Preces and Responses

Halls, director of music of Salisbury Cathedral, wrote this setting for his choir, and the confident writing points to his background as a chorister, organist, and conductor. The tonal language is comfortably tonal, leaning into a popular idiom. For instance, functional authentic cadences are colored by the suppression of leading tones, either through omission or substitution of the sub-tonic. Traditional voice leading and progressions keep these coloristic effects from defining the vocabulary. Rhythmic variation occurs nicely particularly to heighten the meaning of words, such as the slung rhythm on “haste to help us.” The incipits are newly composed, requiring an officiant with some musical sophistication and security of pitch. Parishes without musically-inclined clerics will find more success in assigning this role to a chorister. The responses expand the harmonic idiom, with the Kyrie delving into some lovely, expressive adventurousness. The through-composed Lord’s Prayer uses circle-of-fifth sequences and motivic repetition capably. The music is not particularly hard, although the abundance of extended harmonies will surprise the ear. On the whole, however, this eminently singable setting will be embraced by any evensong choir.
Jason Overall, The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, January 2016