for soprano solo and SSATB unaccompanied Setting a text spoken by Nurse Edith Cavell on the eve of her execution in 1915 and re-fashioned by the poet SeƔn Street, McDowall has created a work of haunting beauty full of gently lamenting harmonies.The sombre subject matter makes the piece equally suitable for funerals and Remembrance Day celebrations. Standing as I do before God is featured on the CD A Multitude of Voices by the choir Sospiri on Convivium Records.
Recenzijas
Standing as I do before God [ ...] evokes the final hours of British nurse, Edith Cavell before she was executed by German authorities in 1915 for sheltering Allied soldiers. McDowall's use of a soprano soloist heightens the potent mix of courage, faith and serenity embedded in the moving score. * Tony Way, Limelight, May 2021 *
Cecilia McDowall has been described by the International Record Review as having a 'communicative gift that is very rare in modern music. An award-winning composer, McDowall is often inspired by extra-musical influences, and her choral writing combines rhythmic vitality with expressive lyricism. Her music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by leading choirs, among them the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, and Oxford and Cambridge choirs and is regularly programmed at prestigious festivals in Britain and abroad. In 2017 McDowall was selected for an Honorary Fellow award by the Royal School of Church Music.
