God Be in My Head

John Rutter’s iconic setting of this Sarum Primer text has nearly defined the contemporary choral prayer and inspired a number of similar settings of this text.  Many are quite lovely, arguably as effective as Rutter’s, yet they are so imitative of the original that they do little to convince choirs of alternative possibilities.  Nixon’s approach is quite different, making this setting far from redundant.  Choirs that have Rutter’s motet as part of their core repertoire could add this version without fear of tautology.  Luminescent chords with additive harmonies lend an opulence to the tonality.  Solo voices emerge from the texture from time to time, advancing the rhetoric.  Nixon’s sure footing with part writing allows her to move through some spicy harmonies with absolute logic.  The setting is only slightly longer than more straight-forward versions, yet it feels much more substantial.  The parts divide, requiring sufficient voices to balance and blend, yet the ranges and demands are modest. – AAM Journal

The well-known and award-winning Australian organist/choirmaster June Nixon (b.1942) has set the gentle Sarum Primer text of “God Be in My Head” for unaccompanied SATB choir (some divisi for soprano) and treble soloist. With many parallel moving triads, the work has some of the harmonic language of Ralph Vaughn Williams, but sumptuously decorated with a few sevenths and ninths. – Derek E. Nickels, The Diapason, December 2018