Searching for Tim Williams - 2 results.
The poetic translation of Psalm 23 in the 1650 Scottish Psalter, most famously set to the tunes Crimond and Brother James' Air, is often the first version of this text that people encounter. In this unaccompanied choral setting, a gentle stress can be given to many of the syllables after barlines, but otherwise the changes of metre are mainly there for guidance. The music references Aeolian modality, but makes occasional diversions (for example, in the fourth stanza where the raised leading note picks out the rhyme of 'foes' and 'overflows'). A performance will be best guided by the flow of the words, creating a sense of ease and calm, especially in the opening solo and as the music settles in the final stanza.
This set of three choral compositions is inspired by three very different short poems by Christina Rossetti.
Consider is a sacred anthem suitable for all seasons. The words of the poem echo passages from Matthew and Luke's gospels, where Jesus implores his followers to ‘consider the lilies of the field’ and turn away from toil and worry. Each stanza is expressed musically with a new key, but the transitions are intended to be relatively simple to find for singers.
The lowest place is as an anthem for Passiontide, meditating on the death of Jesus. The music is written in a contrapuntal style, growing in confidence at the end, as the poem refers to the place 'where I may sit and see my God and love thee so'.
May is a setting of a more secular poem — one which is evasive, describing an event from the past. The first stanza is set open-endedly with lots of space around the words, the full choir responding four times to the petition of a single vocal part. By the second stanza, the music settles in a brighter E major, only to resolve downwards to D major for the final bleak words.