Wild Musick (2020)

Wild Musick

Descend ye Nine! descend and sing;
The breathing instruments inspire,
Wake into voice each silent string,
And sweep the sounding lyre!
In a sadly-pleasing strain,
Let the warbling lute complain;
             Let the loud trumpet sound,
             ’Till the roofs all around
             The shrill echos rebound:
While in more lengthen’d notes and slow,
The deep, majestick, solemn organs blow.
Hark! the numbers, soft and clear,
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph, now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild musick floats;
’Till, by degrees, remote and small,
             The strains decay,
And melt away
In a dying, dying fall.

Alexander Pope

When Twickenham Choral commissioned this work for their centenary celebrations it made sense to choose a local poet. Alexander Pope (1688–1744) is regarded as one of the UKʼs finest, and with the money he had made from his translation of Homer, he was able to purchase a magnificent villa in Twickenhamʼs Cross Deep, of which his famous grotto still survives, underneath St Catherineʼs and Radnor House Schools. He was 22 when he penned his epic Ode for Musick, on St Ceciliaʼs Day although it wasnʼt published for another 13 years. Iʼve used just the exuberant first verse here, and have relished word-painting his musical depictions, using the first two lines, which imitate celebratory church bells, as a refrain.

I am hugely grateful to Twickenham Choral and their conductor Christopher Herrick for commissioning this work – it has been a huge joy to write, during this riotously sunny and colourful spring.

Roxanna Panufnik