In the beginning was the Word
Vocal score
Gabriel Jackson
Description
for SATB (with divisions) and organ
Commissioned by the choir of Merton College, Oxford, In the beginning was the Word provides a welcome musical setting of this iconic biblical text. The choral lines combine plainchant with harmonically intricate passages, and all is complemented by a soloistic organ part. Suitable for use throughout the church year.
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Programme Notes:
The first fourteen verses of St John's Gospel make up one of the most iconic texts in the Christian canon, and in accepting Dr Fisher's commission to set these words, so well-known and well-loved, I was conscious that to do appropriate justice to them in music was a particular challenge.
The piece is broadly in three sections. Emerging from a deep (primeval?) pedal, the unison chanting of the choir's first phrases is coloured by chords to pick out significant words, 'God' being