Song Stories: Exulta, Filia Sion

Exulta, Filia Sion

It’s a sacred song for a Sunday!

This is the second of the “Five Christmas Fanfares” for 8-part choir, all of which use antiphonal textures where the men and women of the choir sing in response to each other in alternating blocks of contrasting music. All five fanfares also have distinctive rhythmic characteristics and are short and dramatic in style. The texts are all in Latin and were found in a Roman Missal given to me on the occasion of my babyhood baptism by my paternal grandparents, Samuel and Florence Camm.

Go to Five Christmas Fanfares

The men of the choir urge the women to come and praise, rejoicing that the Saviour is on his way. The women of choir obligingly do this, becoming more joyous as they go. You might think that the men have had everything their own way, but in a beguiling fashion the music of the women’s alleluias (a skipping-along combination of triadic harmony, additive rhythms and alluring melismas) encourages a change in the men’s somewhat strident, slower paced, directives, until by the end of the anthem, all are in joyous accord!

Rock Church windows croppedThe performance here is the world premiere of this piece by the Rock Festival Choir in St. Paul’s Church, Alnwick. It has also been performed in New Zealand, Sweden and the USA – maybe other places I don’t know about too! In the Alnwick performance it was performed with the other four fanfares. In the other performances it was as a stand alone anthem.

Exulta filia Zion,
lauda filia Jerusalem:
ecce Rex tuus venit sanctus,
et salvator mundi.

Rejoice, daughter of Zion,
cry praise, daughter of Jerusalem:
behold thy king cometh, thy holy one,
the saviour of the world. (Zach. 9)

Go to Exulta Filia Sion
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