The Song I Came to Sing (2023)

I was commissioned by JAM to compose a piece for their 2023 Music of our Time concert, at the beautiful St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. The Chapel Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge , Onyx Brass and Simon Hogan gave a wonderful performance in its first outing, conducted by Michael Bawtree.

The Song I Came to Sing is a line from Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, or Song Offerings (published 1910) a Nobel Peace-winning collection with themes of self-realisation and at-onement with God and all life. Each of my three movements sets words from a different poem.

Poem XIII: The upbeat, dance-like nature of the first movement conveys a sense of expectation of something higher and a joyful sense of purpose – ‘the song that I came to sing’ – even though for the writer that purpose is not yet realised (The lamp has not been lit). The writer has not yet fully experienced God or his own soul but knows that he one day will…

Poem XVIII: The more still and hushed second movement, Why dost thou let me wait? expresses the sense of loneliness and waiting of this poem and the writer’s yearning for contact with his soul and with God. The movement begins with a solo horn and long-held and bending sung notes add to the sense of intense longing.

Poem LXVII: The joyful third movement, Thou art the sky, depicts an experience of infinity and at-oneness with all life. The organ is more prominent here, especially for the celestial final section “where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her flight in”…