The Pembroke College Girls' Choir sing Nadia Boulanger's 'Cantique', conducted by Anna Lapwood and accompanied by Joe Beadle.

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We're so excited to release the first single from our latest album, 'Celestial Dawn'. I stumbled across this little piece by Nadia Boulanger a couple of years ago, and it has been a firm favourite ever since. The beauty of this piece lies in its simplicity; sparse chords on the piano twinkle like starlight, underpinning a melody that sounds as if it has been woven from a single thread. The piece exists in two versions—the one heard here, written for solo voice and piano with a beautifully evocative text by Maurice Maeterlinck, and a sacred version written a year later for voice, violin, cello, harp and organ, with the text changed to ‘Lux aeterna’. I did consider recording the sacred version instead, but found myself repeatedly drawn back to the powerful text of the original. I also think it’s important for the choristers to sing in languages other than those which dominate our repertoire (English and Latin), and, seeing as one of our girls is bilingual, speaking fluent French, we had a lot of fun working on the text as a group. This is a piece which draws you in, envelopes you in a warm embrace and then doesn’t let you go.

To all weeping souls
to all sin to pass
I open in the midst of the stars
my hands full of grace.

No sin lives
where love speaks
No soul dies
where love weeps

And if love gets lost
on the paths of the earth
Its tears will find me
and not go astray.

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