Tenebrae will release their new album, ‘A Prayer for Deliverance’, on Friday 20th June 2025.
Mixing iconic choral works with music by some of today’s most exciting composers, this varied programme is centred around themes of rest. Cecilia McDowall’s ‘Standing As I Do Before God’ (published by Oxford University Press) is a poignant illustration of nurse Edith Cavell’s final moments before her death, when she was executed by a German firing squad after helping Allied servicemen escape into neutral territories. The soprano soloist, Emma Walshe, sings Cavell’s own words, and the choir support her with poet Seán Street’s reflection on her final steps. It is a powerfully moving piece – read the description for the full text.
‘I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.
Standing as I do in view of God and eternity,
I realise patriotism is not enough:
I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’
And when the time was close,
For once her eyes filled with tears,
Then she quietly rose, walked silently through the stilled prison,
The grey dawn light, passed gas flame,
Tired flowers, out beyond her final night,
A flame alight in hours before infinity,
In the presence of death leaving all enmity:
In view of God we are air after breath.
Standing as I do.