I will take you from the nations

Commissioned by Merton College, Oxford, for the Merton Choirbook, a collection of choral music written in celebration of the College’s 750th anniversary in 2014. A setting of verses from Ezekiel 36, forming in the Anglican lectionary a morning canticle for the days between Ascension and Pentecost. The choral writing is predominantly homophonic, with divisi in up to eight parts. The opening staccato chordal texture, with silences, gradually builds to an expressive legato. Subsequent dynamic contrasts occur, leading to two climaxes, after which the opening material returns, with resolution through a sustained pianissimo close.