N o .123
T he T rusty S ervant
Tarney’s Magnificat:
Oliver Tarney (Co Ro, 11- ) reached
Number 5 on the iTunes Classical Chart
in 2015 with his setting of the Magnificat.
Jacob Thorn (Coll, 11-16) investigates:
JT: How did you come to write the
Magnificat?
OT: I was asked by Sing For Pleasure
[a musical summer school] to
write something that was in 12
movements so the 12 conducting
students of that year could conduct
one each. It came straight into my
head that the Magnificat has ten
verses and the Gloria forms two
(in the end I slightly reworked
it so the Gloria was just the final
movement). And then, of course,
everyone’s written a Magnificat, so
I thought, ‘How can I reflect my
time, make it my own?’
JT: In reworking the Magnificat, I
understand you also included texts
aside from Luke’s Gospel.
OT: There are texts from 1 Samuel in
which Hannah praises God for the
child which has been bestowed
upon her, and she recites this
‘magnificat’ of her own which is the
model almost of Mary’s Magnificat.
I thought it appropriate to have a
voice from the past.
JT: Because that is very much a theme
in the Gospels, the fulfilment of
prophecy.
OT: Absolutely. And then, of course,
Mary may not have actually said
the Magnificat in the moment:
it’s written as if with the benefit
of hindsight, which is perhaps
why it’s less heated in places,
more reflective. I have chosen to
interpret the words like this, and
a range of very different and more
complicated emotions arise as a
result.
JT: And apart from 1 Samuel?
OT: There are lines from the Book
of Maryam, Chapter 19 of the
Qur’an, which actually has a lot
to say, expanding on the Gospel
account and dealing with the
pain and the fear of the situation.
It was so painful that Mary took
herself to a palm tree and clung
onto it. I had to deal with this in
a sensitive way, because, in Islam,
setting the Qur’an to music is a
problem, and music-making within
very orthodox Islam is forbidden.
In my setting, any text from the
Qur’an is chanted and largely
uninflected so as to recognise this.
But, in any case, once you translate
the Qur’an, it isn’t the Qur’an
anymore. It is not the intention to
offend; indeed, quite the opposite.
I’ve introduced key texts from the
three Abrahamic religions, and I
think the experience of a young
girl put in a very difficult position,
finding her faith being tested, is
one which people who share any of
those three religions or indeed any
other can identify with strongly,
regardless of the actual nuts and
bolts of the story itself.
JT: How long did it take to write this
piece? It is 12 movements long and
clocks in at just under an hour.
OT: It took about two months,
including orchestration. This was
the first project where I had it all
in my head, so I immediately knew
where I would take it.
JT: How did you decide on musical
material? Did you take it from any
particular sources? And how to the
movements interrelate in terms of
material?
OT: All the way through the piece, the
melodies stem from the Gregorian
11
psalm tone 8, often used for
the Magnificat, and in the final
movement, there is a denouement
of the plainsong where you hear it
in full.
JT: Rather as Duruflé used the
Requiem plainsong for his Requiem?
OT: Indeed, although slightly different
because he uses the plainsong in
its entirety and reharmonises it,
whereas I treat the material more
fragmentarily, boiling it down
to simple two-note, three-note
intervallic structures, which then
form a wider picture with direct
quotations, all leading up to the
final movement.
JT: Are there any composers who
influenced you during the
composition of the Magnificat?
OT: Growing up, I was totally obsessed
with John Tavener. He managed to
open a very different sound world,
inspired by Eastern Orthodox
Christian music, perfect for what
I was trying to achieve. The four
chorus parts are very simple and
are often written canonically,
quite a Tavenian technique, but
I also had Sing For Pleasure in
mind: we often use rounds in
choral training. In rehearsal for
the Magnificat, the choir could
begin learning the material in