HAVPCD355 – De Profundis. Martin Bruce
HAVPCD355 – De Profundis. Martin Bruce
(Available in late March 2010)
Martin Bruce’s De Profundis was written for the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, at the invitation of organist Stephen Darlington. It received its first performance in the Lent of 2008. Scored for two four-part choirs, it opens with a motif built on a rising tone, which grows steadily more insistent. Initially passed between the two alto parts – naturally an effective technique for a cathedral choir, where the two choruses are physically separated on either side of the nave – this ascending idea develops and opens out into a full, eight-part rendering: ‘Lord, hear my voice’.
There is a wide variety of textures employed here, and each section of text has its own distinct character; we move from the antiphonal effects of ‘therefore shalt thou be feared’ to the fugal style of ‘I look for the Lord’, coming to a close only when the opening ascending tone motif returns, this time passed between the two soprano parts. This setting of a text which is at once penitential yet full of hope seems to move through a gamut of moods before reaching its conclusion, and in the ambitious choral writing we have an apposite gateway into the works which succeed it here. The Magnificat is Mary’s song of joy at the revelation that she will bear the Son of God, and as a canticle it is one of the church’s fundamental liturgical texts.
