COMPOSER’S NOTE

This work, originally a duet for soprano and tenor, comes from the heart of the dramatic cantata The Wedding at Cana and was my first major work, written for Pangbourne Choral Society, launching my career as a full-time composer.  The cantata depicts the wedding at Cana of Galilee where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine. 

The words for The Waters of Love, written by my brother and poet Andrew, shine a light on the moment when the water is actually transformed into wine and reflects on the presence of the divine in human love.

The text of this choral piece takes the form of the last verse of Thomas Traherne’s poem The Salutation. In many of his poems, Traherne conveys a sense of childlike wonder, and in this poem he expresses genuine awe at the mystery of having come into being. He addresses his own infant body (‘these little limbs’) as if amazed at his own incarnation, marvelling at having entered this world of beauty and light and asking where his soul was before. In the words of A Stranger Here, he expresses deep gratitude for the sheer gift of life.

It is essential that choirs are sensitive to this sense of gratitude. This is not a gratitude which is sung from the rooftops but is the product of quiet and profound reflection and revelation. The glory of our existence is a mysterious glory, seen through the eyes of strangers in the world. With the words ‘But that they mine should be’, comes the realisation that the world’s treasures are an extraordinary gift to us all – and there must be a sense of this growing realisation as the music gradually moves towards great peace and a sense of fulfilment in the final tonic chords of the pure and nourishing key of D flat major.