Description
One of Britain’s foremost composers, after three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Gabriel Jackson went on to study composition with Richard Blackford and John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of most of Britain’s cathedral and collegiate choirs and he is a frequent collaborator with the leading professional groups of the world. From 2010-2013 he was Associate Composer to the BBC Singers. In 2014 his hour-long The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford, was premiered in its chapel. May 2015 saw the premiere at the Latvian National Opera of Spring Rounds for soprano, choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Riga-based youth choir Kamer for their 25th anniversary. He was recently commissioned by The Marian Consort to write Stabat Mater to mark their 10th anniversary.
Written whilst the composer was living in Comeragh Road, the litanies of the title are sixteen discrete sections of music, varying in length from two seconds to a minute. Each of these blocks has a different texture, musical character and registration from its predecessor and the structure of the piece is articulated by a pattern of contrasts, repetitions, and allusions.
Programme Notes:
The litanies of the title are sixteen discrete sections of music, varying in length from two seconds to a minute. Each of these blocks has a different texture, musical character, and registration from its predecessor, and the structure of the piece is articulated by a pattern of contrasts, repetitions, and allusions. Comeragh Road is the name of the street where I lived when the piece was written, Comeragh also being a mountain range in the Republic of Ireland.
Comeragh Litanies was commissioned by Rupert Gough with funds provided by the Leche Trust, the Kenneth Leighton Trust, and the Percy Whitlock Trust, and was first performed by Rupert Gough at St John’s, Smith Square, London on February 4th 1999.
