James MacMillan (b. 1959): Seven Last Words from the Cross
Christus Vincit • Nemo te condemnavit • …here in hiding…
In recent years it has been an enormous thrill hearing my music being performed by The Dmitri Ensemble. This excellent, young ensemble brings a breath of fresh air to music making in this country, and are fortunate to have in their director Graham Ross one of the most
exciting new musicians to appear on the radar. I am
honoured and thrilled that they are choosing to mark my
50th birthday with this disc on Naxos, bringing together
a number of different choral works from 1993 to 2005.
Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993) for
SSAATTBB chorus and string orchestra was
commissioned by BBC Television and first screened in
seven nightly episodes during Holy Week 1994,
performed by Cappella Nova and the BT Scottish
Ensemble under Alan Tavener. The traditional text of
the Seven Last Words from the Cross is based on a
compilation from all four gospels to form a sequential
presentation of the last seven sentences uttered by
Christ. The work begins with a cadential figure from the
end of my clarinet quintet Tuireadh (lament), repeated
over and over, upon which the rest of the music
gradually builds. Violin ‘fanfares’ emerge when the
men start singing the Palm Sunday Exclamation
Hosanna to the Son of David. Finally, another idea
unfolds—a plainsong monotone with the words from
one of the Good Friday Responsaries for Tenebrae.
Again a repeated cadential figure forms the basis of
the second movement, this time evoking memories of
Bach’s Passion chorales. The choir and ensemble
operate according to different procedures—the choir
repeating the words Woman, Behold Thy Son to a
shifting three-bar phrase, the strings becoming gradually
more frantic as the music evolves. They both give way
to an exhausted Behold, Thy Son.
Christ’s words are kept until the very end of the
third movement when they are sung by two high
sopranos, accompanied by high violins. The rest of the
piece is a setting of the Good Friday Versicle Ecce
Lignum Crucis. During the liturgy this is normally sung
three times, each time at a higher pitch as the cross is
slowly unveiled and revealed to the people. Here also
the music begins with two basses, rises with the tenors
and then again with two altos. A high violin solo
features throughout.
In the fourth movement the music rises tortuously
from low to high before the choir deliver an
impassioned, full-throated lament above which the
strings float and glide. The movement eventually
subsides through a downward canonic motion to end as
it began.
The two words I thirst are set to a static and slow-moving
harmonic procedure which is deliberately bare
and desolate. The interpolated text from the Good Friday
Reproaches is heard whispered and distantly chanted.
The sixth movement begins with hammer-blows
which subside and out of which grows quiet choral
material which is largely unaccompanied throughout.
The three words act as a background for a more
prominent text taken from the Good Friday
Responsaries.
In the final movement, the first word is exclaimed in
anguish three times before the music descends in
resignation. The choir has finished—the work is
subsequently completed by strings alone. On setting
such texts it is vital to maintain some emotional
objectivity in order to control musical expression in the
way that the Good Friday liturgy is a realistic
containment of grief. Nevertheless it is inspiring when
one witnesses people weep real tears on Good Friday as
if the death of Christ was a personal tragedy. In this final
movement, with its long instrumental postlude, the
liturgical detachment breaks down and gives way to a
more personal reflection: hence the resonance here of
Scottish traditional lament music.
Christus Vincit (1994) for SSAATTBB chorus a
cappella is a double choir anthem written for St Paul’s
Cathedral, London, setting a text from the twelfth-century
Worcester Acclamations. The anthem starts
from the sopranos and works its way to the basses in
plainsong-like phrases, punctuated by moments of
silence. An ornamented vocal cadenza is sung by a high
solo soprano.
Nemo te condemnavit (2005) for SATB chorus a
cappella is a short Communion motet written for Yale
Glee Club in 2005. It is a setting of the Communion
Antiphon for Palm Sunday, taken from St John’s gospel,
chapter 8 on the adulteress; “Woman, has no one
condemned you?” “No one, Lord.” “Neither do I
condemn you; go and do not sin again.” It is one of a
growing set of new works for post-Communion
reflection that I am writing for the Catholic liturgy. It is
dedicated to the Scottish historian Michael Fry. The
performance on this disc is the world première
recording.
My short motet…here in hiding…(1993) was
written immediately after my trumpet concerto
Epiclesis, and both pieces explore similar musical and
theological territory. Both are concerned with the
mystery of The Eucharist and both incorporate the
Gregorian hymn Adoro te devote. Instead of being a
straightforward setting of the poem by St Thomas
Aquinas,…here in hiding…jumbles the Latin original
with the English translation by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
The different texts are sometimes combined, sometimes
fragmented or intercut to form new relationships and a
new order of progression.
The piece has an episodic structure based on two
contrasting materials. Firstly there is a chromatically
rich and ornately embellished music which is
juxtaposed with a simpler ‘folkier’ idea based on the
plainsong. A third homophonic idea forms the central
pivotal point of the piece. Various vocal textures are
explored throughout, covering solos, duets, trios and
quartet. The final quartet combines Latin and English
versions of the first stanza and is a musical synthesis of
the two contrasting ideas which have shaped the piece.
The piece was first performed and recorded by The
Hilliard Ensemble in the version for four solo voices.
The performance given here by The Dmitri Ensemble is
the world première recording of the version for ATTB
chorus a cappella.
© James MacMillan
The sung texts are included in the booklet and may also be accessed at www.naxos.com/libretti/570719.htm