My father decided to celebrate his 75th birthday with a sung Evensong and asked me to write settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. I realised that they could be taken as a pair bookending the life of the Virgin Mary. They were first performed on 27th September 2015 at St Peter's Church, Limpsfield. My profound thanks once again to Anne Osborn, Graham Dinnage and the choir for taking on another two pieces by me and for making them sound so good!
In my interpretation, the Magnificat is the words of a young woman with a keen sense of social injustice (and a sense of humour) who is singing and dancing for joy at being given an opportunity by the Lord to change the world. It needs a feeling of lightness, energy and fun. That is why I've used the Latin words as the English translation is too enervating.
The tempo could be a bit tricky. It needs to be fast enough not to feel too leaden, but not so fast that it becomes a mad scramble to keep up. It can go quite a bit slower as long as the dance-like feeling is maintained.
The clapping at the start may be problematic and may need some experimentation. It is inspired by African music and is intended to help the choir get into the mood. It should be strongly rhythmic - gospel music-style swaying may be appropriate! I've suggested that the conductor sets the tempo and the Sopranos and Altos join in and accompany themselves, but do whatever works. If keeping together is an issue, you could try doing it with a solo voice/clapper and the whole choir doing the "meo" interjections.
The rest of the piece largely derives from the tongue-twisting and irregular nature of the words, which demanded some irregular and hard to conduct cross-rhythms (sorry). The whole thing should be sung with a swing, a smile and a mischievous glint in the eye.
A few notes:
1. "Beatam" - in my head this should be "beatam?!", as in "future generations are going to call me blessed?!"
2. Hopefully it's obvious, but the sudden rhythm change of "deposuit potentes de sede" should evoke stuck-up lords being tipped comically out of their chairs.
3. The most tricky bit may be the tenor line "Et divites dimisit inanes" which has a nasty augmented fourth that is tricky to pitch at speed. You might want to add the melody line in the organ to help out.
4. The absence of a doxology ("Glory be to the Father and to the Son...") is deliberate. The whole piece is from Mary's viewpoint and it doesn't fit. For her the important word (echoed in the Nunc Dimittis) is "Dominum".
In this piece, an aged and ill Virgin Mary asks the Lord to let her die because she has had a vision of paradise, which she interprets as the promised land of Israel (the ending is intended to be ambiguous about whether He answers her prayer or not).
Vocally this is probably the most straightforward thing I've written. I suspect that the main problem may be the unremitting nature of the organ accompaniment.