WINGATE: ALL YE HIS ANGELS
A Michaelmas Anthem

Date:
2010

Instrumentation:
Chorus (SATB) and Organ

Duration:
4'

Text (adapted by the composer after Ps. 103:20-22):

    O praise the Lord, all ye his angels,
    ye mighty in strength that fulfill his command,
    hearkening unto the voice of his word!

    O praise the Lord, all ye his hosts,
    ye servants of his that do his will!

    O praise the Lord, all ye his works,
    in all the places of his dominion!

    Praise thou the Lord, O my soul!


Notes:
Wingate’s All Ye His Angels is a four-minute, four-part choral anthem with organ obbligato, featuring a text suitable for the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, celebrated liturgically on the 29th September. The piece is a virtuosic and ecstatic exhalation of chromatic harmonies, blowing forth from somewhat rivalrous juxtapositions between chorus and organ, with decidedly tonal theme materials destabilized throughout by modulation via thirds. The piece’s secondary melodic material will bring to mind the primary theme from Wingate’s 2005 organ/chamber piece Landscapes of Consciousness (or the choral a cappella version thereof, known simply as Amen), but the anthem’s mood here is perhaps more ‘rousing quasi-cinematic moment’ rather than bleak introspection. The piece’s text setting allows for many proclamatory indulgences, including a long and bewilderingly Byzantine melismatic unfurling of the word: ‘word’. The music often makes other elaborate vocal demands of its choristers, including frequent stagger breathing, a labyrinth of complex inner voice leadings, and a heaven-shattering high B-natural for the sopranos just before the whirlwind-like coda. The blustery organ often seems to interrupt the singers with aggressively embellished interludes or dramatic punctuations, but both of the anthem’s forces ultimately progress in tandem to celebratory exultation. The fluttering organ arpeggios heard before the final chords are meant to suggest the frenzied beating of angels’ wings as the anthem concludes amongst the thunder of the heavenly host. All Ye His Angels was composed for a Michaelmas service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in 2010 using a terse and inspiriting psalmody adapted by the composer.