Jonathan Harvey's Anglican choral works: contexts, musical elements, and analyses of five selected works

The Anglican choral works of English composer Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012) occupy a distinctive place in the world of modern sacred choral music. The musical language that Harvey employed in his Anglican choral works depends on musical features of pitch symmetry, spectralism, and dramatic variation forms, all of which are described as having distinctive spiritual symbolism in Harvey’s expansive published writings. This thesis discusses Harvey’s Anglican choral works in two broad brushstrokes. First, the thesis examines the historical context of the works with a focus on Harvey’s initial movement into the world of Anglican cathedral music at Winchester Cathedral in the 1970s. Harvey’s spirited friendship with choirmaster Martin Neary brought about a string of works written for the Winchester Cathedral Choir. The second part of the thesis discusses Harvey’s aesthetics as well as aspects of the compositional language of the church works, such as spectralism and pitch symmetry, that are informed by those aesthetics. Through his prose and compositions, Harvey sought to articulate a vision of music as a mirror of spiritual practices with reference to concepts involving Buddhist teachings and meditation. Analyses of five selected works, including I love the Lord (1977), Come, Holy Ghost (1986), The Angels (1995), Missa Brevis (1995), and The Annunciation (2011), show how Harvey’s unified compositional language is employed to shape dramatic musical meditations on sacred and poetic texts.