In Dulci Jubilo
This was commissioned by the Mid Northumberland Chorus - a community choir based in Morpeth, Northumberland. It was performed twice for their Christmas concerts 2016.
This piece is full of word painting and the expression marks are essential to bring this out.
I’ve very slightly rearranged the words for musical effect and have added the English words next to the Latin at times where explaining what the Latin means would help understand the music and also gives a different rhythmic possibility to complement the rhythm of the Latin.
This is quite a light piece as befits the traditional carol. Whenever there is "joy" or "glory" there is the appropriate climax; the "draw me unto thee" sounds like a chant to me; the "Father’s caring" and "new born’s mildness" is very gentle. The "deeply we were stained" is in the low registers; "but thou has for us gained heavenly joy" takes the choir out of the doldrums in to the bright light; The "oh that we were there" is very joyful and is an overlapping set of similar phrases all on the same chord with the piano hypnotically repeating the same bar while the choir passes the phrases around; "There the bells are ringing" has the classic descending bell theme, whilst "nova cantica (a new song)" is, of course, a new tune. The piece ends with a climactic longing on "oh that we were there!"