Canticum Mariae Virginis (2021)

Canticum Mariae Virginis juxtaposes two texts, both regarding the Virgin Mary, but offering different yet complementary accounts of the Blessed Virgin. As well as pairing these texts, the piece also uses two different languages and two points of view in its six-minute duration. The piece blends the formal Latin of Cantemus in omni die, the earliest known Latin hymn to Mary originally composed in the Western Christian Church (written on Iona in the eighth century) with excerpts of the Magnificat in archaic Scots, taken from the sixteenth-century anthology the Bannatyne Manuscript. The former is in the third person and the latter the first person, this then being represented by the main choir and the solo soprano respectively. The solo material (in Scots) is more animated, more agile and more vernacular in nature, calling for a different tone and delivery (if possible) to the ensemble material. The two performers are kept apart for the duration of the piece, though the material between the two is gradually shared as the work progresses.