Yesterday at St. Thomas Church in New York was sung the Evening Service in F by George Dyson. (As always, you can listen to this service online for the next two weeks or so).
This service is refined and reserved, a perfect foil to the boisterous "Star-Warsy" Evening Service in D (YouTube). Both canticles are marked by a preponderance of writing for solo voice: treble in the Magnificat and bass in the Nunc Dimittis.
The chorus winds its way into some ambiguous harmonies at the end of the Magnificat with the bass moving from the supertonic to subdominant. The ensuing plagal-flavored resolution melts into the Gloria, the new treble solo entering heart-rendingly on high F.
It is a tender, understated service that is very effectively accompanied entirely at 8' pitch.
The hackneyed prose of Wikipedia's George Dyson article claims that Dyson is indebted to Sibelius. At least I think that's what this article is trying to say.
His compositions include a symphony in G major (1937), a violin concerto, and a number of other works, many of them for choir. Ernest John Moeran's symphony of the same decade (and completed the same year) has some similarities of style and ambition with Dyson's. Both are among the longest works of each at about 45 minutes, and both show some influence, harmonically and in instrumental use, from Jean Sibelius.
Labels: Dyson, Evensong, Jean Sibelius, St Thomas (New York)
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