Welcome to Anthem 34 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 needed to be swift (not Taylor) to complete anthem 34 because I am visiting Bath with my wife to hear our daughter, Charlotte, singing at the RSCM Choir Course. This is the second year in a row that she has had the opportunity to attend the course, thanks to The Friends of the Music of Holy Trinity Church. 3 choristers from Holy Trinity are there this year, enjoying singing in a variety of contexts, including services at Bath Abbey. I’m very much looking forward to that trip.

So I couldn’t waste any time coming up with a text for the anthem. While looking through the Irish Book of Common Prayer, I spotted the opening to Psalm cxlv (145). These seemed like promising words and here they are:

Words for Anthem 34:

I will magnify thee, O God, my King : and I will praise thy Name for ever and ever.

Every day will I give thanks unto thee : and praise thy Name for ever and ever.

Great is the Lord, and marvellous worthy to be praised : there is no end of his greatness.

I also added an Amen section in at the end (obviously) because the piece seemed to need it.

Beginning in a kind of G major, the anthem has a few quick changes of tonality in order to make what could have been pretty ordinary into something less obvious. Additional sharps herald a change to E major to emphasise ‘I will praise thy name for ever and ever’.

At the words ‘Every day I will give thanks unto thee’, I decided to repeat the words multiple times around the voices in a quasi-canon for more word painting and the quaver (1/4 note) movement persists almost throughout the anthem.

After 20 bars, A major crops up for another unexpected tonal change and then E major is back shortly after that. There is a lot of overlapping of parts but also some chordal passages to give weight to the words, for example at bar 33 where we have ‘There is no end to his greatness’.

Following a triumphant end to this section, the opening material returns with an altered end to provide a pre-Amen conclusion. The final section is taken from previous material as well but altered slightly, especially to form a conclusive ending, complete with rallentando.

I am fairly pleased with this anthem. It’s quite different to some of the recent ones I’ve come up with but it seems to have its own life and feel, with the almost constant motion of the quavers keeping everything heading forward and leading to a pretty satisfying conclusion.

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 – and a new anthem – only 18 to go – but until then the question remains – will I make it to Anthem 52?