Choral

Moonless Darkness

(2024) Text by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Duration: 2 minutes
SSAATTBB

World Premiere: 3.12.24, New College Chapel, Oxford; Choir of New College Oxford/Robert Quinney (cond.)

Improperium Expectavit Cor Meum

(2019) For unaccompanied choir
Duration: 4 minutes
For SSAATTBB

World Premiere: 1.6.19, LSO St Luke's, London: ORA Singers/Suzi Digby

Improperium Expectavit Cor Meum was commissioned by ORA100 for Suzi Digby OBE and the singers of ORA

Programme Note

This motet takes Palestrina’s Offertory for Palm Sunday as a musical starting point. The same words of foresakenness from the Psalms are set here, and certain harmonies and melodic contours from Palestrina’s music are freely recomposed and reflected upon without ever being directly quoted. Solo voices and duets alternate with the chorus, recounting grief in search of deliverance. © Edmund Finnis

Verbo Domini

(2014) For choir
Duration: 4 minutes
SSAATTBB

World Premiere: 26.4.14, New College Chapel, Oxford: New College Choir, Edward Higginbottom

Verbo Domini was commissioned by the Choir of New College Oxford.

“an exquisite plangent prayer in close dense harmony with a rising soprano solo.”
Bachtrack
“They evoked bleak northern climes in Arvo Pärt’s flawless Kyrie from the Berliner Mass, Pēteris Vasks’ mesmeric Plainscapes II and Edmund Finnis’ Verbo Domini with its edgy dissonance. ”
The Scotsman