Welcome to Anthem 30 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’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.
This week I hit upon a neat idea. When I composed the unaccompanied anthem number 26, Nox, I found the words in the service of Compline. So I decided to go back to that service and look for some more. A passage that caught my attention was this one in English:
Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
This theme of light stood out. Then I realised that the Latin for light is ‘lux’. Perhaps it would be possible to make this new anthem a partner for ‘Nox’, meaning night. So we have Nox and Lux. Listening to them now as a pair, there isn’t a lot of difference in how they sound which could have been done to stress the difference in the meaning of the titles but never mind.
I chose to use the Latin words again – it’s just a single verse of Psalm iv (4) after which I added ‘Amen’ like the end of the psalm in Compline.
Words for Anthem 30:
Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui Domine: dedisti laetitiam in corde meo.
Like Nox, Lux uses slow-moving parts and even moves to an unusual, unexpected chord at pretty much the same spot as the previous anthem. There are lots of delicious scrunches in the harmony that I like a lot.
I decided to repeat that unexpected moment and use it to emphasis the word ‘lumen’. Apparently the meanings of ‘lux’ and ‘lumen’ tend to overlap in Latin usage. ‘Lux’ is more commonly found when daylight is being referred to and ‘lumen’ is more common when talking about artificial light. I suppose for this passage, the idea of God’s countenance lighting us up in the gloom works well, rather than any connotation of daylight.
Towards the end of the short anthem, I return to the opening material but this time there is more of a reflection between sopranos and altos. The line reaches up and then comes back down. The ending ‘Amen’ moves from more clashes to resolve on a basic D major chord, bringing it all to a simple but hopefully attractive conclusion.
Once again, I failed to convert the anthem to Logic Pro. I’m seriously considering looking for a different choir plugin that doesn’t sound like the choir are constantly shouting… we shall see.
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 22 to go – but until then the question remains – will I make it to Anthem 52?
