Rise Up, O Sun! (2023)

Scored for Full Orchestra and Chorus

Date of composition: 2023; Duration: 10’00; Commissioning body: The Three Choirs Festival; Premiere performance: 22 July 2023, Gloucester Cathedral, UK; Premiere performers: Three Choirs Festival Orchestra and Chorus/Adrian Partington; Publisher: Eleanor Alberga

Request Hire

Eleanor writes:

“I was delighted to receive this commission. In a work that I wanted above all to celebrate life, my search was only in finding a text that would encapsulate this. After one or two tries it was that maverick visionary William Blake who presented himself with words to which I instantly felt connected.

The centre of the piece sets the words – “behold the living, living springs”, an important moment, as it echoes centuries of man’s belief in the sacredness and spiritual power of such sources. I also feel it is important that you, the receivers of the music, have the complete fragment of Blake’s epic in front of you; for it was the whole excerpt which inspired me. Eric Morecambe once said that he was playing all the notes but not necessarily in the right order; I have not even presented all of Blake’s words - besides putting them in a different order. And yet I have tried to provide an essence of what these words convey – an exhortation to live fully and deeply. Perhaps by looking at the world through such a mystical lens we may find an escape from our modern focus on the rational and utilitarian.”