Peter Lawson

Virtue

This a capella anthem, Virtue, was written in 1978, just after completing the song-cycle Care-Charmer Sleep, (Goodmusic GM265). The melody and harmonies of the closing bars of the first of four songs in the cycle, The Good Morrow by John Donne, are quoted in the closing bars of the anthem, albeit with different words from a different metaphysical poet, George Herbert.
The anthem is dedicated to Timothy Salter and the Ionian Singers, who gave its first performance in St Johns, Smith Square a few years later.

George Herbert's poem contrasts the permanence of a virtuous soul to the impermanence of a sweet day, a sweet rose and a sweet spring, which 'all must die', whereas, in the final stanza:
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
Peter Lawson

Duration 3 minutes