Although I had already set separate Latin versions of both the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, this is the first time I’ve made a setting in English of both texts for use at Evensong. I have often attended Evensong in the Cambridge college chapels: it’s a service whose meanings and spirituality are quite different from any other, and it has its own special atmosphere. Evensong’s coupling of Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis texts is fascinating: the exuberant celebration of the former contrasts so marv...