The collection of pieces that comprises the Inventions and Sinfonias have resulted in my longest piece to date and the most concentrated spell of focussing on one instrument since my Transfiguration project for piano (2021-22). The work takes Bach’s monumental work of the same title as its inspiration, though the great master’s influence on the work is more formal and structural than anything musical or artistic. Bach’s work was designed for his students to learn two and three-part contrapuntal keyboard music in a creative and interesting way, fashioned from his own style of composition. Bach composed the two-part (Inventions) and three-part (Sinfonias) in ascending keys from those widely used in the period (eight major and seven minor keys). These two facets (the pedagogical and the tonal) are preserved in my Inventions and Sinfonias, mirroring the key structure of Bach’s and aiming these pieces at good players still on their instrumental learning journey.

My fifth setting of the Evening Service is the most concentrated to date, not only in terms of the reduced performing means, but also the material and themes used within. The mood of the work is one of sustained gentleness, but with moments of passion and introspection as befits these well-known texts.

There have been many simple, prayerful settings of these heartfelt words and my offering is in a similar vein with more than a nod to the pieces by Walford Davies, Howells and Rutter.

The second set of Three Partsongs, continues my interest in the music and fashions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that I have explored in many works over the past two decades, the most similar being the first set of partsongs from 2008-12. Like their predecessors, the second set of Three Partsongs are simple settings for SATB unaccompanied choir, taking their influence from the Romantic idea of the partsong as a simple, homophonic, melody dominated piece often taking its inspiration from nature and other Romantic notions.

Lumen in Umbra is a sustained, atmospheric piece taking two lines of text relating to light and darkness and creating a slowly changing tableau that centres around a high-pitched drone from tuned wine glasses. The light in the piece changes from moment to moment, sometimes bright and coruscating, sometimes wan and distant.

Dialogue takes the ‘Sanctus’ of my 2017 work Missa Sancti Albanus as the source for a spirited exploration of the material and its possibilities on the organ. It largely follows the shape of the original but expands on each section aiming to realise the inherent potential of the music therein. The main deviation is at the end of the work, where the affirming ending of the Sanctus is replaced with a quiet dissipation of the dialogue between voices and musical material.

Silver is an attempt to write simple, melodic songs that are direct and emotive, but stripped of any unnecessary embellishments or ornaments. The three songs are all poems from Walter De La Mare (1873-1956), one of my favourite poets as a composer and are a return to his work for me after setting it earlier with Two De La Mare Songs (2012) and The Song of Shadows (2016). All three songs relate to moonlight, and all include the word ‘silver’ that gives the set its title.

The Two Recessionals continue the exploration of plainchant in my recent work. The first is a short work based on the St Edmund Antiphon and was written for the Patronal Festival at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. It is in a firm ABA form and progressively builds to a huge climax. The second is a little more subdued and takes the plainchant O lux beata Trinitas as its source material. Again, it exhibits a strong ABA form, but here the B material is taken from my own choral setting of the O lux beata Trinitas text (from 2013) and provides a sonic contrast to the prevailing music.

Although I have written many pieces that utilise different choral groupings and spatial effects, I had until this point never written a piece for a tradition antiphonal double choir. Therefore it was nice to have the opportunity and the double challenge of setting this well known text. Although the ghosts of Vaughan Williams and Leighton were never far away, I hope to have created something new and of worth with these wonderful words.

My setting of the Agnus Dei is in a simple tripartite form, with softer modal writing balanced against more strident homophonic material. This balancing is accentuated by two different harmonic spheres which are in a benign conflict, with one ultimately prevailing over the other. Throughout, the organ acts as both onlooker and participant, providing the necessary detachment to create a meaningful setting of these heartfelt words.

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.

Three Meditations takes three diverse plainchant themes and recolours them in my own harmonic language, each seeking to bring out different aspects of these beautiful, transcendent pieces of music. The suite works as a broad ABA, with the outer meditations being more thoughtful and discursive and the middle piece being a more concise exploration of one phrase from ‘Christus Vincit’.

Christus Resurgens is a dramatic and gestural setting of this short Easter text. The work is in a simple rondo form with the declamatory outbursts of ‘Christus’ interspersed with more introspective matieral. The work is dedicated to Christopher Batchelor in admiration for all his support for my music at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.

Bennachie is a suite for piano taking inspiration from the eponymous hill that is so prominent in the relatively flat, fertile lands of east Aberdeenshire. The hill is prominent, not just in topographical terms, but also that it has such a rich and established cultural and historical legacy that embraces myth, legend and real, visceral events that have shaped the land and the people that live in its lee. Bennachie was commissioned by the Bailies of Bennachie (a charity that not only seeks to preserve the natural environs of the hill, but also to encourage interest in its cultural and historical past) for their 50th anniversary to engender further interest in the hill and to contribute to the existing artistic legacy associated with it.

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Ubi Caritas is a simple setting of these well-known and much loved words. My work is warm and direct with a wistful melody filtered through the whole choir in its short duration. The work is dedicated to my in-laws on their seventieth birthdays and was written for Benedict Preece and Caritas Chamber Choir who have supported my work with such dedication in 2022.

The Impromptus are simple pieces designed as breaks from larger compositional projects for the piano. They are an ongoing set, working with simple melodic ideas in different guises. Additionally, all three pieces explore in a rudimentary fashion the relationship between differnt pitches - in Three Sad Dances it is G and G# in Three Wistful Tunes it is C and F.

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The Theme and Transfigurations is the final piece in my project of ‘transfigurations’ for the piano which have occupied me creatively for the majority of 2021-22. Whereas previous works have sought to transfigure folksongs, national anthems, popular songs and opera arias (amongst other things), this piece takes a short piece of my own from 2013 and transfigures different motifs, patterns, melodies and themes over five short movements.

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National Anthems carries on my current preoccupation with the transfiguration of material from one state of being to something different, perhaps more spiritual and beautiful than the original. These four pieces are perhaps the most strict and direct of the transfigurations that I have undertaken in the past year or two and are thus the most distilled examples of the technique.

The Shadow Calls sets a bleak, but ultimately hopeful poem by American composer-poet Thomas LaVoy which was inspired by Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s The Dog, which the artist painted directly onto the walls of his house during a period of mental and physical distress.

I Am The Voice is a simple setting of these powerful words from the Book of John. The work is in a direct two-part form, with a passionate chorale following a slowly building textural section.