“Still falls the rain, dark as the world of man, blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails upon the cross”
These are tributes to Ian McQueen’s long-term collaboration with the pioneering organist Michael Bonaventure, who commissioned them.
2000 NAILS is the large-scale work, written in 2003 to a commission celebrating the series “Concerts in the University of Edinburgh”. Written for the massive instrument of the university’s
McEwen Hall, it is based on the symphonic treatment of two ideas: the plainchant Victimae Paschali Laudes telling of Christ’s passion, and the rhythms and instrumental “setting” of text from Edith Sitwell’s great wartime poem Still Falls the Rain. Duration 20 minutes.
