Veni sancte spiritus - the feast of Pentecost
Matthew Martin - (b.1976)
Veni Sancte Spiritus was the first prize winner in the New College Oxford Millenium Competition and was first performed by the choir of New College in 2000. Drawing on a variety of pentecostal texts, the work is highly dramatic with a large and important organ part. After the gentle start over a sustained low organ note, the work builds in intensity with dissonant harmonies based around plainsong fragments in one choir, contrasting with the insistent voice of the other choir. A loud middle section is framed by two organ interludes and the work subsides at the end with a reprise of the plainsong melody, accompanied by beautiful soft sustained chords - an understated Alleluia.
Programme notes compiled by Matthew Martin