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Three Motets

for SSAATTBB choir with solos

Martin Bussey

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£7.99£13.99

for SSAATTBB choir with solos

£13.99
£7.99
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Composer Martin Bussey
Year of Composition 1990
Duration 15' 30"
ISMN 9790570683307
Instrumentation Choir
Student Difficulty adv
Categories (all composers) , ,
Catalogue ID ce-mb2tm1

Notes

The three poems set in this group of a capella works complement each other but are not interlinked. They can be performed separately.

Oscar Wilde’s Ave Maria combines Christian themes with images from Classical mythology in a rich, passionate text. These elements are mirrored in added-note harmonies and a rhetorical setting. A serene ending combines a meditative setting of the traditional ‘Ave Maria’ text in tenors and basses beneath the close phrases of Wilde’s poem in upper voices.

The Evening Hymn of Charles 1, ‘Close thine eyes and sleep secure’, is probably by 17th-century poet Francis Quarles. The setting complements the homophonic writing of much of Ave Maria by using interweaving melodic lines for each of the four SATB parts, adding two soprano soloists when the opening phrases return to end the work.

Francis Thompson’s In no strange land represents views of belief and of the numinous which lie at the heart of Martin Bussey’s spiritual outlook. The concept that deity is present, but unseen in everyday life, evokes dramatic and highly-charged choral writing which divides the SATB choir into many parts. The writing communicates the poverty and uncertainty that the poet experienced as a ‘down and out’ in London but also the poignant image that concludes the poem: ‘Christ walking on the water, not of Gennesareth, but Thames’.

The set of pieces was commissioned by the Oriel Singers of Liverpool in 1990. All three were performed by Sonoro, directed by Neil Ferris, on the CD ‘In no strange land’, which takes its title from the third motet. The recordings can be accessed via YouTube or Spotify: