Missa Triueriensis

Vocal score

Forces or Category: SATB unaccompanied

New Horizons

for SATB unaccompanied
A setting of the Mass in Latin, written for the Truro Cathedral Choir.

Missa Triueriensis

Vocal score

Description

for SATB unaccompanied
A setting of the Mass in Latin, written for the Truro Cathedral Choir.

Programme Notes:

Missa Triueriensis was written to celebrate my father's 75th birthday in 2005. It is one of my many pieces that is 'about' Tudor music, but it is also 'about' Truro Cathedral Choir's singing of Tudor music, which is as modest and graceful as the music itself. I wanted to write something compact and direct, on a similar scale to the Byrd Masses; following modern liturgical protocol there is no Creed and the Sanctus & Benedictus is short. References to 'early music' abound: there are canons throughout the piece, most notably in the Kyrie which are amplified in the Agnus Dei; in a kind of neo-isorhythm, the rapid ascent of the Gloria's opening is stretched out a few bars later to make a treble cantilena; the six bell-chords that open the Sanctus reference the same gesture in Christopher Tye's Missa Euge Bone; and the divided trebles and altos at 'Pleni sunt caeli' allude to my favourite Tudor device â gimell. In the final bars I call upon Truro Cathedral Choir's special capacity for numinosity — as the boys ascend (canonically) one more time, the Lay Vicars, with Stravinskian breaths inside the words, haltingly descend to an eventual, essentially Truronian, calm.
Copyright Gabriel Jackson 2016

Missa Triueriensis

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

Missa Triueriensis

Vocal score

Gabriel Jackson

New Horizons

Reviews and Awards

"Jackson describes it as compact and direct, inspired by the Byrd masses but suitable for modern liturgy, with plenty of references to early music. There is a lovely gentleness for much of the Kyrie, and the music is full of lovely polyphonic textures, whilst the Gloria has its jazzier moments. The short Sanctus is all vibrant radiance, whilst the Benedictus is quiet yet magical in its texture. The Agnus Dei starts of quite austerely with just two line, but Jackson allows his textures to thicken until the lovely transparency of the closing pages." - www.planethugill.com, September 2016

"With its compact dimensions, the Truro Mass is clearly redolent of the Tudor masters Byrd and Tye, now passed through the austere filter of Stravinsky." - Gramophone November 2016