Ostinato Canticles

Evening Canticles for choir (SATB) and organ. The title of this set for Evensong refers to the ‘ostinato’ structure of both the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, similar to a Passacaglia or Chaconne.

In the Magnificat, it’s the Genevan Magnificat tune (by Louis Bourgeois) found in different voices and the organ part and that sounds in different musical keys. On top of that, fragments of the Lutheran Magnificat tune (which itself refers to the Gregorian Tonus Peregrinus, see BWV 324).

In the Nunc Dimittis, the hymn tune of ‘Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin’ (the Lutheran ‘Nunc Dimittis’) defines the (harmonic) structure of the piece. The doxology is largely identical to the Magnificat’s, but, here, ends with a soft passage referring to the Genevan Nunc Dimittis.