Concert day yesterday! I wrote the music for Tell O Shepherds a few years back, inspired by carol singing basically. I wanted something that just felt like one of the traditional carols, four-part, with a nice sop descant in the last verse. There’s a little bit of a nod to ‘Infant Holy Infant Lowly’ with the rising sequence, and think the words might even be related/from the same source originally.
You can get the sheet music for Tell O Shepherds here.
This weekend we had the first, I think, UK performance of the Four Hildegard texts, and the definitely first performance of O virga ac diadema (another setting of words by Hildegard), by my ogs, Bristol University Schola Cantorum. A big thank you to Emma Hornby, Gillian Hurst, and all the staff of St. Nicholas’ Brockley for a lovely afternoon. I wondered at first why this venue, out in the middle of nowhere it seemed to me (— a non-driving urbanite, bear in mind though)… once I got there all became clear. I walked down a track through a field in the low afternoon sun towards and old stone tower in the distance, then through some kind of magical tree-shaded lane…
To here. I definitely recommend visiting if you are ever nearby!
Schola sang my Hildegard settings between two sets of plainchant, the first while processing into the church and up to the front.
Excerpt O virga diadema:
The Orange County Women’s Chorus got in touch about a performance of two of my Four Hildegard Texts, one of which you can now watch / listen to below:
This was performed as part of their concert program, The Sisterhood of Cecilia, which began with music by Hildegard herself.
Thank you! A beautiful performance.
I have just updated the sheet music page with a bunch of choral scores, in time for Christmas! ‘Twas in the Moon of the Wintertime / The Huron Carol we have sung several times in Sing Clifton; the rest are new, one getting its first performance this year.
Yesterday Sing Clifton sang my arrangement of Loch Lomond and it’s been such a long journey that here’s a little post about it.
Of course part of it is the whole year that was 2020 and happened to most everyone — our last concert until yesterday was Christmas 2019 and we came out of that really on a high, singing strongly and with plans for more and more ambitious songs that seemed very much within reach. Hence this, a SSATB fairly complex and super long-breathed a cappella piece — and the 15 minute Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat arrangement that also finally made it to public performance yesterday, which I think divides SSAATTBB at a few points..
But I actually started this arrangement… I guess 2012? Anyway I remember sitting on a bus back and forth from my job as a learning support assistant, planning this alongside reading and rereading Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, and planning out a novel the concept of which was basically the same thing, but with women, but set in 1800s Bristol. Sadly never completed, whoops. But I did finish this. And it’s funny to think back on now how I… thought I knew what I was doing writing for choirs and kinda sorta, sure, but also yikes. But I was definitely, as they say, having a lot of feelings. And I think that comes across in the best way.
(I was planning on doing a whole set — and I actually did make an exuberant arrangement of some kind of Ye Jacobites by Name too … that one very likely might need a fair bit of revising if I dig it out again, but maybe I should.)
But it’s like a lot of older pieces that I’ve polished up again lately …… that in itself is weird to say — I never used to have any interest in returning to old things and revising/developing, but I’ve done it with a few game pieces lately, and this a couple years back… ….Anyway, like other pieces too—while I had to reign in some of the really not vocally compassable lines, think about spacing, BREATHING, range and stuff like that… I kept a lot. The outline and a lot more. And like all these older pieces, I put a LOT of work into them back when and I think that showed — also a bit of slightly naive/fearless imagination/unashamedness in the simplicity of the harmonies etc. That wordless bridge!! I don’t know if I’d do that now, if I’d have the nerve — but maybe I’ll consider it, now I hear how it actually can sound.
All that to say that it’s a piece that’s been arranged a lot and will be again* …. But especially now I’ve had it rehearsed and performed and enjoyed by the choir, I feel like there’s definitely a place for this arrangement, it works.
* I suppose I can beg a little originality because I’ve chosen some of the lesser used words, I think? Vs the “me and my true love will never meet again” which I guess I wasn’t in the mood for. There’s one version/interpretation of two imprisoned soldiers, one who is to be executed and one let free, and that’s the meaning of returning home to Scotland by the “high” or “low” road. You can think of that here — with the added background it seems that these two knew each growing up and the first verses are describing an idyllic childhood — they parted, and now meet again, but for the last time…. …Or, hey, “wae is my heart until we meet again”; maybe they will meet again after all, and it’s okay:)
By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomon’
Oh we two hae passed sae mony blithesome days
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’I mind where we parted in yon shady glen
By the steep, steep sides of Ben Lomon’
Where in purple hue the hieland hills we view
And the moon comin’ out in the gloamin’Oh ye’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But wae is my heart until we meet again
On the bonnie bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’(Hum)
Oh the wee bird may sing and the wild roses spring
And in sunshine the waters are sleepin’
But broken hearts ken nae second spring again,
And the world does na ken how we’re greetin’.(Aah…)
And the world does na ken how we’re greetin’.
Oh ye’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But wae is my heart until we meet again
On the bonnie bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomon’
I’ve also tried to strike a balance, maybe controversially, with the lyrics of having a bit of a “flavour” of the Scots, but keeping much of it close to the English of my English choir. I suggest performing with your usual choir “round” vowels without attempting an accent as such, but to sing the words as written, noting spellings and apostrophes off the ends of words.
You can download this arrangement to sing with your choir here on Sheet Music Plus.
Update to this post — I’ve now written two more of these pieces using texts by Hildegard. Also rejigged one of those to another key so now all four of them are more comfortably singable by a standard SSAA configuration, rather than me really straining to get a low D! (Means the top line goes up higher than I am comfortable on now, but that’s kind of the point: I’m not really a soprano!)
Anyway, proposed final order to the set is now:
O virga mediatrix, sancta viscera tua mortem superaverunt et venter tuus omnes creaturas illuminavit in pulchro flore de suavissima integritate clausi pudoris tui orto. O branch and mediatrix, your sacred flesh has conquered death, your womb all creatures illumined in beauty’s bloom from that exquisite purity of your enclosed modesty sprung forth.
translation by Nathaniel Campbell.
O choruscans lux stellarum, o fulgens gemma: tu es ornata in alta persona Tu es socia angelorum et civis sanctorum. Fuge, fuge speluncam antiqui perditoris, et veniens veni in palatium regis. O glittering starlight O shining gem: you are adorned like a noble you are a companion of angels and a citizen among the saints. Flee, O flee the cave of the old betrayer and come, O come into the king’s palace.
Translation (adapted from) Peter Dronke
And uh:
Virtual choir performance!
I should post the sheet music of this soon.
After recently building music boxes, taking battle music back to its Vivaldi roots, playing ukulele to an appreciative and sleepy dog, experimenting with AI animation to make a fake virtual choir, and doing some more ff7 soundfont versions, including of my own music, I remember I missed actually writing for choir/voices and try to get back to that… Of course it’s tricky at the moment especially if I want things I can share and have listened to, but, eh, never used to stop me.
The last couple days just been gently getting back into things fairly impulsively, using some words by Hildegard of Bingen and seeing what I came up with. (Just the words and not the chant tunes I know…… controversial….)
I also made some extremely reverby recordings, to pretend I am sixteen people in a cathedral.
These are so far for slightly different vocal groupings, unless singers are prepared to be rather flexible. For the second one I attempted what I remember of “Old German Latin” from singing with Schola Cantorum. For the first, just some vague church Latin….. (and I said “beata” instead of “beati”, making it grammatically nonsensical, oops.)
Vos flores rosarum, qui in effusione sanguinis vestri beati estis
You buds of roses, who in the shedding of your blood are blessed
O mirum admirandum, quod absconsa forma praecellit, ardua in honesta statura, ubi vivens altitudo profert mystica. Unde, o Disibode, surges in fine, succurrente flore omnium ramorum mundi, ut primum surrexisti.
O wonder, O how wondrous! A hidden form, so hard, so high, so steep, surpasses in its lofty honor— where Living Height itself reveals the mysteries. And so, O Disibod, you shall arise at the end of time as first you rose— the flower of all the branches of the world comes to your aid.
trans. Nathaniel Campbell
We had a brilliant concert last week. This is my arrangement/direction of The Huron Carol — it was in the second half of a concert with a lot of small children soo it’s also got a fair amount of background noise especially at the start, but I hope you enjoy anyway:)
This arrangement is one that’s available to buy on SMP press…
Yesterday we sang the Gloria from my mass as part of Tree Fest (where people could wander around and look at Christmas trees accompanied by our music!) So it’s a very live and background-noisy recording, but fun – and it’s so nice for a piece to get more than one outing, of any kind!