After Virtue

Taken from the final paragraph (chapter 18) of the book After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre (E)

Choral level of difficulty: Level 4 (5 greatest)

This short, powerful work was commissioned by the Oslo International Church Music Festival in 2007. This is a remarkable setting of an unlikely text by Alasdair MacIntyre (b 1929) in which the current ‘dark ages’ are compared with those of the dark ages following the collapse of the Roman Empire. The existence of good people who achieved ‘the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained’ is compared with similar activities today leading to the conclusion that there is therefore ‘hope’. What we are waiting for is a ‘very different Saint Benedict’.

This piece has the MacMillan ‘wow’ factor. It is not easy, but neither is it beyond the reach of a hardworking ordinary choir. His political views, often enshrined in his choral music, are as expressive and powerful as his religious views and this piece will undoubtedly fire up the imaginations of choral directors and singers alike. The intensely rhythmic nature of the setting of this prose, the imaginative humming colours with closed and open signals as the crescendos and diminuendos bite, the ferocity of expression, the impetus given by streams of moving quavers hummed above the pounding text, and the wholly unexpected and mesmerizingly beautiful utterances of ‘Saint Benedict’ with which the piece ends, all of this adds up to a quite remarkable tour-de-force.

Repertoire note by Paul Spicer