Jonathan Shaw

Composed: April to November 2014

     This little anthem isn’t too shabby. After singing at my local church for the Easter service of 2014, I was instantly inspired to write an Easter anthem. After writing the initial theme and opening bars, I soon fell flat and would not work on this piece again until the end of the year, where I completed it on 26th November (the same day as the previous piece, "C.69"). The text is entirely my own, and thus let the criticisms unfold.

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     I still rather enjoy this anthem, and would love to try and get a choir to sing it (although I think the soloist section might be a stretch too far for an amateur church choir), but foremost, it would be a challenge in and of itself to first find a choir that actually enjoy it. The choral style is very traditional and similar to the atmosphere of "C.49 With Wondering Awe" – quick, jolly and lively – and for the most part, it functions well (except for that bizarre shift to B-flat major – not sure why I did that! – Perhaps for the tertiary modulation to make the music sound as if it had risen itself).

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     The soloist section has some fugal elements and some pleasant harmonies with cheesy lyrics (a staple of my early lyrical writing). As for the pronunciation of ‘ris’n’, well, that is the big flaw of this piece. I wrote it to be a single syllable, but it is a very obscure syllable. Is it pronounced ‘rinse’? Or perhaps ‘rizzen’ but without the ‘e’? But even then that wouldn’t work – bah, so many issues with such a fundamental word for this piece! This is why I now try to avoid writing my own lyrics if possible!