IN CARMELS SHADE SATB/ORGAN

This is an approachable and affecting setting of a devotional poem by the revered Carmelite nun St Therese of Lisieux (1873-97). The choral writing, marked ‘placid’, comprises simple four-part homophony. The organ part weaves a limpid, measured monophonic line, representing the lyre of the poem, and is scored for manuals, save for one sustained pedal note. The piece slowly builds from its soft commencement to a fortissimo climax at ‘consume away’ before falling away to soft, unison monotones for the final line.