Format : Vocal Score
(Novello New Choral Series)-There is no rose of such virtue is an anonymous mediaeval text already well known through beautiful settings by Britten (in his Ceremony of Carols) John Joubert and others. The poem is ‘macaronic’ (it presents a verse in English followed by a varying Latin refrain). This new version follows the illustrious examples above by remaining strophic and presenting broadly the same music in a succession of slightly different guises. The first verse is a straightforward four-part setting the second gives the melody to the tenors and surrounds them with hushed wordless writing for the other parts and the third explores a freely canonic relationshipbetween the tenor and soprano lines before carrying the previous verse-endings to a higher more exalted pitch and mood. The fourth verse then expands its texture in a free climactic passage evoking the songs of praise sung by the angels. This subsides towards the final verse where the texture of the music attenuates again to four parts and canonic writing (based on the first four notes of the original melody) permeates all of them. This slightly extended statement leads to a hushed final cadence.Francis Pott (b. 1957) began musical life as a chorister at New College Oxford. He held open music scholarships at Winchester College and at Magdalene College Cambridge where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while pursuing piano studies privately in London with the distinguished British artist Hamish Milne. Throughout the 1990s Francis was John Bennett Lecturer in Music at St Hilda’s College Oxford and a lay clerk in the Choir of Winchester Cathedral. In 2001 he became Head of London College of Music University of West London later leading research across the University’s Faculty of Arts and acceding in 2007 to its first Chair in Composition. Francis Pott has become recognised particularly for his sacred choral and organ music. This has been performed in concert and on radio in
