After being enormously impressed on hearing a new composition by local musician, Michael Howell, I asked Michael to try and explain the process. Ed.



"When asked to write a new choral work my thoughts are never clear until I know the text I will be setting. Sometimes this is provided as part of the commission but usally the choice is left to me. For a sacred work my initial thoughts turn to the psalms; I love the poetic beauty of the language and have never failed to find melodic phrases and harmonic inspiration from them. Sometime in the future I actually have a crazy ambition to set the whole of psalm 119, the longest in the psalter!

On this occasion it was a Christmas commission, so the psalms were not appropriate. I was privileged years ago to be involved in recording some Christmas pieces (still, I think, unpublished) by Christopher Williams which used some seasonal poetry by Robert Herrick. Looking at his available poems on the internet I found one I had not previously encountered - The Star Song, a Carol to the King, which seemed in a lighter vein to some of the others, and set me thinking along melodically straightforward, almost pastoral lines. Being commissioned for orchestral accompaniment also opened up textural possibilities which would be unobtainable with piano or even organ accompaniment.

Having the use of the church choir trebles as well as the SATB choir enabled me to divide the soprano line on a fairly frequent basis, as well as allowing it to lie quite high in the range for a good part of the time (it actually contains two top Bs towards the very end!)

The version performed in November will not be the only version I produce; to make the piece accessible to choirs that can't hire an orchestra I will produce an organ reduction and adaptation of the full score, but even this will need a fairly resourceful instrument to do it justice! It has however been both challenging and very rewarding to write for the unusually big resources available for the occasion, and I felt highly privileged to have been able to conduct the première with such enthusiastic support from all the musicians who took part in
it."


Editors notes:

The world première of Michael's work was performed by the Settle Orchestra (www.settleorchestra.org.uk), the choir of Holy Trinity Church, Skipton and Pinsuti - the Ilkley Chamber Choir.

Michael started his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Abbey, after which he won a music scholarship to Cranleigh School, Surrey, studying piano, oboe, harpsichord and organ.

He was then appointed organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford and has subsequently held teaching positions in Dorset, Staffordshire and Berkshire.

He moved to Yorkshire in 2008 and is currently Organist and Director of Music at Holy Trinity, Skipton, a position which allows him time to pursue his other musical interests of conducting, accompanying and composing.

Michael is the conductor of Pinsuti. More information can be found at www.pinsuti.org.uk