For amateur SATB chorus with divisions, Opposites by Rhian Samuel pairs a well-known poem by Shakespeare with a less familiar one by his contemporary, the lute-song composer Thomas Campion.

In Shakespeare’s much anthologised ‘Crabbed Age and Youth’ the decay of the former and vigour of the latter inspire contrasts of texture, register and dynamics to make a simple yet effective form culminating in the defiant tutti of ‘Age, I do defy thee!’

A meditation on the fruitless pursuit of passion,...