Music for Lent 1: Angelis suis

(If I’ve done this correctly it should post on Wednesday night, UK time…)

Vitrail Florac 010609 09 Ange Gardien

Ready or not, Lent is upon us.

In January, Sally Martin-Brown asked me if I had anything suitable for the University of London Church Choir visit to Jerusalem. I had a rummage through my notebooks, sure I’d started something at some point, and sure enough, there was a sort of skeleton of this piece, the Latin version of Psalm 91:11-12: Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te: ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum. (God shall give his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands: that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.)

I’m hoping to record the piece while we’re in Jerusalem, but in the meantime, here are some robots:

Angelis suis as sung by robots (mp3 from MIDI)

As usual you can download the score from CPDL. Please don’t sing it before Sunday, though, when we’ll be singing the world premiere of it at the site believed to be where Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan.

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