The Shepherds Sing
03:14 duration|Composed in 2024|Difficulty: Advanced|First performed: December 2024
Commissioned by Simon Jackson for The Choir of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
This deep and gleaming text was a joy to set, as it enabled me to really lean into my jazz-infused harmonic language.
Text
The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then we will chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then we will sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine.
George Herbert (1593-1633)
