Welcome to Anthem 35 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.
I’ve got a little behind in adding these updates over the past couple of weeks. I have managed to write the anthems but not the podcast episodes. Hopefully, I will be fully back on track after this week. The main reasons for this are a family holiday in Devon and a trip to Coventry to settle my daughter into her University accommodation for her first year. She is studying Music Production and Songwriting – more on that topic soon I’m sure.
Back to Anthem 35. This time I found some interesting words in the Irish Book of Common Prayer, not in the usual Psalms sections but in one of the orders of service. I thought it was a passage from St. Luke’s Gospel but it’s actually a collect used in The Ordering of Deacons service and elsewhere. The words are still good for an anthem though.
Words for Anthem 35:
Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I wrote a small opening figure for the basses which is then echoed and elaborated by the organ with mainly block chords. This leads to a full choir section where both a time signature change and a key change arrive quickly. The organ continues to echo fragments of the choir melody in between sections of full 4-part harmony.
For the second iteration of the opening material, I swap it round with the organ playing its originally echoing part first and then the basses coming in with their opening line. For some added interest, this heads straight into another key change from B flat major to A major for the second full choral phrase. The whole feel is shifted up and I think it gives the music a lift – metaphorically and physically.
The words, ‘We may glorify’, seemed like a good opportunity to do some word painting so that phrase is handed around the vocal parts in a sort of trumpet fanfare manner to accentuate the meaning of the words.
Once the organ has echoed those parts for a moment, it introduces new material which has an undulating character. This is them taken on by the voices in a brief pseudo-canon section leading to a definite Amen. I only set the words once (with a little bit of repeating) so this choir and organ anthem is quite short. I think it works quite well, without being a ground-breaking masterwork.
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 17 to go – but until then the question remains – will I make it to Anthem 52?
