I attended a service last Saturday marking 28 years since the first women were ordained in the Church of England, there in Bristol Cathedral. It was a moving and uplifting service and I was struck by the sense of history more than I was expecting…
Bristol University Schola Cantorum sang selections from my Missa Brevis as part of a very nicely chosen set of music: all the songs had either words or music or both by women. Which of course shouldn’t be a big deal but, you know, is. Extremely honoured to be heard alongside Hildegard of Bingen and my hero Catherine Winkworth!
This morning the Bishop of Bristol unveiled the new plaque celebrating the ordination of the first women priests in the Church of England.
This new plaque, listing the names of all the women ordained on 12th March 1994, was unveiled as part of the service
Many of those who were ordained here in 1994 were in attendance at today's service, pictured here with Bishop Barry who ordained them, and @Bishopviv1 who unveiled the new plaque. pic.twitter.com/FNSSY66D2s
Flicking through the Lyra Eucharistica to sketch out things for the Catherine Winkworth songbook… actually most of the texts there aren’t Winkworth translations, but by a happy coincidence I ended up with one by her and two by another poet who I’ve actually set before as part of Between in God’s eternity.
Sketches below:
Daily Bread (Adelaide Anne Procter)
Oh how could I forget him (translation by Catherine Winkworth)
I do not ask O Lord (Adelaide Anne Procter)
We had La La Bar – open mic musical theatre – the other night, where I played piano, and I think you might be able to hear a bit of influence of that style here. Not that “musical theatre” is a style exactly, but … styles, and the third one is very specifically wanting a full-on Sondheim accompaniment if I could sing and play it at the same time. So they’re actually pretty much not super-congregational-friendly in this case.
1.
Daily Bread
Give us our daily Bread, O God, the Bread of Strength For we have learnt to know How weak we are at length : As children we are weak, As children must be fed ; Give us Thy Grace, O Lord, To be our daily Bread.
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.
Mix of dress rehearsal and concert recording (featuring a fair bit of audience participation from the under-2s in the audience :D)
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.
LONG did I toil, and knew no earthly rest, Far did I rove, and find no certain home; At last I sought them in His sheltering breast, Who spreads His arms and bids the weary come: With Him I found a home, a rest Divine, And I since them am His, and He is mine. Yes I since them am His, and He is mine.
Yes, He is mine—and nought of earthly things Nor all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power, The fame of heroes or the pomp of kings, Could tempt me to forget His love one hour. Go, worthless world, I cry, with all that’s thine: I my Saviour’s am, and He is mine. I my Saviour’s am, and He is mine.
Whate’er may change, in Him no change is seen; A glorious sun that wanes not nor declines; Above the clouds and storms He walks serene, And sweetly on His people’s darkness shines: Changes may come; I take or I resign, Content while I am His and He is mine, while I am His and He is mine.
I’ve posted a project page for “Ship came sailing” as I’m calling a little collection of songs from Welsh 19th C lyrics and folk song words from Devon and Cornwall. 8 songs to listen to (including the ones from the last post) – go HERE.
Been sketching a few “faux folk” songs lately – just writing new but kinda in-genre tunes for lyrics from this 1890 collection, without reference to the tunes given. Here are three that are recorded all through.
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!)
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.
O choruscans lux stellaris / O glittering starlight!
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.
Settings of two poems from the Metaphysical Poets book, both by John Donne. Quick recordings, you know the drill.
The first one I was basically trying to write The Skye Boat Song or The Parting Glass, just a really pretty folk-type tune, you know?
Song: Sweetest love, I do not goe
Sweete love, I do not goe,
For wearinesse of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for mee;
But since that I
Must dye at last, ‘tis best,
To use my selfe in jest
Thus by fain’d deaths to dye;
Yesternight the Sunne went hence,
And yet is here to day,
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor halfe so short a way:
Then feare not mee,
But beleeve that I shall make
Speedier journeyes, since I take
More wings and spurres then hee.
O how feeble is mans power
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot adde another houre,
Nor a lost houre recall!
But come bad chance,
And wee joyne to'it our strength,
And wee teach it art and length,
It selfe o'r us to'advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not winde,
But sigh'st my soule away,
When thou weep'st, unkindly kinde,
My lifes blood doth decay.
It cannot bee
That thou lov'st mee, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
Thou art the best of mee.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethinke me any ill,
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy feares fulfill;
But thinke that wee
Are but turn’d aside to sleepe;
They who one another keepe
Alive, ne'r parted bee.
There’s a line in Howl’s Moving Castle which I feel like is Wynne Jones directly getting at Donne for his TERRIBLE SCANSION in another ‘Song’ —
“Then I’ll start with the second verse,” Miss Angorian said, “since you have the first verse there in your hand.” She read very well, not only melodiously, but in a way which made the second verse fit the rhythm of the first, which in Sophie’s opinion it did not do at all.
— similar problems here; what is going on the end of the second verse with the syllables and stresses? I know normally it’s my fault for starting with an odd verse and then realising nothing else quite fits that, but this time it really is that one second verse is odd. Anyway, hence some slight alterations.
And now a fabulously bitter break-up / heart break lyric!
The Message
Send home my long stray’d eyes to mee,
Which Oh too long have dwelt on thee;
Yet since there they have learn’d such ill,
Such forc’d fashions,
And false passions,
That they be
Made by thee
Fit for no good sight, keep them still.Send home my harmlesse heart againe,
Which no unworthy thought could staine;
But if it be taught by thine
To make jestings
Of protestings,
And crosse both
Word and oath,
Keepe it, for then ‘tis none of mine.Yet send me back my heart and eyes,
That I may know, and see thy lyes,
And may laugh and joy, when thou
Art in anguish
And dost languish
For some one
That will none,
Or prove as false as thou art now.