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commissioned
by the Clerks' Group for performance from a choirbook with solo
recitation ad lib., and first performed in the Wigmore Hall, London
in May 2000 duration: c.7'
Just as wood from the desert between Egypt and Israel was overlaid
with gold in order to be used in the Tabernacle by the Israelites,
so European composers in the 15th and 16th Centuries took the
most earthy of secular songs and stretched them out as a 'cantus
firmus', enacted all kinds of refined mathematical games, carved
into them a sacred text, and finally covered them with layer after
layer of the purest counterpoint. The popular tune L'homme
armé with its all-too-human associations of violence and fear
was frequently used as musical scaffolding in this way: in Josquin's
Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales for instance,
the cantus firmus starts on a different note of the mode in each
section of the Mass. In this new setting of the Credo (written
earlier this year) the 'voces musicales' are overtones from the
unchanging and infinite harmonic series* - intoned by seven of
the singers as they take turns to recite the Creed in their native
language and away from the central choirbook. The remaining members
of the choir sing the Latin text in four-part homophony in which
the pitches of L'homme armé are combined with a pedal-note
from the same set of overtones together with approximate 'sum'
and 'difference' tones**. The rhythms of L'homme armé are
divided up into an array of simple rhythmic cells manipulated
to tally with the shorts and longs of the text, all within a triple
beat.
The text of the Creed is both a summary - a 'symbol' - of the
beliefs of the Church and an act of faith and worship. As such,
it was brought together at the Councils of Nicea (325) and Constantinople
(381) as an expansion of the simple testimony of the first New
Testament believers "I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God"
(Acts 8:37); it was introduced into the Eucharistic liturgy in
Antioch at the end of the 5th Century, soon afterwards in Jerusalem
and other Eastern churches, later spreading to the Spanish, French
and German churches, although not until 1014 was it officially
adopted for use in the Mass at Rome. The fact that Eastern and
Western divisions of the Church agree on every part of the Creed
except one word (in Latin) - 'filioque', added unilaterally at
a Council at Toledo - has been rather overshadowed by that one
disagreement: in this setting the word may be omitted if appropriate
to the circumstances of the performance.
*the harmonic series is made up of whole-number multiples of its
own fundamental frequency: e.g. 55 (3 A's below middle C), 110,
165, 220, 275, 330, 385, 440 etc, and exists throughout the universe
wherever something is vibrating - from a violin string to a rotating
planet.
**i.e. if the cantus firmus is an E at c.165 Hertz and the overtone
pedal is a C# c.275 Hz, then the other two parts will have notes
in the region of 440 Hz (165+275) and 110 Hz (275-165) - a pair
of A's two octaves apart.
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem factorem
caeli et terrae, Visibilium omnium, et invisibilium. Et in unum
Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum. Et ex Patre natum
ante omnia saecula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de
Deo vero. Genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri: Per quem
omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines, Et propter nostram
salutem Descendit de caelis. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto
Ex Maria Virgine: ET HOMO FACTUS EST. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis:
Sub Pontio Pilato passus, et sepultus est. Et resurrexit tertie
die, secundum Scripturas. Et ascendit in caelum: sedet ad dexteram
Patris. Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, Iudicare vivos et mortuos:
Cuius regni non erit finis. Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominium, et
vivificantem: Qui ex Patre [Filioque] procedit. Qui cum Patre
et Filio simul adoratur, et conglorificatur: Qui locutus est per
Prophetas. Et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto
resurrectionem mortuorum. Et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth, And of all things visible and invisible: And in one Lord
Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father
before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very
God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father,
By whom all things were made: Who for us men, and for our salvation,
came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of
the Virgin Mary, AND WAS MADE MAN, And was crucified also for
us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. And the third
day He rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into
heaven: And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And He shall
come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose
Kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The
Lord, and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father [and the
Son], Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and
glorified, Who spake by the prophets. And I believe One Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge One Baptism for the remission
of sins; And I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the
life of the world to come. Amen.
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