Gabriel Jackson
A former chorister himself, Gabriel Jackson is at the forefront of the British choral scene, having worked and written for amateur and professional choirs for two decades including as associate composer for the BBC Singers from 2010-13. His setting of the Stabat Mater is on the Marian Consort’s new disc In Sorrow’s Footsteps on Delphian.
For a long time I wanted to be an architect. I then realised it was too much work, but also that I can’t draw. A bit of a serious drawback. I was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, and that’s when I started to be quite serious about music. It sounds a bit weird, but I do see pieces in my head as 3D objects. I couldn’t describe them, which is probably why they are pieces and not buildings.
I came back to choral music in a big way 20 years ago.
Those formative experiences as a child are very long lasting. I’ve written quite a lot of liturgical music. Probably like most people I have quite complex feelings about religion and belief. Irrespective of that, I like the tradition of choral worship. I do also think it’s a job. You should go about setting these texts in a professional and responsible way. The Stabat Mater is a hard text to set as it’s so grim. There’s that final turn to the light in the last line. I’ve written my setting for the tenth anniversary of the Marian Consort. I couldn’t write
unremittingly grim music for the best part of 20 minutes, so I found di erent ways to look at an essentially unchanging subject. The words are extraordinary. There’s an ecstatic quality to the su ering, and lots of possibilities for colour, scorings and texture. Unaccompanied voices in a nice acoustic is my favourite sound. I write tonal music with no modulations or transitions.
It’s structured in blocks, so there’s no development. I like things to be clear and distinct, and I’m interested in the e ects of light, whether it’s dazzling, brilliant or subdued glow.
The standard of singing is higher than it’s ever been.
I’ve worked a lot with the choirs of St Mary Cathedral in Edinburgh and with Truro Cathedral, and in both cases they’re singing better than they ever have. I also think there’s a lot to be learnt from the choral cultures of other countries – in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and America, for instance – which are o en very distinguished and have a long history of excellence.