Philippe de Monte, Super flumina Babylonis

Flemish by birth, de Monte (1521–1603) spent much of his early life in Italy before visiting England in 1554–5. On returning to the continent he lived in Rome for ten years before entering the Habsburg court, with which he spent the remainder of his life, in Vienna and Prague. His Super flumina Babylonis was a gift to William Byrd, its text (lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile of the Jews) re-arranged by De Monte to provide particular resonance for the recusant Byrd in Protestant England. Psalm 137 was often utilised as a text of captivity and exile by English Catholics suppressed during the reign of Elizabeth, and De Monte’s transmogrification of its opening verses reads as something of a political challenge.

William Byrd, Quomodo cantabimus

William Byrd (c1540–1623) set many psalm texts emphasising the plight of the persecuted Catholic population in England. Quomodo cantabimus is Byrd’s defiant response to De Monte, a statement (in the face of repression and persecution) accentuating Byrd’s determination not to forget Jerusalem (or, in this reading, Rome). The text of Psalm 137 has long been used by composers and thinkers to refer to exile, captivity and persecution different from (but analogous to) the Israelite exile in Babylon, and in present times – very much an age of displacement, exile and the refugee – its words speak as clearly as ever.

Tarik O’Regan, Triptych

Triptych represents the concatenation of two `separate commissions from the talented young British composer Tarik O’Regan (b. 1978), now resident in New York. Movement I was commissioned with funds from The RVW Trust for the inaugural concert of the Choir of London in December 2004, and was subsequently toured by the Choir to Jerusalem and the West Bank. Movements II and III were commissioned by Portsmouth Grammar School with financial support from the PRS Foundation and were premièred in a version for lower strings and upper voices in November 2005. These performances mark the world première of Triptych.

Tarik O’Regan writes: “Relatively new to living in New York, I am much more aware of the independent, vibrant cultural plurality that exists today; it’s probably the single most dazzling facet of the City and is largely responsible for the infamous ‘edginess’ that pervades daily life there. With this in mind, I set to work on Threnody (movement I here) in 2004; I wanted to write something that was relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian issue without losing that City ‘edge’. The texts, in English, are excerpted from a variety of sources: William Penn, William Blake, the Psalms of David and Muhammad Rajab Al-Bayoumi, an Egyptian poet of the early 20th century. Fast and rhythmically influenced by the music of North Africa in its syncopations, this movement was the first composition that evolved entirely from my New York perspective.

“From the moment that the commission for And There Was a Great Calm (movements II & III here) was offered, I knew the piece I was about to embark upon would end up being linked with Threnody in some way. I realized that what I had been aiming for in Threnody served as a template for this new piece, originally composed for a Remembrance Sunday concert. Musical works connected with commemoration or memorials are often suitably

pensive and slow; I wanted to start with that concept, but to bring in some of the relentless urban rhythms that had been such a large influence on my life in the preceding two years. The result is that that the second movement is quiet and gentle (a moment of recollection), while the final movement is much faster and vibrant, returning to a more openly elated rendering of the start of Triptych (the texts here dealing with transmigration and the future).

John Tavener, Lament for Jerusalem

Lament for Jerusalem was commissioned for Ars Musica Australia, and its first performance was in 2003 at the Sydney Opera House. This “Jerusalem version”for smaller orchestra, was especially arranged by Tavener (b. 1944) for the Choir of London and was premièred at Christ Church, Spitalfields, in December 2004, with a subsequent Middle Eastern première of the work in the Church of Notre Dame de l’Arche de l’Alliance, Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem. The Choir of London recently recorded this version of the Lament for Naxos.

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