There is a new setting of the Magnificat, by Richard Toensing, for four-part women’s choir and harp. It is a unique blend of the Christian East and West traditions and a wonderful alternative to Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols.
Listen to the Magnificat, performed by In Mulieribus, http://www.inmulieribus.org.
Magnificat, Richard Toensing, Part 1, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSWlz4vfvpU
Magnificat, Richard Toensing, Part 2, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLSf9PPGsQ8
From the East comes the form of the work: verses alternating with the refrain “More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thou who without stain didst bear God the Word, and art truly Theotokos (bearer of God), we magnify thee,” and also some of the musical material, borrowing scalar structures of some of the Greco-Byzantine modes.
From the West comes the tradition of singing the Magnificat in Latin and accompanying the voices with an instrument. The musical language is Toensing’s – even the Greco-Byzantine material is passed through the “filter” of his personal melodic and harmonic style, creating a work which he intends to be both reverential and joyous.
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