Revisiting music from years ago and the challenge of second thoughts
Back in late 1996, I wrote a set of Preces and Responses for the choir of All Saint’s Church, Wokingham, in which I sang regularly from the age of 9 to 19. The setting was published by Oecumuse the following year. Somehow since then I have never had a chance to hear them performed, so I was delighted when they were selected to be performed by Exultate Singers, the choir in which I currently sing, over a weekend of singing the services in Liverpool Cathedral in July 2023. I wrote the set when I was 27 and I was now 54, so they were from exactly half my lifetime ago. I’ve never had a such a long wait to hear a piece performed and I wondered how they would strike me, as a musical time capsule from my 27-year old self!
Well, apart from the stress of making sure that I sang the tenor part correctly – not always a given for a singing composer – I was pleasantly surprised. The music seemed to be smoothly constructed, with a consistent added-note harmonic style firmly rooted in A major. The part writing and voice leading all worked and there was some engaging rhythmic setting of the familiar words.
Could I write this music again, aged 54? Probably not exactly, but it is still recognisably something that I could write. In my opinion every composers tend to evolve over the years whilst also often having a recognisable personal core or style.
Just one musical phrase stuck out to me and some of my fellow singers: the final dismissal response, sung to the words Thanks be to God, featured an exciting and loud rising chord sequence that finishes on an unanticipated F13 chord.
I was asked whether this last chord was really fitting after all the previous music. I had a ponder and tried imagining a different ending – I have revised pieces in the past so I’m always open to reconsidering a previous decision. I tried various other chord shapes going to C# major or F# major but nothing seemed to fit.
So I realised that sometimes you just have to stick with your first instinct, which was probably the right one all along. It is the last chord of the music so there is no problem with vocal tuning after it. And if you are going to write an eyebrow-raising chord, why not do it on the word God?