This piece, published as an anthem but originally commissioned for a public concert, is a setting of a few verses adapted from The Song of Solomon (or The Song of Songs) from the Old Testament of the Bible. The commission and performance details, at the top of the score, are as follows:
‘Commissioned by Avril Danczak for the Philharmonic Choir of Manchester, conductor Ian Chesworth, in memory of her parents Cynthia and Tadeusz Danczak and dedicated to Allegra, Milo, and Hari: the start of the next generation’
There is a feeling of looking back and looking forwards about this dedication, and the text (chosen by the commissioner) speaks not only of love, but also of the eternal round of nature’s growth, death, and regrowth.
Of all the books in the Bible, the Song of Songs is probably the most secular. It is really a collection of love songs. In the past, many biblical scholars have attempted to explain them as love songs between humankind and God, but they do read more naturally as love songs between two humans, and today many take that view, with perhaps the rider that perfect love between two people aspires to a relationship with God in which we love God as much as he loves us. Anyway – I’m no theologian, but the poetry is beautiful, and I really enjoyed setting it to music, as many others have done before me.
I originally conceived the piece as unaccompanied, with optional piano, and I added the organ later to make it more suitable for church use. So the chief focus is on the voices, and the words have a number of phrases which really suggest musical shapes: ‘bounding over the hills’, ‘a deer that runs swiftly’, ‘rain has fallen’, ‘cooing of doves’, etc. But the real germ of the setting is on the opening phrase ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away’, and the predominantly rising musical line associated with these words occurs several times, slightly altered each time, as a kind of refrain which binds the whole piece together, and forming a climax near to the end as ‘rise up’ is repeated several times at different pitches, gradually calming to a final hum from the tenors and basses which is so quiet you can hardly hear it.
You can hear it performed, with organ, by the choir of Selwyn College Cambridge, director Sarah MacDonald, in a scrolling score here.
And the music is published by Oxford University Press and is on sale here.