THE TIME DRAWS NEAR
Year of composition: 2017
Instrumentation: SATB + soloists
Duration: 3′
Commissioned by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria
Premiere: the Christ Church Cathedral Victoria Choir, Donald Hunt, dir.
Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria
December 18, 2017
PROGRAMME NOTE
This short piece for SATB choir sets a text by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, excerpted from his 1833 poem In Memoriam. Tennyson’s lines wonderfully convey the childlike sense of serene anticipation that is characteristic of the Christmas experience, and is rich with suggestive musical cues that allude to responsorial bells and “voices…far and near”. I evoke these effects by isolating from the choir four solo voices, which occupy various contrasting roles (antiphonal, temporal, textural) against the surrounding choral mass.