Panufnik: Kyrie after Byrd

Description

"When new super-choir ORA came to me, asking for a Kyrie that related to Byrd's Mass for Five Voices, I immediately went to Youtube to listen to Byrd's original. I loved the way that the melody of the first Kyrie eleison almost immediately transposes and capitalized on this harmonically by taking my version through several quite chromatic changes and adding an extra bass voice, thereby extra harmonic potential. I've kept the Christe eleison as a calmer and more ethereal section, floating gently back into the chromatic Kyrie, which almost forgets itself in harmonic and dramatic propriety but suddenly takes stock of itself and ends with quiet reverence." (Roxanna Panufnik)

First performed 10 February 2016 at the Tower of London.