lan Munro described Matthew Coleridge’s Requiem in CMQ (June 2023) as ‘hauntingly beautiful. The Breath of Life contains much beauty (the opening of These Great Trees Are Prayers’ for instance), but Coleridge explains that he ‘wanted to write something full of life and positivity, something that would scream joy, vitality and rhythm – quite the opposite of a Requiem’. The word ‘Hallelujah’ is prominent in the earlier movements of a work that moves from joyful praise to a contemplation of nature and creation.

The texts of the eight movements include psalms, the Benedicite, Rig Veda, Christopher Smart, Nikos Kazantzakis, Rabindranath Tagore, Kahlil Gibran and more, while the fifth movement is a sequence of verses by five different Christian hymn writers. This central movement, originally written as a separate anthem, lies at the heart of the work and moves from Bishop Ken’s ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow’ through William Draper and Isaac Watts to a climax with Althelstan Riley’s ‘All saints triumphant raise the song’, before relaxing into a Charles Coffin doxology, all with multiple Hallelujahs. Rhythmic drive is found in a playful setting of the Benedicite and a terrifying ‘For Thunder is the voice of God’, one of several verses taken from Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno. Rupert Gough directs a vibrant-sounding choir of Royal Holloway in this cantata for choir and small orchestra, and also in Coleridge’s three Requiem Motets for eight-part choir and solo cello, and in three Songs of Light. all slow pieces that develop the ‘hauntingly beautiful’ atmosphere of the previously reviewed Requiem.