St Margaret's Church Prestwich

Earlier this year the Royal School of Church Music launched “Sing for the King”, an open invitation to all choirs throughout the UK to join in song to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. Joanna Forbes l’Estrange, arguably the RSCM’s best-selling successful composer, was commissioned to compose the anthem for this project: “The Mountains Shall Bring Peace”.

This anthem is a setting of psalm 72:1-3 and 149:1-3, and the text is:

Give the King Thy judgement, O God,

And Thy righteousness unto the King’s son.

He shall judge Thy people with righteousness,

And Thy poor with judgement.

The mountains shall bring peace to the people,

And the little hills, by righteousness.

Praise ye the Lord!

Sing unto the Lord a new song,

And his praise in the congregation of saints.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him,

Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

Let them praise His name in the dance,

Let them sing praises unto Him with the timbrel and harp.

Amen.

I registered our church choir to take part and bought the music. This is a demanding 5-minute anthem, and by the time the scores arrived we only had three rehearsals in which to learn it! The ladies of Maggie’s Music Makers did phenomenally well, and sang it for the first time in the morning service on Sunday 14 May. Why not on coronation day? Because I was out of the parish visiting family.

There is something for everyone in this piece of music. It begins with fanfares on the organ and loud proclamations from the choir, then we are straight into a gentler section about righteous judgement. The music gets gentler still with the mountains and little hills, building to more fanfares and proclamations. From there we are into waltz time, singing our praises joyfully. This builds into a louder and faster Viennese waltz, singing and dancing with timbrel (a type of drum) and harp, finishing with loud and proud “Amens”, back in 4-time. It’s a big sing, and each member of the choir thoroughly enjoys singing it for you.

Once is never enough, and we sang it again in early July. You can hear it again here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVBNco15aQ4&t=6s Hopefully we’ll get a recording of our own choir singing it at some point.

Carol P