There is sweeter music (Headingley)
Welcome!
This evening’s programme traces a spiritual journey through reflection, penitence, and renewal as expressed in five contrasting yet interconnected voices of the choral tradition. From the contemplative intimacy of Judith Weir’s modern setting of George Herbert to the radiant serenity of Parry’s Songs of Farewell, each work engages with themes of faith, mortality, and the search for divine peace.
Howells and Elgar, writing at the zenith of the English choral renaissance, offer music of luxuriant harmony and refined emotional depth, while Poulenc’s Four Lenten Motets bring a distinctly French sensibility—by turns anguished, austere, and transcendent. Across centuries and idioms, these composers find in sacred and poetic texts a means to voice humanity’s deepest longings: for mercy, for stillness, and finally, for rest. Together, their works form a meditation on the enduring power of choral song to express both the frailty and the radiance of the human spirit.
— Lindsay Robertshaw
Programme notes and texts
Quatre Motets pour un temps de pénitence (Four Lenten Motets)
Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Composed between 1938 and 1939, these four unaccompanied motets — Timor et tremor, Vinea mea electa, Tenebrae factae sunt, and Tristis est anima mea — represent Poulenc’s profound engagement with sacred choral writing. Though written for concert performance rather than liturgical use, they convey an intensity of faith and penitence characteristic of the composer’s spiritual works. Each motet explores a distinct emotional and expressive terrain, from the anxious ambiguity of Timor et tremor to the wrenching chromaticism of Tristis est anima mea. Poulenc deploys the full expressive range of the choir — biting dissonance, tender lyricism, and moments of luminous stillness — within concise forms of striking drama. The unpredictable harmonic turns and passionate declamation reveal a composer deeply attuned to both the human and divine aspects of suffering. Together, the motets form a unified meditation on the Passion, where pain is transfigured through haunting beauty.
Text:
Timor et tremor
Timor et tremor venerunt super me,
et caligo cecidit super me:
miserere mei Domine,
quoniam in te confidit anima mea.
Exaudi Deus deprecationem meam
quia refugium meum es
tu adjutor fortis.
Domine, invocavi te, non confundar.
Fear and Terror
Fear and terror have settled upon me;
the shadows have invaded me.
Have mercy on me, Lord; have mercy.
Unto you I commend my spirit.
Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for you are my refuge
and my succour, all-powerful Lord
and I invoke Thee: let me never be confounded.
Vinea mea electa
Vinea mea electa, ego te plantavi:
quomodo conversa es in amaritudinem,
ut me crucifigeres et Barrabam dimitteres.
Sepivi te, et lapides elegi ex te,
et ædificavi turrim.
O Vineyard, my Chosen One
O vineyard, my chosen one! I planted you:
how are you changed from sweet to bitter,
to have crucified me and released Barrabas?
I protected you; I have removed stones that could bother you
and built a tower for your defence.
Tenebrae factae sunt
Tenebrae factae sunt, dum crucifixissent Jesum Judaei:
et circa horam nonam exclamavit Jesus voce magna:
Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti?
Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
Exclamans Jesus voce magna, ait:
Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.
Darkness fell
Darkness fell when they crucified Jesus,
and toward the ninth hour Jesus let forth a great cry, saying:
“My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
And lowering his head, he gave up the spirit.
Jesus, crying out in a great voice, said:
“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”
Tristis est anima mea
Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem:
sustinete hic, et vigilate mecum:
nunc videbitis turbam, quæ circumdabit me:
Vos fugam capietis, et ego vadam immolari pro vobis.
Ecce appropinquat hora, et Filius hominis
tradetur in manus peccatorum.
Sad is my soul unto Death
Sad is my soul unto death:
stay here, and keep watch with me:
soon you will see a crowd of men surround me.
You shall flee, and I will go to be sacrificed for you.
Here is the approaching hour when the Son of man
will be delivered into the hands of sinful man.
Texts: Adaptations of Psalms 31 and 55;
Adaptation of Isaiah 5;
Matthew 27: 45-46; Luke 23:46;
Adaptation of Matthew 26: 38
Salve Regina Herbert Howells (1892–1983)
Written in 1915 and later revised in 1918, Salve Regina is among Herbert Howells’s most sublime early sacred works. Setting the ancient Marian antiphon, the piece combines modal lyricism inherited from Tudor polyphony with the lush harmonic palette of early twentieth‑century English music.
Howells’s writing glows with the soft radiance characteristic of his later church anthems, pairing seamless melodic contours with a sense of suspended time. Alternating between passages of tender homophony and more animated contrapuntal dialogue, the music reflects both reverence and personal devotion. Subtle shifts of tonality and fluid harmonic turns illuminate the text’s supplication to the Virgin Mary, from the quiet invocation Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae to the radiant final O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Maria. This youthful work already shows Howells’s distinctive ability to merge intimate spirituality with sumptuous choral sonority.
Text:
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, Advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy,
Hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To you we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to you we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn, then, most gracious advocate,
your eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this, our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
Text: Hermann of Reichenau (1013-1054).
There is Sweet Music Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Elgar’s There is Sweet Music (1907) stands as one of his most refined choral miniatures, remarkable for its harmonic sophistication and delicate craftsmanship. Setting lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem The Lotos-Eaters, the piece is scored for double choir (men’s and women’s voices) and written bitonally in two different keys a semitone apart. This creates a fascinating harmonic friction evoking the poem’s dreamlike atmosphere. The result is an effect of shimmering ambiguity: harmonies drift and overlap as if in a musical mirage. Elgar eschews overt drama in favour of softness and fluidity, allowing the text’s languorous imagery to unfold through quietly-undulating textures. The choir becomes a vessel for the poem’s enchanted world, where time seems suspended and sound itself becomes the subject of contemplation. It remains one of the most subtle and technically daring achievements in English part‑song repertoire.
Text:
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Text: Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (1809-1892).
Songs of Sleep and Prophecy Martin Suckling (born 1981)
Martin Suckling is a composer and violinist; he is also Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Creative Technologies and Professor of Composition at the University of York. His music has been championed by many leading orchestras and ensembles including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. This work is in five movements, scored for up to six voice parts.
Notes by the composer:
Lullabies and prophecies seek to be powerful spells: a magic of singing a desired world into existence. Their strategies may contrast – gentle persuasion on the one hand versus a sometimes apocalyptic certainty on the other – but they both help us navigate a period of waiting, reaching out to draw near the arrival of some new way of being.
When you are with me things will be different: this yearning underpins both the sacred and secular texts in this piece. Such a wish may be expressed with tenderness, as in the Gaelic ‘songs of sleep’ (movements two and four), whose music borrows the shapes, if not always the actual melodies, of traditional folksong; and in ‘Caidil m’ulaidh’ (‘Sleep my darling’) draws the susurration of the caressing ocean into the enveloping harmony of a slowly rotating accompaniment.
In contrast to this intimacy, the prophetic act is often associated with a disconnect, being somehow out-of-time, a voice crying out in the wilderness. There is beauty here too, and while the English ‘songs of prophecy’ each explore a different character – a stately nobility in the first movement, an explosive ferocity in the third, and an incantatory, almost hypnotic stasis in the fifth and final movement – they share the feature of having multiple strands of music coexisting at different timescales. The first movement’s unified block chords splinter into a glowing mist of independent melodies; the third movement places very rapid choral triads against an extremely slow soprano duo that winds its way earthwards. In the final movement, three timescales intersect: a background of rhythmic chanting at high speed – almost like a flutter-echo of the slower iterations of the line ‘there shall be no more’ which lies at a middle tempo. Beneath these, slowest of all, the basses and tenors intone the actual content of the prophecy in warm, resonant chords: there shall be no night.
I. There shall be Many
An opening “Invocatory” homophonic section is followed by an ethereal, other worldly repeated chant-type melody sung independently by all the upper voices. Its strangeness derives partly from the nature of the note intervals (a sort of hybrid between a whole tone scale and an ancient modal scale) and the fact that when sung at different times the notes blend into an unfamiliar chord “cluster”. On several occasions the upper melodies are joined by the lower voices in bare fifths and a tenor solo for the text “There shall be signs in the stars”
Text:
There shall be signs in the sun.
There shall be signs in the moon.
There shall be signs in the stars.
II. Cadal chan fhaigh mi (I can get no sleep)
This movement, based on a traditional Scottish folk melody begins with the melody in the lower voices accompanied by restless glissando humming in the upper parts. A middle section brings all parts together in an increasingly dissonant homophonic section. The final section (marked tender again) sees the tune passed to the upper voices whilst the lower parts sustain long notes.
Text:
Cadal chan fhaigh mi, sùgradh cha dean mise,
Nochd chan fhaigh mi’n tàmh, ‘s gun thu ghràidh
a’ tighinn.
H-uile h-oidhch’ tha mi smaoineachadh gun tig thu
Gu mo leabaidh fhin, ‘s aonaranach mise.
‘S tub u ghuirme sùil, ‘s tub u dùbailt cridhe,
‘S tub u bhinne cainnt ris na rinn mi bruidhinn.
I can get no sleep, I cannot make merry,
Tonight I can get no rest, since you are not
coming, love.
Every night I think that you will come
To my warm bed, I am desolate.
You had the bluest eyes, you had the kindest heart,
You had the most melodious voice I ever conversed with.
III. There shall be Many
In case any audience members did manage a snooze, this movement marked “Explosive” should awaken them! Loud fast chordal outbursts from all voices are interspersed with asymmetric silent bars, with unsettling effect! After 36 bars, 30 of them silent, two soloists join the texture with long sustained notes and end the movement with an exposed and vulnerable duet.
Text:
There Shall be forty.
There Shall be twenty.
There shall be none.
There shall be twenty.
There shall be six.
There shall be none.
There shall be a handful.
There shall be none.
There shall be none.
There shall be a very great multitude.
There shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety.
There shall be many.
There shall be five.
There shall be two.
There shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
IV. Caidil m’ulaidh (Sleep my darling)
This movement is based on a repeated pattern of three “note clusters” each of which rise and fall to produce a unique sonority. Against this pattern is woven a more traditional sounding folk song melody, sung as a contralto solo.
Text:
Caidil m’ulaidh, caidil m’uan,
Sùilean m’eudail dùin an suain;
[Luasgadh mulaid a’mhuir-làin
An sior-dhùrdanaich air tràigh.]
Thig a chulaidh, thig a luaidh,
[Thig I sitheadh uchd a’ chuain;
Bheir I thugam e gu slàn
Sgiobair mara nan seòl àrd.]
[Bheir edhachaidh leis gu fior
Usgraichean à iomadh tir,
Caidil m’ulaidh, dùin do shùil,]
Tha e thighinn, thig a ruin.
Caidil thusa, cadal sèimh
[Sùil a’ faire shuas air nèimh;
Dùin do shùilean beaga caomh]
Caidil suaimhneach ri mo thaobh.
Sleep my darling, sleep my lamb
Eyes, my treasure, close in sumber
[Mournful rolling of the high tide
The constant murmur on shore]
Come, little boat, come my dear
[The wall of the ocean wave comes rushing;]
She will bring him to me healthy
The sea skipper of the high sails.]
[He will certainly bring home
Jewels of many lands,
Sleep, my darling, close your eyes,]
He is coming, come my dear
You sleep, sleep peacefully
[A watchful eye up in Heaven
Close your tender little eyes]
Sleep contented by my side.
V. There Shall Be No More
The final movement, and the longest, is made up of two elements. In the four upper parts there is a very fast and rhythmically complex interplay repeating the words of the title, intoned “sotto voce”. Against this frantic background the lower voices intersperse long held chords which present us with the rest of the text. There is no obvious final cadence here, the upper voice pattern simply reduces to a single part and then stops, perhaps leaving us with the thought that our constant invocations to abolish pain and suffering are at constant variance with our human actions.
Text:
There shall be no more death.
There shall be no more sorrow.
There shall be no more crying.
There shall be no more pain.
There shall be no more curse.
There shall be no night.
Interval
Love Bade Me welcome Judith Weir (b. 1954)
Composed in 1997, this radiant a cappella setting of George Herbert’s well-known metaphysical poem forms part of Judith Weir’s exploration of sacred English texts from the seventeenth century. Weir captures the poem’s intimate dialogue between the soul and divine love with music of disarming simplicity and spiritual insight. Tonal yet subtly inflected by modal colours, the piece unfolds as a series of gently shifting harmonies in slow-moving phrases that evoke calm invitation and quiet acceptance. A solo line emerges at key moments, echoing the poet’s hesitant response to grace before melting back into the choral texture. The restrained dynamics and transparent voicing allow each word to resonate with clarity, culminating in a serene final cadence that mirrors the text’s message of reconciliation and peace. In its quiet economy of means, Love Bade Me Welcome reveals Weir’s gift for distilling deep theological reflection into choral music of luminous clarity.
Text:
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.
Text: George Herbert (1593-1633)
Songs of Farewell C. Hubert H. Parry (1848–1918)
Written between 1916 and 1918, Songs of Farewell stands as the crowning masterpiece of Parry’s choral output and one of the greatest achievements in English sacred music. Conceived during the final years of his life against the backdrop of the First World War, the cycle sets texts by English metaphysical poets, each meditating on mortality, faith, and transcendence.
Across the six movements, culminating in Lord, let me know mine end, Parry progresses from four to eight voices, expanding both musical texture and spiritual scope. The writing blends Renaissance polyphonic clarity with late‑Romantic harmonic richness, exemplifying Parry’s lifelong synthesis of tradition and innovation. At its heart lies a serene acceptance of human fragility and hope for eternal rest. Songs of Farewell remains a monumental testament to Parry’s faith in the expressive power of the English choral tradition and his enduring belief in the sanctity of the human spirit.
Text:
I
My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a wingèd sentry
All skilful in the wars:
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious Friend,
And—O my soul, awake!—
Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of Peace,
The Rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave then thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure
But One who never changes—
Thy God, thy life, thy cure.
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
II
I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet she is blind and ignorant in all:
I know I’m one of Nature’s little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.
I know my life’s a pain and but a span;
I know my sense is mocked in everything;
And, to conclude, I know myself a Man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.
John Davies (1569-1626)
III
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.
Never tired pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.
Ever blooming are the joys of Heaven’s high Paradise.
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to thee!
Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
IV
There is an old belief,
That on some solemn shore,
Beyond the sphere of grief
Dear friends shall meet once more.
Beyond the sphere of Time
And Sin and Fate’s control,
Serene in changeless prime
Of body and of soul.
That creed I fain would keep
That hope I’ll ne’er forgo,
Eternal be the sleep,
If not to waken so.
John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854)
V
At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow
All whom war, death, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance hath slain; and you whose eyes
Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe,
But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
‘Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent, for that’s as good
As if Thou hadst sealed my pardon with Thy blood.
John Donne (1572-1631)
VI
Lord, let me know mine end and the number of my days,
That I may be certified how long I have to live.
Thou hast made my days as it were a span long;
And mine age is as nothing in respect of Thee,
And verily, every man living is altogether vanity,
For man walketh in a vain shadow
And disquieteth himself in vain,
He heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them.
And now, Lord, what is my hope?
Truly my hope is even in Thee.
Deliver me from all mine offences
And make me not a rebuke to the foolish.
I became dumb and opened not my mouth
For it was Thy doing.
Take Thy plague away from me,
I am even consumed by means of Thy heavy hand.
When Thou with rebukes does chasten man for sin
Thou makest his beauty to consume away
Like as it were a moth fretting a garment;
Every man therefore is but vanity.
Hear my prayer, O Lord
And with Thy ears consider my calling,
Hold not Thy peace at my tears!
For I am a stranger with Thee and a sojourner
As all my fathers were.
O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength before I go hence
And be no more seen.
Programme notes by Lindsay Robertshaw, texts and translations by David Jackson, 2026
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Benjamin Kirk — Musical Director
Benjamin Kirk (b.1992) was born in Beverley, East Yorkshire, to missionary parents. He spent his early years in Portugal, Brazil, and the United States, before falling in love with choral music while a chorister at Ripon Cathedral. After leaving Christ’s Hospital School in 2011, Benjamin moved to Tallinn, Estonia to begin studying Choral Conducting under Tõnu Kaljuste, at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Benjamin won 3rd Prize in the 2019 World Choral Conducting Competition in Hong Kong, and is now Musical Director of The Purcell Singers, the Lea Singers in Harpenden, and Sine Nomine International Touring Choir.
Since 2021 Benjamin has been Guest Conductor with the National Forum of Music (NFM) Choir in Wrocław, Poland, in a budding international career: Benjamin has also worked with the Estonian National Male Choir (2014/2016), the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (2016/2018), the Swedish Radio Choir (2018), and the French Radio Choir (2019).
Outside of conducting, Benjamin enjoys playing chess, watching stand-up comedy and reading.
Leeds Guild of Singers
Founded in 1948, Leeds Guild of Singers has established a reputation as one of Yorkshire’s finest chamber choirs and is a group of around 40 singers which prides itself on a light, flexible and pure sound. We perform a wide and adventurous repertoire of sacred and secular music, mostly unaccompanied and spanning seven centuries. We also support new music and our most recent commission Songs of Sleep and Prophecy, written by Martin Suckling, was made in memory of David Eaves, who was a member of the Guild for many years.
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Save the dates: our concerts in 2026
Saturday 27 June 2026, 3pm — St Edmund’s Church, Roundhay
Sunday 5 July 2026 — Bradford Literature Festival performance (venue TBC)
Saturday 31 October 2026 — DESTINY: interrupted, a cappella existential horror for Halloween, (venue and time TBC)
Sunday 13 December 2026 — Carol concert at St John’s Church, Adel (afternoon)
