Two Hymn Settings: SATB: Vocal Score

Best known for his exemplary exuberant orchestral work The Planets Gustav Holst’s diverse gamut also included hymns pastoral songs and folk music. He and the poet Robert Bridges became great friends over time their friendship blossoming after Holst sought copyright of one of Bridges’ works in May 1925. This is a terrific hymn set to a poem of Bridges' typical of the combined workings of these two great English artists and has been edited here for SATB mixed choir and organ pedals by Alan Gibbs.

More Than Hymns is a new two-volume collection of anthems for mixed voice choirs featuring extended arrangements of existing hymn tunes together with original anthem-style settings of the texts of several well known hymns. Of the sixteen works in this first volume six are published here for the first time including new arrangements by composers of today: Malcolm Archer Rogers Covey-Crump John Joubert Barry Rose and Gavin Williams. The texts cover many seasons of the church's year - Advent Epiphany Passiontide Easter Ascension as well as celebratory occasions such as festival services and weddings.

Novello New Choral Series- La Ballade de Jésus Christ is an arrangement of a French carol from the seventeeth century or earlier. The tune is well known as the hymn Let all mortal flesh keep silence from The English Hymnal and this arrangement was commissioned in 2007 by the Oxford choir Sospiri for their CD of Christmas music Videte Miraculum. The text a miniature morality tale has a simple almost childlike quality to it and this is reflected in the shimmering harmonies and soft fleeting dissonances presenting the story as a bitter-sweet fairy tale.The Novello New Choral Series is an inspiring selection of new works from a range ofcontemporary composers offering pieces for all types of choirs including sacred and secular works from simple four-part settings to more expansive yet accessible repertoire in an exciting variety of styles. This collection is perfect for choirs looking to broaden their repertoire and explore some of the best new music around.Born in 1963 John Duggan was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral and studied music at Oxford. Whilst still a boy he dreamed of writing in the choral tradition of Victoria Tallis and Palestrina. His vocal music has delighted both singers and audiences across Europe and the USA. He has written for a number of choirs including Commotio Westminster Cathedral Choir the Hildegard Choir and Sospiri and has received commissions from the Edington Music Festival Crossover Intergenerational Dance Group Oxford Youth Dance and The Oxford-Grenoble Association. He composers regularly for film and dance and performs as a singerand choral director whilst working as a recording engineer and producer.

Of Noblest Cities is intended for a choir of between 12 and about 40 voices although it may also be given by just six singers one to a part (SSATBB). The piece can be performed unaccompanied if no suitable organ is available simply by leaving approximately two crotchet beats of silence between the end of the last note of one verse and the beginning of the next.Underlying the melody is a simple rhythm which is sometimes expanded or contracted. In the first verse the position of the main beats in this rhythm is made clear by the barlines. In the remaining verses however the barlines are only there to help the singers to keep together and forconvenience in rehearsal: singers should observe their own strong beats which fall in different places for each part and not regard the barlines as indicating downbeats. A few of the strong beats which underlie individual parts and appear to be contradicted by the barlines are marked by the symbol / .The words are a beautiful Victorian translation of a Latin hymn by Prudentius which meditates on the story of the three wise men. Each verse is set to the same melody in an increasingly rich counterpoint inspired by the wonderful sound of Tudor choral polyphony.An inspiring selection of new works from a range of contemporary composers the Novello New Choral Series offers pieces for all types of choirs including sacred and secular works from simple four-part settings to more expansive yet accessible repertoire in an exciting variety of styles. Jeremy Thurlow is a composer writer and pianist. His music has been described as ‘seductive innovative full of freshness’ by Henri Dutilleux. It has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic the Fitzwilliam String Quartet Rolf Hind the BBC Singers Endymion Carmen Elektra Peter Sheppard Skaerved Matthew Schellhorn and Sequitur (New York) among others. In 2007 he won the George Butterworth Award for new composition. As a musicologist he writes on French music in

Three short choral settings of peoms by George Herbert commissioned by The Spitalfields Festival in memory of Peter Lerwill a generous supporter of the festival. The first performance of the set took place in June 2005 at ChristChurch Spitalfields by The Cardinall's Musick with Andrew Carwood. The textures of Weir's settings range from the clarity of the Madrigal and Hymn to more complex writing with the choir splitting into as many as eight parts.

Written for the King's Singers A Hymn To The Virgin won the 'A Carol for Christmas' competition run by the vocal sextet and Classic FM. Re-edited for SSATBB the two languages of the text are set in contrasting styles of solo lines and chordal harmony coming together at the end of each verse. A meditative work that would make an excellent concert ending.

Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day is an English carol usually attributed as 'traditional'; its first written appearance is in William B. Sandys' Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern of 1833. It is most well known in John Gardner's adaptation but numerous other composers have made original settings of it or arranged the traditional tune including Gustav Holst  Igor Stravinsky. The verses of the hymn progress through the story of Jesus told in his own voice.

Sam Pegg's A Child Of The Snows for SATB choir and Piano accompaniment is a setting of a poem by G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was known as an avid traveller and was a friend to all he met on his wanderings. In his own house he was famed for his warmth and hospitality. For him the inn was almost a spiritual symbol. 'In all of my settings of his poems I have tried to convey the sense of a yearning journey of life coupled with the joy of finding something thought lost forever: we travel to a place that if we are truthful we never really left. In A Child of the Snows I have tried to suggest the wandering wondering journey to the next staging post 'the Inn at the end of the world'. - Sam Pegg There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim And never before or again When the nights are strong with a darkness long And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow The place where the great fires are That the midst of the earth is a raging mirthAnd the heart of the earth a star. And at night we win to the ancient innWhere the child in the frost is furled We follow the feet where all souls meetAt the inn at the end of the world. The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red For the flame of the sun is flown The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold And a Child comes forth alone.

Two classic hymns are set with beautiful harmonizations that will cause both singer and listener to reflect on the powerful texts. Includes: I Surrender All and I Need Thee Every Hour.