#james macmillan

[lesser-known-composers]

The critically acclaimed British vocal ensemble Apollo5 sings the beautiful 'O Radiant Dawn' by James MacMillan

[melusinemuse]

In the 1970s many well-intentioned types thought that such “folk” music and pop culture derivatives would appeal to teenagers and young people and get them more involved in the Church, when the exact opposite has happened. It is now thought that these trendy experiments in music and liturgy have contributed to the increasing risible irrelevance of liberal Christianity, and that liturgy as social engineering has repulsed many. Like most ideas shaped by 1960s Marxist ideology it has proved an utter failure. Its greatest tragedy is the willful, disingenuous, de-poeticisation of Catholic worship. The Church has simply aped the secular West’s obsession with “accessibility”, “inclusiveness”, “democracy”, and anti-elitism, resulting in the triumph of bad taste, banality and a deflation of the sense of the sacred in the life of the church.

James MacMillan, Liturgical Music: Sweet Singing in the Choir?

[lesser-known-composers]

James MacMillan - Violin Concerto: I. Dance · Vadim Repin · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra · Donald Runnicles · 

[lesser-known-composers]

Miserere by James Macmillan recorded live at Trinitatis Kirke, Copenhagen in April 2019. Ars Nova Copenhagen conducted by Paul Hillier

[hayleylovesjessica]

The life that I held dear I delivered into the hands of the unrighteous and my inheritance has become for me like a lion in the forest. My enemy spoke out against me, ‘Come gather together and hasten to devour him’. They placed me in a wasteland of desolation, and all the earth mourned for me. For there was no one who would acknowledge me or give me help. Men rose up against me and spared not my life.

—Good Friday Responsaries for Tenebrae

[hayleylovesjessica]

In the chamber choir concert that I went to earlier, the penultimate piece was James MacMillan's Nunc dimittis, and I smiled when I heard the first three notes, which were this three-chord modal cadence that is basically his compositional signature. I find it endearing.

[lesser-known-composers]

James MacMillan (b. 1959) - Toccata

Stephen Farr, organ

[the-lighting-of-the-lamps]

James Macmillan, 'Seven Last Words From The Cross'.