St Luke Passion HPS 1606

Scored for chorus, children’s choir, organ and chamber orchestra, St Luke Passion adopts a pared-back focus on choral voices over its 75-minute span. Seeking a more spiritual, inward approach to match Luke’s text, the composer eschews settings of interpolated texts as arias and the customary Evangelist and Christ soli: everything is sung by choral forces. A children’s choir grants a measure of innocence to Christ as the sacrificial lamb, emphasising aspects of otherness, sanctity and mystery.

St John Passion HPS 1604
for Baritone solo, small chorus (narrator chorus), large chorus and orchestra

Stabat Mater HPS 1614
Composed in 2015, Stabat Mater was commissioned by the Genesis Foundation for Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. Scored for mixed chorus and string orchestra it is a long-awaited sequel to the early masterpiece Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), for the same forces; indeed, the later work begins with the pianissimo ‘dying breaths’ with which the earlier score so unforgettably closes. Cast in four movements Stabat Mater has a duration of 53 minutes.