'Hymns are the poetry of the people’, said Sir John Betjeman in the 1970s. This Poet Laureate is now memorialised in Westminster Abbey, along with many other poets, writers and performers in a space known as Poets’ Corner. In this series, join us as we explore a few of these poets whose words were turned into hymns and anthems, which are sung in Christian churches around the world.

Hello, I’m Stuart O’Hara, I’m a bass lay vicar in the Abbey Choir and today I’m going to explore the poet John Milton and his poem At a Solemn Musick, better known by its first line, Blest Pair of Sirens, the title CHH Parry chose when he set it to music in 1887.

John Milton is probably most famous for his epic retelling of the fall in the garden of Eden, Paradise Lost. He wrote a sequel to that, Paradise Regained, many odes (of which At a Solemn Musick is one), and works of philosophy and political theory. His influence has stretched across the centuries, from Blake, Wordsworth and Hardy, to Philip Pullman and the authors of the US Constitution.

Milton was a supporter of the Parliamentarians in the Civil War and a civil servant during the Commonwealth for Oliver Cromwell. However, there’s a regal precedent to approving of the republican Milton’s words – Queen Victoria was at the premiere of Blest Pair of Sirens, and within two years, she was patron of the Bach Choir, who had first performed it.

The Bach Choir is a London institution that’s still going. Four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone was a founder member, who is buried in the Abbey. Its conductor in 1887 was Charles Villiers Stanford, who is interred in the north choir aisle. Stanford’s friend Parry, who also sang in the Bach Choir, needed a big break as he made his way as a composer. Stanford gave him that break by commissioning Blest Pair of Sirens.

The poem is quite esoteric, sharing a description of the heavenly host singing everlastingly with the saints. There’s an allusion to the fall of man, but really it’s about the power of words and music perfectly combined. The congregation might feel a sense of serenity one moment, of awesomeness the next.

Parry uses two compositional techniques here. The first is polyphony – where the eight parts of the choir (two each of treble, alto, tenor, bass) are melodically and rhythmically independent of each other, reciting the text separately. The result is lush and complex, and is used to depict the “undisturbéd song of pure concent” presented to the angels’ “high-raised phantasy”.

However, at the “saintly shout” acclaiming God (who sits upon his “sapphire-coloured throne”), Parry uses homophony, which differs from polyphony by having the choir sing their words and rhythms together, like a hymn. At the climactic points, they’re even singing the same tune, in what’s called unison. It’s an effective way of showing the singular, obsessive focus of their singing – the glory of God.

The text isn’t associated with a specific feast - it was composed as a concert piece - which makes it quite versatile. It’s often sung on the final day of the choir year, and so has an association with valediction for generations of former choristers both here and at choral foundations around the country.

However, Westminster Abbey has its own special link with the piece – it was sung here at the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince and Princess of Wales in 2011.

Let’s take a listen to this short clip.

Parry mixes so many styles in this piece – there are nods to Beethoven, a hint of Wagner’s overture to Die Meistersinger. Of course, Parry was writing for the Bach Choir, and that mixing of styles, it’s just what JS Bach would have done – and did, in his Bminor Mass and Well-Tempered Clavier! By taking a 17th century text, and composing an anthological piece around it, Parry created something that belongs to all eras. It’s a rightly beloved piece, and as a singer, I find it hard to resist the challenge set in the poem: “O, may we soon again renew that song,/And keep in tune with Heav’n, til God ere long/To His celestial concert us unite,/To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light.”

Thank you for joining me today. To listen to the full piece, and other recorded performances, please search for “The Choir of Westminster Abbey” on your chosen music streaming platform. Alternatively, you can purchase CDs from Westminster Abbey’s shop. We’d love to welcome you at one of our services at Westminster Abbey.