Other notes - Weir

Judith Weir (b. 1954) is Master of the Queen’s Music and one of the world’s best-known composers of choral music, possessing a unique ability to reference familiar musical language in rendering new and enchanting creations. Magnificat was commissioned in 2011 by the Master and Fellows of St. John's College, Cambridge, to mark the 500th anniversary of the founding of the college. Weir sets the extended Magnificat text compactly; creating a fast-flowing texture in which the words are at the forefront, with a harmonic language influenced by folk traditions.