Anthem 52

Welcome to Anthem 43 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

Despite fitting in little bits of composition time around everything else that is currently occupying us, this anthem seemed to flow fairly well. I've resisted the temptation to start writing Christmas Carols until now. Writing carols is how I discovered that I could compose for choirs quickly, much to my surprise so I have been looking forward to having another go at this seasonal activity.

The words came from the practically inexhaustible source of Isaac Watts, yet again and I went for verse 1 and 2 and the final one from his carol.

Here are the words I chose:

Behold, the grace ap­pears, The pro­mise is ful­filled; Mary, the won­drous vir­gin, bears, And Je­sus is the Child.

The Lord, the high­est God, Calls Him His on­ly Son; He bids Him rule the lands abroad, And gives Him Da­vid’s throne.

Glory to God on high! And heav’n­ly peace on earth; Goodwill to men, to an­gels joy, At our Re­deem­er’s birth!

Welcome to Anthem 42 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

You might have picked up elsewhere that our home situation has changed dramatically in the last week or two as we have moved my father-in-law in with us. This new caring responsibility has meant very little time for anything else as we get used to it but, somehow, I did manage to squeeze in a bit of composition.

Probably due to the situation, I found writing music a bit of a slog this week but I did get there in the end. Isaac Watts came to my rescue once again with some words. I chose a short, 2-verse hymn that wouldn't tax my brain too much (not that it really matters how long the text is to be fair) and this was the turn of the unaccompanied choir anthem.

Here are the words I chose:

Thy name, al­migh­ty Lord, Shall sound through dist­ant lands; Great is Thy grace, and sure Thy Word; Thy truth for ev­er stands.

Far be Thine hon­our spread, And long Thy praise en­dure, Till morn­ing light and ev­en­ing shade Shall be ex­changed no more.

Welcome to Anthem 41 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

It feels like I'm on the 'home stretch' with the Anthem 52 project. It's been difficult at times but this week's composition came fairly easily. Once again, it's an Isaac Watts text. I was looking for some words that would lend themselves to a quieter, more serene anthem this week. It was the turn of the accompanied style and I have found it much easier to write loud anthems with organ accompaniment this year. I also wanted to break my own habit of writing the initial phrases of the vocal parts in a rising pattern. When I found these words included 'descend and dwell' that seemed to fit the bill nicely.

Here are the words I chose:

Come, dear­est Lord, des­cend and dwell By faith and love in ev­ery breast; Then shall we know, and taste, and feel The joys that can­not be ex­pressed.

Come, fill our hearts with in­ward strength, Make our en­larg­èd souls pos­sess, And learn the height, and breadth, and length Of Thine un­mea­sur­able grace.

By all the Church, through Christ His Son.

Welcome to Anthem 40 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

This week was Harvest Festival at our sister Church, All Saints, Luddington.

It was great to take quite a large choir from Holy Trinity and we sang ‘The Heavens are Telling’ by Haydn from his oratorio, ‘The Creation’. There are a couple of trio sections and I drew the short straw in my tenor capacity. It went rather well.

In other news, I've made it to Anthem 40 which feels like another milestone. I've also been thinking about the next stages in my process after the completion of Anthem 52. I am sure that not all the anthems I've written are worthy of compiling into some kind of collection. That isn't to say they haven't been worthwhile to compose. Every time I have completed an anthem I have learned something, including a lot of 'what not to do' revelations!

Following the process of some award programmes, I think I'm going to listen to all the anthems and create a 'longlist' of those I deem to be worth revisiting and adding to a collection. Then I will ask friends, family and you to help me narrow the longlist down to a 'shortlist'. A final pass will result in approximately 10 anthems that I will refine and polish up for publication. I can already think of 5 or 6 I expect to be in this final list but I'm bound to be surprised!

Back to this week's anthem, however. Once again I chose some words from my current favourite source - Isaac Watts. These ones were fairly 'visual' and the theme of lifting up ones eyes seemed like an obvious choice for setting as an anthem.

Here are the words I chose:

Upward I lift mine eyes, From God is all my aid; The God that built the skies, And earth and na­ture made; God is the tow­er to which I fly; His grace is nigh in ev­ery hour.

My feet shall ne­ver slide And fall in fa­tal snares, Since God, my guard and guide, Defends me from my fears.

I’ll go and come, nor fear to die, Till from on high Thou call me home.

Welcome to Anthem 39 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

I've been trying to catch up with anthem production this week. I was only a few days behind but I don't want to be faced with a deficit at the end of the year. So here is an anthem I completed rather quickly. I don't think it has suffered from the speed of composition but you will have to be the judge of that.

I used the same collection of Isaac Watts words as last week and I looked for something a bit more upbeat. It seemed to work because the process of writing didn't depress me (in the non-clinical sense) like last week's did.

Here are the words I chose:

Once more, my soul, the ris­ing day Salutes thy wak­ing eyes; Once more, my voice, thy trib­ute pay To Him that rules the skies.

Night un­to night His name re­peats, The day re­news the sound, Wide as the Heav’n on which He sits, To turn the sea­sons round.

A thou­sand wretch­ed souls are fled Since the last set­ting sun, And yet Thou length’n­est out my thread, And yet my mo­ments run.

Dear God, let all my hours be Thine, Whilst I en­joy the light; Then shall my sun in smiles de­cline, And bring a pleas­ing night.

Welcome to Anthem 38 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

It was good to return to Holy Trinity Church with the choir this week, even if it wasn't with Charlotte whose Coventry musical life is just getting going. As I write this, she is preparing for an audition to join the Coventry Cathedral Chorus - I'm sure she will enjoy that a great deal.

It was Ollie's (our new interim Director of Music) first Sunday with the choir and we sang Choral Evensong. It went well. I'm looking forward to having some of my own anthems added to the choir's repertoire...one day... 

This week was a bit more of a struggle than last week, in terms of composition. It started off fine as I suddenly remembered that the main criterion of anthem competition I entered earlier in the year was to set words by Isaac Watts, the prolific 18th Century writer. I went back to the source I used to find the text for that anthem and rediscovered an enormous collection of words. 824 texts are mentioned with many linked to on the single page:

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/a/t/t/watts_i.htm

As well as hymn words, Watts wrote more poetic texts and I chose a short one from Hymns and Spi­ri­tu­al Songs, Book 2, 1707–09, num­ber 26. Here are the words (I missed out one verse):

Lord, we are blind, we mor­tals blind, We can’t be­hold Thy bright abode; O ’tis be­yond a crea­ture’s mind To glance a thought half way to God.

Infinite leagues be­yond the sky The great Eter­nal reigns alone, Where nei­ther wings nor souls can fly, Nor an­gels climb the top­less throne.

Yet, glo­ri­ous Lord, Thy gra­cious eyes Look through, and cheer us from above; Beyond our praise Thy grand­eur flies, Yet we ad­ore, and yet we love.

Welcome to Anthem 37 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

It's been a week of changes for me and my family. Charlotte has started her university course and there is a new Interim Director of Music at Holy Trinity Church. Both of these changes are, of course, very positive. Charlotte is finding her feet and getting to know her lecturers and the rest of her group as well as settling in to her Uni Hall of Residence. What fun! Ollie is our new DoM but we all know him because he was our Organ Scholar a few years ago before going off to Uni. It's going to be fascinating to see how both of these new situations work out. 

Back to this week's anthem, only a few days after I found it I don't have a clear recollection of how I decided to use part of Psalm xxiv (24). However, the words are highly effective for an anthem and the end of the Psalm contains some of the most well-known anthem words of all:

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory : even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory."

If you don't know the anthem by Mathias take a listen to this really good Covid-time version:

I chose words form earlier in the Psalm:

The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is : the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas : and prepared it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord : or who shall rise up in his holy place? Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart : He shall receive the blessing from the Lord : and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Welcome to Anthem 36 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

This is the first anthem I have written away from home. We were on holiday in Devon this past week but Anthem 52 waits for no man - or woman or whatever. For my 30th Wedding Anniversary holiday I managed to write anthems to plug the gap before I went but that wasn't possible this time. I knew I could take my laptop on this holiday and there would be some 'down time' so it was an interesting task to try. I regret not remembering to take my 'over-ear' headphones because using earbuds wasn't a lot of fun. It made the writing more difficult.

However, I did manage to find some reasonable words, again a prayer from a service rather than a Psalm, like the previous anthem. Commonly known as the 'General Confession', it's a prayer familiar to millions of Christians around the world, I'm sure. Despite this, or perhaps due to this, I found it a worthwhile set of lyrics for anthem 36.

Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,

We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,

We have offended against thy holy laws,

We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,

And we have done those things which we ought not to have done,

And there is no health in us:

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders;

Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults,

Restore thou them that are penitent,

And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,

That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,

To the glory of thy holy Name.

Amen.

Welcome to Anthem 35 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

I've got a little behind in adding these updates over the past couple of weeks. I have managed to write the anthems but not the podcast episodes. Hopefully, I will be fully back on track after this week. The main reasons for this are a family holiday in Devon and a trip to Coventry to settle my daughter into her University accommodation for her first year. She is studying Music Production and Songwriting - more on that topic soon I'm sure.

Back to Anthem 35. This time I found some interesting words in the Irish Book of Common Prayer, not in the usual Psalms sections but in one of the orders of service. I thought it was a passage from St. Luke's Gospel but it's actually a collect used in The Ordering of Deacons service and elsewhere. The words are still good for an anthem though.

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favour, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy Name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Welcome to Anthem 34 in my attempt to write a new choir anthem every week for a year. I’m Kevin Mulryne and I hope you will enjoy listening to my progress throughout 2024. Please do visit the website Anthem52.com, follow along on x.com - @realanthem52 or Instagram - @realanthem52 and send me a message to [email protected].

This week I needed to be swift (not Taylor) to complete anthem 34 because I am visiting Bath with my wife to hear our daughter, Charlotte, singing at the RSCM Choir Course. This is the second year in a row that she has had the opportunity to attend the course, thanks to The Friends of the Music of Holy Trinity Church. 3 choristers from Holy Trinity are there this year, enjoying singing in a variety of contexts, including services at Bath Abbey. I'm very much looking forward to that trip.

So I couldn't waste any time coming up with a text for the anthem. While looking through the Irish Book of Common Prayer, I spotted the opening to Psalm cxlv (145). These seemed like promising words and here they are:

I will magnify thee, O God, my King : and I will praise thy Name for ever and ever.

Every day will I give thanks unto thee : and praise thy Name for ever and ever.

Great is the Lord, and marvellous worthy to be praised : there is no end of his greatness.

I also added an Amen section in at the end (obviously) because the piece seemed to need it.