Erik-Peter Mortensen – “Oh Lord be Merciful unto Thy Children (Prayer in Time of Pandemic)” – a full sense of the choral idiom!

As a 4th generation musician Erik-Peter Mortensen aka 4LeafComposer started singing professionally since the age of 9, first at the Metropolitan and New York City Opera Children’s Choruses, and then in many professional choirs through to the present. Having naturally developed a passionate love for Early, Baroque, and Classical music, Erik wishes to make the beauty of these earlier styles appeal to much wider audiences, either through fusing it with other musical styles, creating new styles, or promulgating it through his own music, scoring for films, video games, and other multimedia formats. Mortensen holds a Music B.A. from Columbia University, NY and a Master Certificate for Orchestration for Film and TV from Berklee Music, MA.

Erik-Peter Mortensen

Not only a performer, composer and conductor, Erik-Peter Mortensen is also 5 professional audio engineer, and has created his own production comp5ny called Papagena Productions, of which Cathedral Records is its main independent label.

It’s hard to pin down Mortensen’s compositions under one single category, as he draws from a vast number of influences. 4LeafComposer’s musical pieces shift in stylistics between Classical, Choral, Cinematic and Contemporary flavors. Often all those elements appear within the same composition.

Erik-Peter Mortensen often works with a rotating roster of singers, who form a collective known as Mortensemble – founded in 2012 by Erik himself, while working on their debut album “Sacred Music in the English Style”.

Mortensemble appear on the single, “Oh Lord be Merciful unto Thy Children (Prayer in Time of Pandemic)”, in the form of Audrey Fernandez-Fraser (soprano and alto), Benjamin Doyle (tenor) and Erik-Peter Mortensen (bass). The track, inspired by the devasting events and effects of the pandemic, persuaded 4LeafComposer to put his faith-induced prayer for the world, to music.

“I set it to music for 4 voices in the style of an Elizabethan English Anthem, one of my favorite genres of all time,” explains Erik-Peter Mortensen. “Oh Lord be merciful unto thy children, For we have gone astray. We have put our trust not in Thee, But have scorned Thy commandments, And become proud in the imagination of our hearts,” recites the opening lines. The song has the ability to charm listeners with its beauty, refinement, sensitive setting of lyrical nuances, and enchanting vocal textures.

“Oh Lord be Merciful unto Thy Children (Prayer in Time of Pandemic)” is a real find in the richness of its harmony and delicacy of melody, which is sung with a full sense of the choral idiom and beautifully interwoven counterpoint.

When sung as expertly as Mortensemble have done here, it is not hard to grasp how and why they should become staples for new listeners of this stylistic repertoire. The mixing of voices and vocal textures shows a real sophistication in 4LeafComposer’s composing, especially in the attractive harmonic ideas brought forth.

It quickly becomes apparent that Erik-Peter Mortensen aka 4LeafComposer, has a considerable experience with choral textures and many choral works behind him, and this Elizabethan-styled piece, shows us once again that he is a composer of considerable imagination and ability. Mortensen has a solid grip on harmony and melody, and a fearless quality in translating those elements into complex vocal performances, which Mortensemble execute superbly.

“Oh Lord be Merciful unto Thy Children (Prayer in Time of Pandemic)” reminds us of the musical beauty from the Elizabethan era, while Erik-Peter Mortensen demonstrates an authentic feel for its complex polyphonic vocal music. This is astute, meticulously made music, where the voices yearn, surge, linger, interlock and counterpoint perfectly. 4LeafComposer creates music of high intensity, beauty, and international stature.