Hear my prayer, O Lord

From Mozart’s Requiem to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi, history is filled with artistic what ifs—unfinished fragments. Purcell’s choral anthem Hear My Prayer is one of the most tantalising: seemingly the first movement of a larger work that was either lost or never completed. A musical epic in miniature, the choral anthem distils all the anguished, desperate pleading of Psalm 102—“Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee”—into just three minutes and a single unbroken musical arc. Built around just two musical ideas—a yearning upwards call, and a little chromatic turn that seems to twist the knife in the wound—the work builds up gradually, layering voice upon voice in increasingly rich, knotty imitation. A crescendo swells stronger and stronger until all eight voices are finally present with shattering force. After this climactic peak the arc then reverses; the music falls gradually back towards silence and, finally, resolution.