Episodes
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Welcome to Anthem 52 in my successful attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you have enjoyed listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
Well, here we are at Anthem 52. It's been a great year of composition, despite the many traditional and unexpected ups and downs of family life. At times it's been a bit of a slog but I'm surprised how little difficulty I've had coming up with ideas and working them through. Whether that has resulted in any decent anthems, I'm not sure and I'll let you know exactly how I'd like you to help me decide on that in 2025.
That's to come soon but, for now, I should concentrate on the final anthem in the whole project. Its words come from Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892. It's on the theme of New Year, somewhat appropriately.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 52:Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light,
The year is dying in the night,
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow,
The year is dying, let him go,
Ring out the false, ring in the true. -
Welcome to Anthem 51 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
This week, I was still on the search for more unusual Christmas carol words. After quite a bit of unsuccessful browsing, I found an order of service for King's College Chapel way back in 1918. It's fascinating to see what has changed and what hasn't since then. One of the most interesting sets of words was for a carol I had never come across before - 'Childing of a maiden bright'. From the 15th Century, the words are suitably archaic in places and each verse ends with a different Latin phrase, as we know, not a unique characteristic, but one I like.
The words are a little unusual in that they mention 'flocks of fiends' rather then sheep and a few other odd ideas. Again, I found these words intriguing and fun to set.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 51:Childing of a maiden bright
Life to-day hath brought to light;
And hath put that prince of might
With his flock of fiends to flight:
Christus natus hodie.Whoso aught hath done amiss,
An it rue him sore for this,
Mary's Babe will shrive i-wis,
Gentle as a lamb He is:
Miserere, Domine.He at Bethlehem was born,
Salem gave him crown of thorn,
Life of want and death of scorn -
All for love of man forlorn.
Ergo benedicite.On this Infant may we call,
Born for man in oxen-stall:
He vouchsafe us bliss withal
In His everlasting hall.
Cum Maria Virgine. -
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Welcome to Anthem 50 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
Wow. I've made it all the way to 50 anthems. I've surprised myself - and probably you as well, I imagine. I'm also pleased to say that the 50th anthem is one of my favourites so far.
The words come from yet another Carol Service order of service, this time from Pembroke College, Oxford. The 15th Century words were set by William Matthias but I haven't listened to his version, as yet.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 50:A babe is born all of a may,
To bring salvation unto us.
To him we sing both night and day.
Veni Creator Spiritus.At Bethlehem, that blessed place,
The child of bliss now born he was;
And him to serve God give us grace,
O lux beata Trinitas.There came three kings out of the East,
To worship the King that is so free,
With gold and myrrh and frankincense
A solis ortus cardine.The angels came down with one cry,
A fair song that night sung they In worship of that child:
Gloria tibi Domine.A babe is born all of a may,
To bring salvation unto us.
To him we sing both night and day.
Veni Creator Spiritus.
O lux beata Trinitas.
A solis ortus cardine.
Gloria tibi Domine.
Noel! -
Welcome to Anthem 49 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
By contrast to last week, this anthem was much easier to compose. In order to catch up with the rapidly disappearing weeks of 2024, I set myself the target of writing this anthem in 2 days. I wondered if I could write a carol that would fit into one of the 'standard' patterns congregations would recognise - and I think I got pretty close with anthem 49.
THe words come from another carol service, this time at St Stephen’s Church, Canterbury. It's a 15th century Kent carol.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 49:Today our God of his great mercie
Hath sent his Son with us to be,
To dwell with us in verity,
God who is our Saviour.Today in Bethlehem did befall,
a child was born in ox's stall,
Who needs must die to save us all,
God who is our Saviour.Today there spake an angel bright,
To shepherd there who watched by night,
And bade them take their way forthright,
To God who is our Saviour.Therefore 'tis meet we kneel today,
And Christ, who died on cross, we pray
To show his grace to us alway,
God who is our Saviour. -
Welcome to Anthem 48 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It was lovely to sing in Holy Trinity Church's Advent Carol Service last Sunday - my first service back with the choir. Charlotte was also able to come along and the singing was good.
It's been a difficult week for composition. Everything seems to have gone very slowly and I basically a week behind where I should be. I'm sure I'll catch up with only 4 anthems to go.
I found the words in another Advent Carol Service booklet - this time from Belfast Cathedral - where my family are from, incidentally. I used the whole of the first long verse and part of the last.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 48:Rorate coeli desuper!
Heavens, distil your balmy show’rs;
For now is ris’n the bright Daystar,
From the rose Mary, flower of flowers:
The clear Sun, whom no cloud devours, Surmounting Phoebus in the east,
Is comen of His heav’nly tow’rs,
Et nobis puer natus est.All Gloria in excelsis cry,
Heaven, earth, sea, man, bird and beast;
He that is crowned above the sky
Pro nobis puer natus est. -
Welcome to Anthem 47 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
I went back to Advent this week - or at least I looked for some more Advent lyrics. It occurred to me that I could find some lyrics in service booklets for Advent Carol Services so I tried to search for those. The second one I found was from The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester's 2020 Advent Carol Service. They performed a carol with words by John Audelay (d. c. 1426). These seemed ideal for what I was trying to write.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 47:There is a flow’r sprung of a tree, the root thereof is called Jesse, a flow’r of price there is none such in paradise.
This flow’r is fair and fresh of hue,
it fadeth ne’er, but e’er is new;
the blessèd branch this flow’r on grew
was Mary mild that bare Jesu;
a flow’r of grace;
against all sorrow it is solace.When Gabriel this maid did meet,
with ‘Ave Maria’ he did her greet;
between them two this flow’r was set
and safe was kept, no man should wit,
till on a day
in Bethlehem it could spread and spray. -
Welcome to Anthem 46 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
This week, in comparison to last week, was more straightforward, in terms of composing anyway. I realised that I hadn't written very many Advent carols (have I written any as part of Anthem 52?) and, considering the Advent Carol Service is my favourite of the Church year, I should remedy that situation.
So I had a look through my usual Isaac Watts source. I couldn't find any Advent words at all so I widened the search. Very soon I came across this: O Come, Divine Messiah, a French Advent song written by M. l’abbé Pellegrin (1663-1745) and translated by Sister Mary of St. Philip in 1877. These words seemed ideal to set so I was off to a good start.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 46:1. O come, Divine Messiah,
The world in silence waits the day
When hope shall sing its triumph,
And sadness flee away.Refrain:
Dear Saviour, haste! Come, come to earth.
Dispel the night and show your face,
And bid us hail the dawn of grace.
O come, Divine Messiah,
The world in silence waits the day
When hope shall sing its triumph,
And sadness flee away.2. O come Desired of nations,
Whom priest and prophet long foretold,
Will break the captive fetters,
Redeem the long-lost fold. [Refrain]3. O come in peace and meekness,
For lowly will your cradle be:
Though clothed in human weakness
We shall your God-head see. [Refrain] -
Welcome to Anthem 45 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It was a slightly odd week for composition. I found it difficult to get going but when I did it seemed to go fairly well.
Guess where I found the words? Yes, you're correct - Isaac Watts. This time it's a very positive set of lyrics so I decided on a loud anthem, with emphatic organ accompaniment.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 45:Behold, the grace appears,
The promise is fulfilled;
Mary, the wondrous virgin, bears,
And Jesus is the Child.The Lord, the highest God,
Calls Him His only Son;
He bids Him rule the lands abroad,
And gives Him David’s throne.Glory to God on high!
And heav’nly peace on earth;
At our Redeemer’s birth! -
Welcome to Anthem 44 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It was time for an unaccompanied anthem this week - in fact another Christmas Carol. You won't be surprised to hear that the words come from Isaac Watts yet again. It's a lullaby sung by a mother, recalling the infant Jesus and Mary. From my experience of singing many carols, I think it's a little unusual. However, it's rather effective, in my opinion.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 44:Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed,
Heav’nly blessings without number,
Gently falling on thy head.
How much better thou’rt attended,
Than the Son of God could be,
When from Heaven He descended,
And became a child like thee!Soft and easy is thy cradle,
Coarse and hard thy Savior lay:
When His birthplace was a stable,
And His softest bed was hay.
Oh, to tell the wondrous story,
How His foes abused their king;
How they killed the Lord of glory,
Makes me angry while I sing.Hush, my child, I did not chide thee,
Though my song may seem so hard;
’Tis thy mother sits beside thee,
And her arms shall be thy guard.
May’st thou learn to know and fear Him,
Love and serve Him all thy days;
Then to dwell forever near Him,
Tell His love and sing His praise. -
Welcome to Anthem 43 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
Despite fitting in little bits of composition time around everything else that is currently occupying us, this anthem seemed to flow fairly well. I've resisted the temptation to start writing Christmas Carols until now. Writing carols is how I discovered that I could compose for choirs quickly, much to my surprise so I have been looking forward to having another go at this seasonal activity.
The words came from the practically inexhaustible source of Isaac Watts, yet again and I went for verse 1 and 2 and the final one from his carol.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 43:Behold, the grace appears,
The promise is fulfilled;
Mary, the wondrous virgin, bears,
And Jesus is the Child.The Lord, the highest God,
Calls Him His only Son;
He bids Him rule the lands abroad,
And gives Him David’s throne.Glory to God on high!
And heav’nly peace on earth;
Goodwill to men, to angels joy,
At our Redeemer’s birth! -
Welcome to Anthem 42 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
You might have picked up elsewhere that our home situation has changed dramatically in the last week or two as we have moved my father-in-law in with us. This new caring responsibility has meant very little time for anything else as we get used to it but, somehow, I did manage to squeeze in a bit of composition.
Probably due to the situation, I found writing music a bit of a slog this week but I did get there in the end. Isaac Watts came to my rescue once again with some words. I chose a short, 2-verse hymn that wouldn't tax my brain too much (not that it really matters how long the text is to be fair) and this was the turn of the unaccompanied choir anthem.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 42:Thy name, almighty Lord,
Shall sound through distant lands;
Great is Thy grace, and sure Thy Word;
Thy truth for ever stands.Far be Thine honour spread,
And long Thy praise endure,
Till morning light and evening shade
Shall be exchanged no more. -
Welcome to Anthem 41 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It feels like I'm on the 'home stretch' with the Anthem 52 project. It's been difficult at times but this week's composition came fairly easily. Once again, it's an Isaac Watts text. I was looking for some words that would lend themselves to a quieter, more serene anthem this week. It was the turn of the accompanied style and I have found it much easier to write loud anthems with organ accompaniment this year. I also wanted to break my own habit of writing the initial phrases of the vocal parts in a rising pattern. When I found these words included 'descend and dwell' that seemed to fit the bill nicely.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 41:Come, dearest Lord, descend and dwell
By faith and love in every breast;
Then shall we know, and taste, and feel
The joys that cannot be expressed.Come, fill our hearts with inward strength,
Make our enlargèd souls possess,
And learn the height, and breadth, and length
Of Thine unmeasurable grace.By all the Church, through Christ His Son.
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Welcome to Anthem 40 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
This week was Harvest Festival at our sister Church, All Saints, Luddington.
It was great to take quite a large choir from Holy Trinity and we sang ‘The Heavens are Telling’ by Haydn from his oratorio, ‘The Creation’. There are a couple of trio sections and I drew the short straw in my tenor capacity. It went rather well.
In other news, I've made it to Anthem 40 which feels like another milestone. I've also been thinking about the next stages in my process after the completion of Anthem 52. I am sure that not all the anthems I've written are worthy of compiling into some kind of collection. That isn't to say they haven't been worthwhile to compose. Every time I have completed an anthem I have learned something, including a lot of 'what not to do' revelations!
Following the process of some award programmes, I think I'm going to listen to all the anthems and create a 'longlist' of those I deem to be worth revisiting and adding to a collection. Then I will ask friends, family and you to help me narrow the longlist down to a 'shortlist'. A final pass will result in approximately 10 anthems that I will refine and polish up for publication. I can already think of 5 or 6 I expect to be in this final list but I'm bound to be surprised!
Back to this week's anthem, however. Once again I chose some words from my current favourite source - Isaac Watts. These ones were fairly 'visual' and the theme of lifting up ones eyes seemed like an obvious choice for setting as an anthem.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 40:Upward I lift mine eyes,
From God is all my aid;
The God that built the skies,
And earth and nature made;
God is the tower to which I fly;
His grace is nigh in every hour.My feet shall never slide
And fall in fatal snares,
Since God, my guard and guide,
Defends me from my fears.I’ll go and come, nor fear to die,
Till from on high Thou call me home. -
Welcome to Anthem 39 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
I've been trying to catch up with anthem production this week. I was only a few days behind but I don't want to be faced with a deficit at the end of the year. So here is an anthem I completed rather quickly. I don't think it has suffered from the speed of composition but you will have to be the judge of that.
I used the same collection of Isaac Watts words as last week and I looked for something a bit more upbeat. It seemed to work because the process of writing didn't depress me (in the non-clinical sense) like last week's did.
Here are the words I chose:
Words for Anthem 39:Once more, my soul, the rising day
Salutes thy waking eyes;
Once more, my voice, thy tribute pay
To Him that rules the skies.Night unto night His name repeats,
The day renews the sound,
Wide as the Heav’n on which He sits,
To turn the seasons round.A thousand wretched souls are fled
Since the last setting sun,
And yet Thou length’nest out my thread,
And yet my moments run.Dear God, let all my hours be Thine,
Whilst I enjoy the light;
Then shall my sun in smiles decline,
And bring a pleasing night. -
Welcome to Anthem 38 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It was good to return to Holy Trinity Church with the choir this week, even if it wasn't with Charlotte whose Coventry musical life is just getting going. As I write this, she is preparing for an audition to join the Coventry Cathedral Chorus - I'm sure she will enjoy that a great deal.
It was Ollie's (our new interim Director of Music) first Sunday with the choir and we sang Choral Evensong. It went well. I'm looking forward to having some of my own anthems added to the choir's repertoire...one day...
This week was a bit more of a struggle than last week, in terms of composition. It started off fine as I suddenly remembered that the main criterion of anthem competition I entered earlier in the year was to set words by Isaac Watts, the prolific 18th Century writer. I went back to the source I used to find the text for that anthem and rediscovered an enormous collection of words. 824 texts are mentioned with many linked to on the single page:
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/a/t/t/watts_i.htm
As well as hymn words, Watts wrote more poetic texts and I chose a short one from Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book 2, 1707–09, number 26. Here are the words (I missed out one verse):
Words for Anthem 38:Lord, we are blind, we mortals blind,
We can’t behold Thy bright abode;
O ’tis beyond a creature’s mind
To glance a thought half way to God.Infinite leagues beyond the sky
The great Eternal reigns alone,
Where neither wings nor souls can fly,
Nor angels climb the topless throne.Yet, glorious Lord, Thy gracious eyes
Look through, and cheer us from above;
Beyond our praise Thy grandeur flies,
Yet we adore, and yet we love. -
Welcome to Anthem 37 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
It's been a week of changes for me and my family. Charlotte has started her university course and there is a new Interim Director of Music at Holy Trinity Church. Both of these changes are, of course, very positive. Charlotte is finding her feet and getting to know her lecturers and the rest of her group as well as settling in to her Uni Hall of Residence. What fun! Ollie is our new DoM but we all know him because he was our Organ Scholar a few years ago before going off to Uni. It's going to be fascinating to see how both of these new situations work out.
Back to this week's anthem, only a few days after I found it I don't have a clear recollection of how I decided to use part of Psalm xxiv (24). However, the words are highly effective for an anthem and the end of the Psalm contains some of the most well-known anthem words of all:
"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory : even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory."
If you don't know the anthem by Mathias take a listen to this really good Covid-time version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxj-hW9U6CwI chose words form earlier in the Psalm:
Words for Anthem 37:The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is : the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas : and prepared it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord : or who shall rise up in his holy place?
Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart :
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord : and righteousness from the God of his salvation. -
Welcome to Anthem 36 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
This is the first anthem I have written away from home. We were on holiday in Devon this past week but Anthem 52 waits for no man - or woman or whatever. For my 30th Wedding Anniversary holiday I managed to write anthems to plug the gap before I went but that wasn't possible this time. I knew I could take my laptop on this holiday and there would be some 'down time' so it was an interesting task to try. I regret not remembering to take my 'over-ear' headphones because using earbuds wasn't a lot of fun. It made the writing more difficult.
However, I did manage to find some reasonable words, again a prayer from a service rather than a Psalm, like the previous anthem. Commonly known as the 'General Confession', it's a prayer familiar to millions of Christians around the world, I'm sure. Despite this, or perhaps due to this, I found it a worthwhile set of lyrics for anthem 36.
Words for Anthem 36:Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,
We have offended against thy holy laws,
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
And we have done those things which we ought not to have done,
And there is no health in us:
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders;
Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults,
Restore thou them that are penitent,
And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
To the glory of thy holy Name.
Amen.
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Welcome to Anthem 35 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
I've got a little behind in adding these updates over the past couple of weeks. I have managed to write the anthems but not the podcast episodes. Hopefully, I will be fully back on track after this week. The main reasons for this are a family holiday in Devon and a trip to Coventry to settle my daughter into her University accommodation for her first year. She is studying Music Production and Songwriting - more on that topic soon I'm sure.
Back to Anthem 35. This time I found some interesting words in the Irish Book of Common Prayer, not in the usual Psalms sections but in one of the orders of service. I thought it was a passage from St. Luke's Gospel but it's actually a collect used in The Ordering of Deacons service and elsewhere. The words are still good for an anthem though.
Words for Anthem 35:Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Welcome to Anthem 34 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
This week I needed to be swift (not Taylor) to complete anthem 34 because I am visiting Bath with my wife to hear our daughter, Charlotte, singing at the RSCM Choir Course. This is the second year in a row that she has had the opportunity to attend the course, thanks to The Friends of the Music of Holy Trinity Church. 3 choristers from Holy Trinity are there this year, enjoying singing in a variety of contexts, including services at Bath Abbey. I'm very much looking forward to that trip.
So I couldn't waste any time coming up with a text for the anthem. While looking through the Irish Book of Common Prayer, I spotted the opening to Psalm cxlv (145). These seemed like promising words and here they are:
Words for Anthem 34:I will magnify thee, O God, my King : and I will praise thy Name for ever and ever.
Every day will I give thanks unto thee : and praise thy Name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and marvellous worthy to be praised : there is no end of his greatness.
I also added an Amen section in at the end (obviously) because the piece seemed to need it.
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Welcome to Anthem 33 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].
THis week's text comes from a very long psalm - cxix (119). It is split up in the Irish Book of Common Prayer into many sections and the words I chose are verses 145 - 152. There are a lot more words than I usually set and I think that's at least partly down to how the process went. It was comparatively easy to write this anthem. It seemed to flow better than last week's. I don't know if the end result is better or worse but the resulting anthem feels fairly complete and coherent.
Words for Anthem 32:I call with my whole heart : hear me, O Lord, I will keep thy statutes.
Yea, even unto thee do I call : help me, and I shall keep thy testimonies.
Early in the morning do I cry unto thee : for in thy word is my trust.
Mine eyes prevent the night-watches : that I might be occupied in thy words.
Hear my voice, O Lord, according unto thy loving-kindness : quicken me according as thou art wont.
They draw nigh that of malice persecute me : and are far from thy law.
Be thou nigh at hand, O Lord : for all thy commandments are true.
As concerning thy testimonies, I have known long since ; that thou hast grounded them for ever.
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