Vertue (1988)

Vertue (1988)
for choir (SATB) and organ 

Commissioned by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Text: George Herbert

The anthem Vertue was completed while Julian Philips was an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and specially commissioned by Tim Brown and the choir of Clare College. It was completed early in 1988. 

The work is a setting of a poem by the metaphysical poet, George Herbert (1593-1633), which contrasts the transience of earthly beauty with the permanance of spiritual virtue which 

"though the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives."

Each of the poem's four stanzas centres on a single poetic image - "Sweet day", "Sweet rose", and "Sweet Spring" culminating in the "Sweet and virtuous soul".  This progression through a series of interlinked metaphors leading to a single idea, is carefully reflected in the music, which is built out of four transformations of a single harmonic cell, which gradually lighten in colour towards the radiance of G major and A major, combined in the final stanza.

The first and four stanzas are closely linked and form a structural arch to the piece. The second is scored for mens' voices only who sing of the rose's "hue angry and brave" while the third is for alto solo who sings of sweet spring's "sweet dayes and roses" over a tapestry of birdlike trills and arabesques. In the final stanza the different musical elements are gently combined building to an ecstatic climax.

Julian Philips, June 1996