First performance: 4 December 1999
Commissioned for the 40th Anniversary Concert

The Coming of the Kingdom is a choral work for SATB choir, alto solo and orchestra. In the final movement there is a duet for cello and oboe (or cor anglais).

The texts deal with different aspects of the season of Advent. The overall mood of the music is intended to convey a sense of expectancy and the reflective feel of the Advent season.

Programme notes from the composer:

The work was composed over the summer of 1999 while I was in the United States working on a conference for the Presbyterian Church. It turned out that my commitments on the 2 week conference left me with lots of free time so gave me the opportunity to write the bare bones of each movement. The conference was high in the mountains in North Carolina, a rather idyllic spot overlooking a lake. It was a perfect place to write music. The texts deal with different aspects of the season of Advent.

The first and third movements deal with the call of the Christian to wake out of sleep, in the first movement in Latin and the third in English. The believer is called to arise, put on new garments and prepare to meet the new light made manifest in the birth of Christ.

Between these two movements is a setting of This is the truth from above written in a jazzy, almost sleazy style for alto soloist and chorus. These words relate the story of God’s purpose for man, from the creation and original sin through to the redemption of the mankind through the coming of his son. The rather sleazy opening depicts the fall of Adam and the conversion of man from innocence to experience.

The fourth movement is lyrical and flowing to suit the mood of the words: “Comfort ye my people, saith your God.” Warfare is over and iniquity pardoned. But the last section, by contrast a duet for cello and oboe (or Cor) with alto solo for the words “every valley shall be exalted,” is not the jovial and lively treatment of a Handelian version, but has more sense of awe and wonder, almost disbelief that the glory of the Lord can appear on earth.

The final movement maintains the reflective feel of the Advent season with the words, “The desert shall rejoice and blossom like a rose, it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.” The use of solo oboe (or preferably cor anglais) in this movement, and the overall mood of the music is intended to convey a sense of expectancy but also one of a deep searching for Christ’s glory and emotion which can only be fulfilled by the “Coming of God’s Kingdom.”

Find more information about Malcom Archer on his website.