Tune In a Stained Glass Window

Soaring in a great space and shining in a multitude of colours…

Many arrangements are possible; it sounds particularly fine on a cathedral organ with well chosen registrations. Faster tempi than marked are not recommended, but on the other hand if the work is played in reverberant acoustics the speed is best adjusted to make the most of the beauty of the sound and reverberation. In the choral version the choir is wordless, but in the score the women are directed to use a specified syllable in a few bars for articulation and emphasis. The organ solo and choir-with-organ versions are slightly longer by dint of their having a few additional bars here and there to create breaks for the purpose of allowing the organist to change registrations.

The inclusion of a bassoon in the instrumentation of the choral version is a late change, for I'd originally specified a bass clarinet. In reality the latter wouldn't normally be available for a small ensemble, and a bassoon works just about as well and would be much easier to find for a performance.

This is a short modal piece, which soars in a great space and shines in a multitude of colours as though in a many-part stained glass window — but with no religious connotations intended. This is simply about sheer beauty of huge spaces evoked by a play of colours and great physical architectures.

The choral / woodwind / organ pedal version has had a revision in 2021, which specifies much more varied dynamics, bringing more sense of dramatic elements, and a few breaks were made in the sound to allow any reverberation to be heard, and to give more 'breathing space' to the music. It may take some time before the revision is reflected in the publisher's score, but a carefully crafted MIDI rendition of it can be heard now on YouTube. As compared with the original version, this gives much more impression of the singers really enjoying themselves and getting suitably invigorated.