Come love, and let us work a song (SATB & Organ) Iain James Veitch

Come Love! And Let Us Work a Song  (SATB & Organ) by Iain James Veitch (Digital Download edition also available)

Text: Robert Crashaw 

Total duration: 6 mins

‘Come Love! and let us work a song’ was composed for a competition organised by the Finzi Trust. The brief was to compose a response to Finzi’s ‘Lo, the full, final sacrifice’. The piece was shortlisted.

The primary rationale behind the composition of my new work was that it should be able to function as a companion piece to Finzi. My first response was simply to come up with a musical idea that would sound good and effective if performed immediately after the Finzi. The opening sounds of my piece attempts to provide both contrast and continuity.

As well as this purely musical consideration, however, I also wanted to continue the emotional ‘narrative’, and in particular to focus on the elation experienced after receiving the Eucharist. This, of course, gave rise to the more up-beat, energetic, and rejoiceful approach required to create the sort of contrast I was looking for. With this in mind, I actually considered two texts: the runner-up was George Herbert’s poem ‘Sion’. However, the particular verses I eventually chose, being from Lauda Sion Salvatorem by Richard Crashaw - the same source as Finzi’s work - additionally offered a more obvious connection.

As well as ‘contrast’, however, I also considered ‘continuity’ to be of equal importance. Firstly, in a general sense, the style of both pieces had to share a degree of consistency. To a point I didn’t have to think too hard about this as my music, in any case, tends to use an extended modal harmonic language. However, in this particular instance some specific musical features of ‘Lo, the full, final sacrifice’ have been ‘picked up’ - for example, the use of the sometimes Phrygian-sounding ‘flat 9th’ - both melodically and harmonically.