Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Make A Joyful Noise’ Released After Coronation Performance
It was performed in public for the first time at today’s service at Westminster Abbey.
“Make A Joyful Noise,” the new anthem by Andrew Lloyd Webber that was specially commissioned for the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III & Queen Camilla, is now available via Decca Records. It was performed in public for the first time at today’s service at Westminster Abbey, in front of some 2,200 attendees, as the Queen was enthroned. The single is accompanied by a performance video.
The composer told the Daily Telegraph that the King insisted the piece, which is based on verses from Psalm 98, should be “hummable” and joyful, and that it would stand the test of time. “He wants the anthem sung in churches,” he said. In another interview with Channel 4 News, Lloyd Webber said that writing the anthem helped him after the death of his son, Nicholas on March 25, at the age of 43, after fighting cancer.
“Music is my life. Music is what I do,” he said. “The music and what I may have written for the coronation – I do obviously have the thought of my son in my mind and there will be a moment when I’m in the abbey, I know, as there was the other day, when I’m thinking of my lovely Nick. And thinking that making a joyful noise is also for him.
He went on: “Obviously writing the anthem, because it’s joyful, it was a wonderful thing to do as a kind of antidote to what I knew was going on in my private life.”
The newly-available studio single version of “Make A Joyful Noise” will raise funds for the Royal British Legion and Age UK. It is performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with the Choir of Westminster Abbey, the Fanfare Trumpeters of The Royal Air Force, and Westminster Abbey Sub-Organist Peter Holder, conducted by Organist & Master Of The Choristers At Westminster Abbey, Andrew Nethsingha.
Buy or stream “Make A Joyful Noise.”
