All This Night

William Austin (E)

A colourful Christmas fanfare which makes a dramatic addition to any programme of festive music or liturgical celebration. The text describes the cockerel ‘chanticleer’ crowing all night with joy at the birth of Christ. As with all of Finzi’s music, the tuning in this unaccompanied motet is crucially important and, given the amount of divisi writing, it does present choirs with a considerable challenge. It repays the study amply, however, and also makes an excellent foil to Finzi’s more lyrical, reflective music with which most people are familiar.