A Choral Meditation: Fusing Past and Present in the Sacred Music of Eoghan Desmond

Abstract

Choral music and the sacred have been intertwined since the Middle Ages. With the increasing secularisation of society, it is notable that the sacred choral canon continues to expand and attract audiences in religious and secular spaces, underlining the enduring importance of tradition and the human desire to search for something beyond our existence. The practice of setting sacred texts to music abounds in the work of contemporary composers, continuing the historic tradition into the present day via a wide range of compositional and stylistic approaches. In his sacred works, Irish composer Eoghan Desmond achieves a sound that fuses the past and present, exhibiting both the visceral and meditative aspects associated with the texts that he sets. This article focuses on the composer’s choral work Nothing in Vain (2021), a setting of John Henry Newman’s ‘A Meditation on Trust in God’. Through critical score analysis, I highlight Desmond’s ability to reflect Newman’s devotion to God and to evoke a sense of the spiritual through his formal organisation and application of harmonic, rhythmic, and textural techniques, drawing on influences from the Renaissance tradition, the contemporary style of ambient music, and the work of well-known composer James MacMillan. Desmond’s synthesis of ancient and contemporary compositional practices invites all listeners to engage in this musical meditation and contemplate the message of the spiritual text.