
Lyra Davidica started life as a work for organ with the rather longer title Chorale from ‘Lyra Davidica’. The organ version is one of a series based upon Lutheran chorale tunes or English hymnody. In this case the melody is the famous Easter Hymn. Lyra Davidica is the collection from which the Easter Hymn originates. The work follows the phrase structure of the original very closely, though the melody does not appear unambiguously until the end and even then only briefly in the bass. Appropriately for a work that translates as ‘Harp of David’, the organ version was premiered by Michael Slaney at St. Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire in the summer of 2009.