Anthem 28 – Lectio brevis

Welcome to Anthem 28 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. Iโ€™m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com – @realanthem52 or Instagram – @realanthem52 and send me a message to show@anthem52.com.

After the success of using words from Compline for Anthem 26 (Nox), I decided to mine the same source for this week. This time I chose words meaning the following in English – “Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy Name. Leave us not, O Lord our God.” In Latin it’s:


Words for Anthem 28:

Tu autem in nobis es, Domine, et nomen sanctum tuum invocatum est super nos:

ne derelinquas nos, Domine Deus noster.

I liked the Latin name for this verse from Jeremiah – ‘Lectio brevis’ which means ‘The Little Chapter’. It is a plea but I didn’t think it should be too sombre in tone. I wanted to see if I could make the anthem pleasant-sounding but not too predictable so I employed a number of devices such as the change of both speed and key after the opening 12 bars.

I like the overlapping of the parts at the beginning. It’s not like a canon but also not chordal, so hopefully quite an interesting texture. At bar 19, in the faster section, I did throw in a dissonant, repeated chordal moment with sopranos moving against a held chord. That’s quite an effective bit, I think.

Bar 29 features an abrupt change from A major to B flat major just in case the audience are nodding off and, after a fairly ordinary section, the original material reappears at the original tempo and the ending slows down quite a bit.

It’s another short anthem but I was fairly pleased with it and glad that I had been able to begin writing again after my extensive layoff while on holiday.

Anyway, see what you think:

Well, what do you think? Let me know on X.com @realanthem52, Instagram @realanthem52, as a comment below or via email show@anthem52.com

I hope you will join me next week for a new episode (perhaps featuring my second interview – will I ever record another?) – and a new anthem – only 24 to go – but until then the question remains – will I make it to Anthem 52?


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