Salus aeterna

Vocal score

Forces or Category: SATB unaccompanied

New Horizons

for SATB unaccompanied
Salus Aeterna is a bright and mercurial piece that makes full use of the delicious fleeting harmonies and ...

Salus aeterna

Vocal score

Description

for SATB unaccompanied
Salus Aeterna is a bright and mercurial piece that makes full use of the delicious fleeting harmonies and close-written sonoroties of its flowing melodic lines. It sets a Sequence for Advent Sunday that looks forward to Christ's coming and subsequent judgement of all things.

Programme Notes:

I am very grateful to Perran Gay, Precentor of Truro Cathedral, for finding me this unusual and beautiful text which is a Sequence for Advent Sunday. In keeping with the spirit of joyful anticipation, which is such an important feature of the Advent season, the piece is largely bright, exuberant and rhythmically lively, though there is a more meditative moment about two-thirds of the way through. It also alludes in various ways to the Mediaeval carol tradition, both in its monophonic and conductus forms.

Salus Aeterna was commissioned by Oakham School and was first performed by Oakham School Chapel Choir, directed by David Woodcock, on December 1st 2002.

Copyright Gabriel Jackson

Salus aeterna

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

Salus aeterna

Vocal score

Gabriel Jackson

New Horizons

Reviews and Awards

"Ever increasing in popularity, Gabriel Jackson's distinctive and memorable style prevails throughout these three very different pieces . . . this short work juxtaposes a feeling of antiquity with Jackson's contemporary style, in an exciting, sensitive and colourful offering with striking rhythmic and dynamic effects . . . These three anthems are all refreshingly original as well as being accessible to singer and listener alike." - Church Music Quarterly June 05

"Rhythmically intricate, dynamically unpredictable and harmonically courageous, while maintaining an exciting Britten-esque tonality, Salus Aeterna is a rare, rare thing: a piece of contemporary choral music that is as exhilarating to sing as it is to hear, and will never disappoint an audience - providing the choir has been well prepared." - Richard Bannan Music Teacher April 2005