Videte Miraculum was written specifically for Alistair Dixon and the Chapelle du Roi. The text of Videte Miraculum is that of a Respond and I was keen to preserve something of the structure of the Respond in my own piece. In the original setting opening polyphonic statement is repeated piece-meal with plainchant interruptions. My intentions to create a similar structure, but using my own modern brand of plain-chant. In fact my 'interruptions' ended up rather more complex, as the opening figure (setting the words Videte Miraculum) keeps coming back as well. Each time a section of the opening statement is repeated I have re-used the material but thickened the textures. The piece opens with a soprano duet over held chords, but by the end we have a much richer fully 8-part texture.
It was the opening figure which first drew me two the text, the initial phrase Videte Miraculum called to mind the canonic figuration between the two soprano parts and much of the musical material derives from this. Though no actual plainchant is quoted in the piece, the musical language is highly inflected by chant. In style the motet is related to my on-going motet sequence Tempus per Annum where in writing modern settings of original Latin texts I aim to create a contemporary slant on plainchant and renaissance polyphony.
Robert Hugill