I composed this setting of Boethius for the Music Ministry of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Pennington, New Jersey, on a commission from the parish and Dr. Rory E. McCorkle, in commemoration of the retirement of the Rev. Canon Jack Belmont, rector from 1976 to 2013. The text is drawn from the Consolatio Philosophiae, Book III, Meter 9, lines 22–28. This passage, in Latin, is a prayer that the soul be given power to climb toward the source of all light. Conceived for SATB a cappella, the work is framed by an English paraphrase of the prayer.

The piece opens in B-flat major with the English text set in homophonic unison, marked parlando, resolving to a harmonized tonic chord. After a silent fermata, the Latin begins in the tenor in G minor, in original counterpoint, the chant-like contrapuntal manner I favor, here without a cantus firmus. From here the writing paints the text at every turn. Rising eighth notes climb at conscendere sedem (“climb to the throne”), entering in the upper voices and imitated by tenors and then basses, growing to forte at fontem (“source”) in the top three voices before the basses re-enter for the cadence.

At da luce reperta (“by the rediscovered light”), altos and tenors move in quarter-note triplets, lending the passage a lilting compound feel; sopranos and basses rejoin at animi for another B-flat cadence. The tonality then darkens, marked delicato. At Dissice terrenae nebulas (“scatter earthly fogs”) the upper voices pull toward E-flat minor, and at pondera molis (“the weights of material things”) the basses divide to support a heavy, clumped texture that paints the burden directly. Sopranos return at atque Tuo with a bright eighth-note figure marked con allegrezza, taken up voice by voice at splendore mica (“let Your splendor shine forth”), now in E-flat major.

A subito piano returns the music to homophony at Tu namque serenum (“for You are serenity”), the harmony shifting to G major at serenum. The final lines build steadily: the men offer Te cernere finis (“to discern You is the end”), answered by the women, with principium marked piu maestoso. The crescendo opens into a grand melisma at semita (“footpath”) that strips the texture to a single unison E-flat. The depiction here is that the independent vocal lines converge on the one path, which is Boethius’s intended meaning. Finally, terminus idem (“the destination likewise”) cadences back to B-flat.

To close the piece, the English paraphrase returns, now harmonized rather than in unison, the quarter-note triplets reappearing as at the opening. All voices rise together dramatically in a melisma at “Thou art,” and diminuendo through “the journey’s end” to a deceptive cadence in G minor. An adagio e tranquillo coda restates the closing phrase and cadences plagally to B-flat once more. The plagal “amen” gesture that frames the work, opening and close alike, suits its purpose as a tribute.

The audio sample is the start of the Latin counterpoint, measure 15 on page 2. Here are the texts: