moments and fanfares of celebration. Song is present throughout, no more so than in the second verse where a long soprano solo is accompanied by a multitude of voices all singing the same song in wordless heterophony.

Hodie Christus Natus Est is a homage to that particularly ‘rustic’ element in early medieval church music, where elements of the pre-Christian and Christian rites seemed to coexist in a beguiling symbiosis. The work aims to blend a folksy, communal dance element with more traditional choral writing. It is a light-hearted piece, and the score could be used as a blueprint to a more extreme version of what is composed where the ‘pagan’ aspects of the work could be exaggerated to great effect.

My setting of Verbum caro factum est takes the atmosphere and sense of anticipation in the Midnight Mass as the basis for a slow, reverential meditation on these profound words.

I had long been attracted to these words, maybe due to them dealing with the mystery and majesty of the birth of Christ, rather then the more run-of-the-mill fayre found at Christmastime.