SATB Chorus & Orchestra

9.5 min duration;

1 Flute, 2 Oboe, 2 Clarinet in B flat, 2 Bassoon

2 French Horn in F, 2 Trumpet in C, 2 Tenor Trombone, Bass Trombone

Strings

SATB Chorus

audio excerpt:

Program Note

Commissioned by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, response to Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, K.427. “Agnus Dei: Truth Up Hold and Guide Me” is a musical, textual, and philosophical. The work sets a three-stanza poem by Ratcliffe, within which each stanza contains its own internal binary structure. This layered design mirrors the composition as a whole: while the text unfolds in three large sections, the recurring binary relationships create a kaleidoscopic musical form. I conceived this structure as a metaphor for faith itself—not as certainty, but as an act of searching, questioning, and wandering.

The “A” musical ideas are hymn-like, paying homage to the sacred choral tradition. Predominantly homophonic in texture, they emphasize textual clarity. These passages are answered by contrasting “B” ideas, which shift to a different meter and feature increasingly contrapuntal writing, repeatedly setting the text, “truth uphold and guide me.”

Timbrally, the work moves fluidly between intimate chamber-like textures and full orchestral tuttis. As it progresses toward its reflective conclusion, the orchestral palette becomes increasingly hushed, through divided string writing and the use of mutes in both the brass and strings.

In responding to Mozart’s setting of the sacred Agnus Dei text, I instead chose a secular poem that nonetheless resonates with many of the same spiritual concerns. Ratcliffe’s words evoke the traditional pleas for mercy and peace while placing the pursuit of Truth at their centre. This juxtaposition of secular language with sacred imagery reflects my own perspective, offering a contemporary and universal re- imagining of the Agnus Dei.

Mozart remained a constant companion throughout the composition of this work. I first performed the Mass in C Minor as an undergraduate singer, and returning to study the score years later provided a meaningful point of departure for my own response. Composed between May and August 2026, much of the initial draft was written aboard a high-speed train travelling between Luoyang and Shanghai, China. While the work contains no direct musical quotations, its overarching pitch centre draws inspiration from K.427, as do occasional orchestral doublings of the vocal lines.

In the preface to Walter A. Ratcliffe’s poetry collection “Morning Songs in the Night” (1 897),

W.D. Lighthall writes: [… ] no other [poet] deals so intensely yet simply with the everyday problems of the soul and of suffering humanity. The author, Walter A. Ratcliffe, of Listowel, Ontario, has for years been cut off from the ordinary pleasures of life by an unusually heavy affliction — having

become almost totally blind and deaf. His only communication with his few friends has been through the ear trumpet and the sympathetic touch and treatment. In the sadness of his life his poetry has been to him a solace and an unburdening. I am drawn to Ratcliffe’s poetry and its gaze toward nature as a place of solace and understanding when we are compassed round, tossed, and fretted. Its vision of truth as something to behold, trust, and follow resonates deeply with me. Throughout the poem, truth becomes the answer to uncertainty: when faced with doubt, seek truth. As the stream finds its way to the sea, and as we turn to the natural world for comfort and perspective, we too continue our search for truth.

TEXT

TRUTH, UPHOLD AND GUIDE ME by WALTER A. RATCLIFFE

When life’s way is as a stream

Singing ’mong the peaceful meadows,

Stealing each bright sunbeam’s gleam

Through the greenwood’s changeful shadows ;

When no tempests toss or fret me,

And no frowning rocks beset me,

Truth, uphold and guide me.

When by rocks I’m compassed round,

And the sky is dark above me ;

When the woods give back no sound

That might teach me thou dost love me ;

When my song is changed to weeping,

When the storm is o’er me sweeping,

Truth, uphold and guide me.

As the stream must meet the sea,

So must I death’s icy billow ;

When from narrowing rocks I’m free,

Be thy mighty arm my pillow ;

When I leave this world of sorrow,

For the vast unknown to-morro