A new work by our Vice President Cecilia McDowall  O Lord, Make Thy Servant, Elizabeth commissioned by the Genesis Foundation was premiered earlier this month by The Sixteen, in the extraordinary setting of the Chapel Royal at the Tower of London.  The text is taken from Byrd’s setting.

Here is a video of the performance:-

And here is a review of the piece by Serenhedd James in the Catholic Herald:-

‘Most poignant, inevitably, was William Byrd’s O Lord Make Thy Servant Elizabeth Our Queen to Rejoice In Thy Strength, all polyphony and delicious false relations and English cadences; its prayer to “give her a long life” can hardly be said to have gone unanswered in any of its English contexts. It served as personal memento mori, too, for never again shall I hear it performed liturgically in my lifetime. The same is true, I suppose, of Cecilia McDowall’s setting of a near-identical text, commissioned for the concert by the Genesis Foundation.

It stole the show: a stirring combination of homophony and movement; oozing dissonance and resolution; a harp part, played with verve and dexterity by Sioned Williams (formerly principal harpist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra for nearly three decades); hints of the Iberian peninsula and shifting desert sands. Christophers had also picked up on the last, although over a drink later the composer insisted on its coincidence. It seemed oddly like an old favourite; even thought it was brand new, the audience welcomed it enthusiastically. McDowall’s output is prodigious, and she rarely disappoints.’

Congratulations Cecilia on this wonderful achievement!