SATBEdited by E H Fellowes.
SKU: HL.48023799
Author: Thomas Campion.
Thomas Campion's Never weather-beaten sail is a sprightly text that powerfully evokes the sailor's plea for God's calming presence upon the sea's unrelenting rushing waves. At the opening of this work for unaccompanied mixed voices, the jaunty alto/tenor movement in thirds symbolises the curling waves of the undulating sea, the mellifluous soprano melody represents the boat's sails, and the bass section's never-changing 'A' provides the anchor. All four voices then come together in homophony, urging God to come quickly...and take my soul to rest. Rather than a simple repetition of thematic material in the manner of a standard hymn, the texture alters through the rest of the work until the very end where all voices gradually fade away into the distance, leaving what seems like a lone voice in the wilderness to cry to Thee. Contrasting to other well-known setting of this text, this new work provides a fresh interpretation, suitable for intermediate choirs.
SKU: ST.CN12P
ISBN 9790220224690.
Among the UK's most noted choral composers and conductors, Ronald Corp does not hesitate to bring his own musical vision to a much-loved poem by the sixteenth-century lutenist songwriter and 'Doctor of Physick' Thomas Campion, following the example not only of Campion himself but also of Charles Wood and Hubert Parry. Eschewing the manner of Parry's resonant polyphony for a simple harmonised setting in a flexible verbal rhythm reflecting the measure of the words, this is a heartfelt plea for spiritual release uttered in a quietly elegiac tone, in which the serenity of the entreaty rather than its pathos is to the fore.
