At least since the time of Power and Dunstable, English music has had a reputation for lush, sonorous, and tonal harmonies. And while some modern British composers of international repute —such as Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell Davies, to name only two—are best known for their complex, difficult, and opaque musical styles, the longstanding English tradition of unapologetically beautiful sounds is continued in the world of popular choral music by renowned vocal composer John Rutter. Rutter's distinctive style is represented in lucid form in his short but poignant choral work The Lord Bless You and Keep You. The work takes its text from the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament, chapter 6 verses 24-26: "The Lord bless you and keep you/The Lord make his face to shine upon you/and be gracious unto you/The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you / and give you peace./Amen." Set to music in 1981 for performance during the memorial service for Edward Chapman, with whom Rutter had studied as a pupil at London's Highgate School, the verses are invoked by Rutter as an endearing farewell to a dearly departed friend. Since the time of Chapman's passing, the piece has enjoyed widespread popularity, having been featured in numerous concerts and recordings, as well as in the festivities for the 100th birthday of England's Queen Mother. Scored for choir, strings, and organ, the work maintains a serene, melodic surface even as unexpected modulations to distant keys convey an expressive urgency. The soprano line moves in calm, stepwise motions, moving back and forth like brush strokes. This general restraint sets in greater emotional relief the occasional melodic leaps, which add a rare, pictorial shimmer to the words "shine" and "light." As Rutter approaches the end of his chosen text, rather than circling in on a conclusive moment of harmonic repose, he enacts an acceleration of harmonic activity that spirals upward toward a breathtaking cadence. The choir then breaks into rapturous polyphony, at once elegiac and celebratory, on the word "Amen." Again, the individual lines assume simple descending stepwise contours, but leap upward out of the texture in ever higher arcs until the sopranos' final stratospheric leap, like a meteor, brilliantly shines for a brief moment and then falls and fades away into the piece's final hushed chord.

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