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first
performed by Tonus Peregrinus and broadcast in 1996; published
by Faber Music in 1998 and recorded by Schola Cantorum of Oxford
in 1999; duration: c.4'
An
extraordinarily powerful setting of the [5th Chapter of the] Lamentations
of Jeremiah. Economy of texture gives this piece a musical austerity
befitting the text. Opening in declamatory, single-line passages,
most of the work is chordal, making the comparatively rare moments
of rhythmic interplay a marked feature. Simplicity of style allows
the text to be sharply focused. (Mark Shepherd)
Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider,
and behold our reproach. Our inheritance is turned to strangers,
our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers
are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is
sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and
have no rest. We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to
the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread. Our fathers have sinned
and are not: and we have borne their iniquities. Servants have
ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their
hand. We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of
the sword of the wilderness. Our skin was black like an oven because
of the terrible famine. They ravished the women in Zion, and the
maids in the cities of Judah. Princes are hanged up by their hand:
the faces of elders were not honoured. They took the young men
to grind, and the children fell under the wood. The elders have
ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick. The joy
of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning. The
crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!
For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.
Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes
walk upon it. Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever: thy throne from
generation to generation. Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever,
and forsake us so long time? Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and
we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. But thou hast utterly
rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.
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