♫ Canticum calamitatis maritimae
© Hänssler Classic HC20064

Canticum calamitatis maritimae, composed in 1997, is for mixed choir SSAATTBB, soprano solo and bass solo. Text: Nuntii Latini and the Bible (Psalm 27; in Latin). Duration: 10'. 3rd prize in the European Composition Competition for Cathedral Choirs 1997. Mäntyjärvi: "This work is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the shipwreck of the Estonia on September 28, 1994. Although fragments of the Requiem text are quoted, the work is not really intended for liturgical use, but rather as a meditation involving three distinct elements: firstly, the individual aspect - the 'folk song' soprano solo that begins and ends the work (and that can, but does not have to be, interpreted as the keening or lament of a sailor's widow); secondly, the objective aspect - the 'precentor' intoning the bare facts of the event in newsreader style; and thirdly, the collective aspect - the extensive setting of the psalm text Qui descendunt navibus mare in navibus ('They that go down to the sea in ships')."

This simple Kyrie was commissioned by Marian Dolan for the Reformation Day concert at Candler College (Emory University) in October 2001. It is a very brief setting of the text with a D minor flavour, although the harmonies are modal and occasionally non-functional. The 'in memoriam' in the title stems from the fact that this piece is based on an unpublished instrumental elegy that I wrote when my last surviving grandparent (my maternal grandmother) died in 1993.

This Kyrie in memoriam is for mixed choir SA[T]B. Duration: 2'. Commissioned by the Candler Choraliers (Atlanta, USA). First performance: Candler Choraliers, cond. Marian Dolan, Atlanta, October 2001.