When I first heard Pádraig Ó Tuama read his evocative and sonorous text (on a radio interview!), I knew immediately that I wanted to use it in a short choral piece. So Let Us is the result. The repetition of “Let Us” / “Let’s” suggested a background swirl of sound over which the meaningful phrases stand out. His images are inspired and he has a wonderful gift for language, as the following excerpt shows:
. . . Let us listen to the sounds of our own voices, of our own names, of our own fears. Let’s claw ourselves out from the graves we’ve dug. Let’s lick the earth from our fingers. . .
The music flows with the text, echoing its journey in rich choral sound.