The Magnificat was the result of an invitation from a New York-based concert organization called Mid-America Productions which specializes in giving large-scale choral/orchestral concerts in Carnegie Hall. I had been guest-conducting a number of their concerts for some two years when I was asked to write a forty-minute work for one such concert, in May 1990. The chorus, numbering over 200 voices, was made up of hand-picked choirs from all over the United States, every one of them happy and excited at the prospect of joining forces in the magnificent setting of Carnegie Hall, and I also had the resources of orchestra and soloist(s) available. Within these parameters, I was given a completely free hand, and I immediately felt I wanted to write something joyous because that would reflect the mood of the performers. Having written the reflective and subdued Requiem four years earlier, I wanted my next large-scale choral work to be as different as possible, and the text of the Magnificat seemed an obvious choice. Composers seem to have fought shy of writing extended settings of it (though there are many short Anglican liturgical settings), probably because of the daunting shadow cast by J.S. Bach, and I had avoided it myself because I could not think how I would set it to music except that I knew Gregorian chant would feature in some way. The answer came from looking at the context of the words: the Virgin Mary has learned that she is to give birth to Jesus, and she is pouring out her joy to her cousin Elizabeth, in words which recall the Song of Hannah from the Old Testament, combining faith, trust, and wonder.

The Magnificat is known as the Canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is mainly in the sunny southern countries-Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico-that Mary is most celebrated and enjoyed. This led me to conceive the music as a bright Latin-flavoured fiesta. On feast days of the Virgin Mary in Latin countries, the population sings, dances, dresses in its most colourful clothes, processes in the open air, and celebrates. I wrote my setting in that spirit, using just a single soprano soloist representing Mary; her music draws mainly on the tradition of the musical theatre. It has always seemed to me that if inspiration can be drawn from another area of music such as the theatre, there is no reason not to bring it into the concert hall. Gregorian chant is indeed used at a number of points, either plainly or disguised, and I also followed Bach's precedent, from his original 1723 Magnificat version, of adding other texts to the 'official' Latin one. There are two of these, a lovely fifteenth-century English poem on the theme of Mary, one of many written in England at that time, and then in the last movement a Latin prayer to Mary which gives the soloist a final say before the music comes to a jubilant conclusion.

John Rutter