Am Abend: Vocal score (New Horizons) - Tapa blanda

SATB (with divisions) unaccompanied
Am Abend is a setting of 'Grodek', which is thought to be the last work of the Austrian poet Georg Trakl. Written in 1913, the year before Trakl committed suicide at the age of 27, the poem is set in the town of Grodek on the Eastern Front, where he had served as a medical officer. Jackson's setting is agonizingly moving, opening with an eerie alto melody before the rest of the choir enter with haunting harmonies and cluster chords, reflecting the darkness of the text. Grace notes and glissandi add an Eastern flavour and evoke the 'wild lament' and 'dark flutes' of Trakl's poem. Jackson's setting builds to a powerful climax, before the altos close with a quiet, repeated fragment on 'die ungebornen Enkel' ('the unborn grandsons').
First performed by the BBC Singers, directed by Paul Brough, at Milton Court Concert Hall, London, on 11 February 2016.

One of Britain's foremost composers, after three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Gabriel Jackson went on to study composition with Richard Blackford and John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of most of Britain's cathedral and collegiate choirs and he is a frequent collaborator with the leading professional groups of the world. From 2010-2013 he was Associate Composer to the BBC Singers. In 2014 his hour-long The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford, was premiered in its chapel. May 2015 saw the premiere at the Latvian National Opera of Spring Rounds for soprano, choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Riga-based youth choir Kamer for their 25th anniversary. He was recently commissioned by The Marian Consort to write Stabat Mater to mark their 10th anniversary.