This work (in form a concerto for English horn and orchestra) is a dramatic meditation on the events of Maundy Thursday. It uses a postmodern twentieth-century style, yet its deft timing and inclusion of familiar sound to engage the ear make it communicate well to a symphony audience.

James MacMillan (born in 1959 in Kilwinning in Ayrshire, Scotland) began composing when he was ten and studied music at Edinburgh University. There his teacher Rita McAllister introduced him to modern music and especially the living Russian composers. MacMillan was particularly intrigued by Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaydulina, and Galina Ustvolskaya. He is a lifelong Roman Catholic and often expresses religious ideas in his music, including such works as Veni Veni Emmanuel (written for percussionist Evelyn Glennie), Seven Last Words from the Cross, and Visitatio Sepulchre.

This work came about as the result of a commission from the London Symphony Orchestra for three works: A concerto for the orchestra's fine soloist on cor anglais (English horn), Christine Pendrill, and two works for Mstislav Rostropovich—one a concerto for him to play as a cellist and the other a symphony for him to conduct.

MacMillan chose the three days before Easter as the subjects of these three works, which are interrelated by subject and some musical sharing, but are otherwise separate compositions. (The Cello Concerto depicts Good Friday and the Symphony Vigil the day and night before Easter.)

Maundy Thursday is perhaps the most event-filled day in the story of Christ. On it occurred the Last Supper, Christ's communion with God in the Garden of Gethsemane, his betrayal by Judas and arrest, and Peter's denial of him. Central to MacMillan's concept is that Maundy Thursday is the day Christ delivered the commandment to his followers to love one another.

The roots of the music are Bach's chorale Ach wie nightig and two bits of plainsong, one of which is associated with St Thomas Aquinas' hymn Pange lingua. (This hymn contains the phrase "the world's ransoming" to refer to Christ's self-sacrifice, and, hence, is also the origin of this work's title.)

Peaceful and mysterious shimmering wave sounds often get interrupted by harsh brass and percussion outbursts, while the English horn has a lonely, meditative part that makes important use of the interval of the half-step and the descending ninth. As the 20-minute work progresses, fanfares of increasing harshness intrude periodically until even the calm Gregorian sounds of the plainchant take on a crude quality. There is short-lived and almost barbaric dance of joy, but this yields to a chaotic outburst of sound from the orchestra. For an instant the music breaks, as if a heart has skipped a beat but resumes until the orchestra suddenly plunges to the depths and ceases. One dramatic and foreboding gesture remains: The harsh sound of knocking on a cube of plywood, which ends the piece with a clear prediction of the sound of nails being hammered.

© Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide