A Tender Shoot

Notes

A Tender Shoot sets the two stanzas of A tender shoot hath started, the English words of the German carol Es ist ein Ros entsprungen. The music is entirely new: nothing of the familiar chorale tune is quoted.

The poem is about something small growing out of winter, and the music grows in the same way. Its main idea is a rising figure of three notes, E–F♯–G. Each time it comes back it is a note longer, until in the last verse it climbs a full octave in the major. Beneath it the basses hold a bare fifth on E from the first bar. The harmony above travels a long way, into the cold flat keys and back out to the light, but the key never changes. The light arrives as a turn from minor to major over the same low E.

The anthem opens in winter, hummed with closed mouths. In the first verse the tune passes from one section to another: the tenors first, then the sopranos, then the whole choir together at It blooms without a blight. A short hummed interlude takes the music to its darkest point. In the second verse the choir breaks into E major at Our God of endless might, and the climax comes at Thus turning darkness into light. In the closing bars the basses leave their E for the first time. The rising figure climbs through all four voices in turn until it stands as one E major chord across the whole choir. The piece ends where it began, on a hummed fifth, but higher.

For the choir. Unaccompanied SATB, in four parts except for two short divisi passages. Sopranos go up to A5 once, at the climax; basses go down to E2. About a quarter of the piece is sung without words, and the hummed passages need staggered breathing. The long held notes in the closing climb need careful tuning, but the piece is within the reach of a confident parish choir.

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