Aeterna caeli gloria

Vocal score

Forces or Category: SATB (with divisions) unaccompanied

New Horizons

A jubilant and rhythmically complex work for unaccompanied SATB (with divisions).

Aeterna caeli gloria

Vocal score

Description

This dramatic setting of a 5th-century Ambrosian hymn perfectly epitomises the jubilation of the text. Rhythmically complex and involving some tricky melismatic passages, it is particularly suited to cathedral choirs and concert performance. In the composer's words: "Being optimistic by nature, I am very drawn to radiant, lightfilled texts, with their invitation to try and create a dazzling brightness of choral sound. The opening of Aeterna caeli gloria attempts such a fierce brilliance."
Commissioned by the Musicians Benevolent Fund in the name of Sir Thomas Armstrong and first performed at the Festival of Saint Cecilia Service in Westminster Abbey on 21 November 2007 by the combined choirs of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, and St Paul's Cathedral, under the direction of James O'Donnell.

Programme Notes:

Aeterna caeli Gloria is a setting of the first three verses (plus doxology) of a 5th- century Ambrosian hymn, appointed in the Roman Breviary for Friday Lauds. These great Latin hymns are, to my mind, particularly suitable for musical setting â their poetry is rich and the images vivid; because of their regular metre and verse patterns, they can allow the composer to develop a structure that is both derived from the text, yet at the same time independent of it. And there is the language itself â while English seems to demand respect, at least, for its natural stresses and rhythm (the alternative being a Stravinskian delight in conscious mis-accentuation), Latin is more of a tabula rasa and allows a less concrete relationship between words and music. In my imagination, these ancient Latin poems are indelibly associated with the soaring melismatic style of the early Tudor period, which has been such a powerful influence on my own work.

Being optimistic by nature, I am very drawn to radiant, light-filled texts, with their invitation to try and create a dazzling brightness of choral sound. The opening of Aeterna caeli gloria attempts such a fierce brilliance. The stuttering, 'endless' repetitions of the same chord are an image of eternity that returns at the close; at the end of the third verse there is a section for divided upper voices that harks back to the practice of gimell, the most radiant of Tudor compositional devices; and earlier on the trebles' long-breathed lines ride a cushion of unsynchronised fragments in the lower parts, their rhythmic complexity animating a massively sustained single harmony. For all the exaltation of the text much of the piece is quiet and meditative, its intertwined melismas, its drones and pedal notes born of the essential stillness that is at the heart of contemplation.

Copyright Gabriel Jackson

Aeterna caeli gloria

Vocal score

Gabriel Jackson

New Horizons

Composer Information

Gabriel Jackson (b.1962)

One of Britain's foremost composers, after three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Gabriel Jackson went on to study composition with Richard Blackford and John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of most of Britain's cathedral and collegiate choirs and he is a frequent collaborator with the leading professional groups of the world. From 2010-2013 he was Associate Composer to the BBC Singers. In 2014 his hour-long The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford, was premiered in its chapel. May 2015 saw the premiere at the Latvian National Opera of Spring Rounds for soprano, choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Riga-based youth choir Kamer for their 25th anniversary. He was recently commissioned by The Marian Consort to write Stabat Mater to mark their 10th anniversary.

Gabriel Jackson's website