Love

Prior to our rehearsal with the BBC National Chorus of Wales, Sophie Kirk-Harris and I sat in her car listening to works by Eric Whitacre. Sophie graciously requested that I write something in a similar vein for her wedding to Leigh. I gladly accepted her request. In writing Love, my intention was to breathe new life into the marital usage of text from Corinthians 13. The work opens with the chorus gradually building up tonal clusters to accompany the soprano soloist’s recitation. Her role subsequently becomes a descant as the choir expresses the text through increasingly lush chords. The musical material then inverts, allowing the tenors and basses to sing the text while the sopranos and altos accompany. The soloist’s subsequent florid decorations sit atop the choral rejoicing that “love believeth all, trusteth all, braveth all”. The final sequence is a sly wink to Whitacre’s hope, faith, life, love setting, particularly the choir’s semi-whispered treatment of “love” below the soloist’s pedal D.