O splendidissima gemma, performance materials + license

Quick summary

• Forces: SSA voices + clarinet in B♭
• Duration: c. 4′30"
• Difficulty: medium
• Text: Hildegard von Bingen
• Language: Latin
• Date of composition: 2016, revised 2018
• Premiere: King's College Chapel, 2016
• Recording: Blossom Street Singers (dir. Hilary Campbell): This Day (Naxos, 2018)

Licenses include the appropriate number of print-outs for the specified ensemble size, and are valid for unlimited performances by the same ensemble. Please choose the appropriate license for your choir size.

Performance materials include score in C, transposing score, and clarinet part.

Detailed info

This radiant and uplifting work for SSA choir (or solo-voice ensemble) and clarinet is a setting of the Hildegard von Bingen poem O splendidissima gemma, paying homage to Parce mihi domine (Cristobal de Morales), by the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek (Officium, ECM 1993).

It piece was commissioned (with the brief to set Hildegard's text 'in the style of the Hilliard Ensemble') as part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of King’s College Chapel (Cambridge) and premiered in King's College Chapel, 2016, by Stef Conner, Ana Beard-Fernandez, Elspeth Piggott, and Aga Serugo-Lugo. It was later released on CD, This Day (Naxos 2018), by the Blossom Street Singers (dir. Hilary Campbell) and Hannah Lawrance (cl.).