Credo (MacMillan)

The Credo is a composition for choir and orchestra set to the text of the Nicene Creed by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. It was first performed August 7, 2012 at The Proms in Royal Albert Hall, London, by the BBC Philharmonic, the Manchester Chamber Choir, the Northern Sinfonia Chorus, and the Rushley Singers under the conductor Juanjo Mena.[1][2]

Composition

The Credo has a duration of roughly 20 minutes and is composed in three movements:[1]

  1. Pater
  2. Filius
  3. Spiritus Sanctus

Instrumentation

The work is scored for an SATB choir and orchestra comprising two flutes, oboe, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons (2nd doubling contrabassoon), two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.[1]

Reception

Reviewing the world premiere, George Hall of The Guardian praised the Credo, writing:

As usual with MacMillan, the music speaks directly, though it is not without subtleties in the skilful choral writing, some of which reference other religious idioms, notably Renaissance polyphony, and something like the ornately decorated style of Western Isles psalm singing; there's also a brief tribute to fellow-Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen in the woodwind birdsong that ends the first movement. While not all the musical material is equally memorable, the best of it is characteristically bold and resolute.[3]

Conversely, Ivan Hewett of The Daily Telegraph criticized MacMillan's mix of traditional and contemporary tonalities, remarking, "Sometimes this worked well, as in the Crucifixus section, where two high violas entwined beautifully round the voices. But at length the sheer profusion of styles became bewildering. We heard Messiaen-like bird twitterings, folk-like decorative swirls. There were minatory brass outcries when the text spoke of judgment, and certain phrases were shouted three times." He continued, "This was presumably a Trinitarian reference, but in musical terms it just felt hectoring. As often happens in MacMillan's religious music, the green shoots of musical invention were crushed by the heavy-handed symbolism.[4]

gollark: My chance of death is still pretty low, but if I cared much I would probably try and set up a convoluted scheme of some kind where people can get access to some amount of my stuff given m of n cryptographic keys in different places.
gollark: We already *have* magic ultra-secure communications available using regular cryptography, it's basically always either poor implementation/use of those or flaws elsewhere which cause security issues.
gollark: So yes, definitely overhype-y and inaccurate.
gollark: You can't send information faster than light with quantum entanglement (or quite possibly at all), and systems which can use magic ultra-secure communications channels will not magically be immune to hacking.
gollark: Apparently lockpicks are pretty cheap and most locks are terrible and quite vulnerable to them. Which is worrying.

See also

References
  1. MacMillan, James (2011). "MacMillan, James: Credo". Boosey & Hawkes. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  2. Walton, Ken (2 August 2012). "Interview: James MacMillan, composer". The Scotsman. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  3. Hall, George (8 August 2012). "Prom 33: BBC Philharmonic/Mena". The Guardian. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  4. Hewett, Ivan (8 August 2012). "Proms 2012: Prom 33 Wagner, MacMillan and Bruckner, review". The Daily Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
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