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New music comes in all shapes and sizes! Some iseasy, some is challenging and some is downrightdifficult. However, today we seem to be blessed byan unusually large number of talented composerswriting choral music, which can realistically betackled by any open-minded choir.
Of course, many of our leading composers areproducts of our choral system, while others havebrushed-up against it during the course of theireducation, through their religious beliefs or bygetting involved with enthusiastic choralconductors and choirs in their locality. Add to thisthe high commitment by our publishing houses(many of whose staff are singers themselves) andthe commissioning policy of many of our mostadventurous choirs and we seem to be part of aremarkably robust and ever-developing tradition.
Perhaps I am lucky: I was brought up the son of achoral conductor, Louis Halsey, whocommissioned over 200 works during his workinglife from many of the major composers of the1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Many of theseworks (by Howells, Joubert, Naylor, Peter Aston,Gregory Rose and so many others) are in yourrepertoire today! I have tried to follow hisexample. I’ve recently had Antony Pitts write a40-part motet XL as a companion piece to Tallis’sSpem in alium and, in addition to several concertperformances, it’s recently been recorded forHarmonia Mundi. Antony needed no help orguidance writing for choir as he is immersed inthe tradition.
Julian Anderson recently completed Four American
Choruses for the City of Birmingham SymphonyChorus. In order to learn how to write for choir,Julian joined a choir and sang for a year beforecommitting pen to paper. That’s what I callcommitment!
Mark-Anthony Turnage wrote a piece for meearlier this year – only his third brush with choralmusic. He wrote three drafts which were work-shopped by the choir to check that what he waswriting was practical and well-written for voices.We had a fascinating experience re-voicing
chords, repositioning vocal lines, simplifyingtexture; in the end he came up with amasterpiece: ‘A relic of memory’.
In January 2005 I took part in a recording torecord some of Faber Music’s most recentlypublished – or soon to be published – choralworks with an ensemble made up of London’sfinest young professional singers. We had such funmaking the disc, discovering a number of smallgems. I invite you to listen to the CD – availableon request from Faber’s marketing department onthe contact details below I do hope you willincorporate them into your future plans and makeyour own contribution to our LIVING tradition!
Adoro tecontents listing.
1 Remember, O Lord SATB divisiJonathan Harvey
2 Jubilate Deo SATB/accompaniedHoward Goodall
3 I’m a Pilgrim SATB Julian Anderson
4 Ave Maria SATBMaija Einfelde
5 Love divine SATB divisi/accompaniedHoward Goodall
6 Ave verum corpus SATB/accompaniedAndrew Keeling
7 O magnum mysterium SATB divisiMorten Lauridsen
8 The Lord is my Shepherd SATB/accompaniedHoward Goodall
9 The Angel’s Carol SATBColin Matthews
10 Lute-book lullaby SATB divisi/accompaniedAlexander L’Estrange
11 Adoro te SATB divisiAntony Pitts
12 A Celtic Prayer SATBDaniel Rouwkema
13 Spring in Winter SATB John Woolrich
14 O nata lux SATB/divisi accompaniedMorten Lauridsen
15 Morning song of the Christ Child SATBPeter Sculthorpe
All choral works above are published in the UK by Faber Music Ltd.
To request your free copy of Adoro Te Tel: 01279 828929/09Email: [email protected] or write to:Marketing Dept. Faber Music, Burnt Mill, ElizabethWay, Harlow, CM20 2HX.
Simon Halsey has been Chorus Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorusfor 21 years, is Chief Conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir and Netherlands Radio Choirand Artistic Director and founder of the dynamic professional choir European Voices. Thisseason he was appointed Principal Conductor, Choral Programme for Northern Sinfonia.Simon has formed close partnerships as Chorus Master with many of the world’s greatestconductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Edo de Waart, Valery Gergiev, Riccardo Chailly,Marek Janowski, Sakari Oramo, Kent Nagano, Claudio Abbado and Esa-Pekka Salonen.An acappella disc with the Berlin Radio Choir (Harmonia Mundi) is due to be releasedlater this year. Here, Simon (who is also Faber Music’s choral consultant) talks about thechallenges and joys of commissioning and exploring new music for choirs:
Choral Music – a LIVING tradition!
It was whilst musing over a long cup of coffeethat we first came up with our proposal for anew series of books called the Language ofSong. In our varied capacities as performingsingers, ABRSM examiners and teachers ofsinging at St Paul’s Girls’ School in London, wecould see the need for a series of graded books,firstly introducing the concept of singing in aforeign language and then developing the skillsrequired to do this successfully.
We were both familiar with useful publicationssuch as Lieder Line by Line, The Interpretation of
French Song by Bernac and song collections thatinclude some help with phonetic pronunciationand so on, but there seemed to be little aroundwhich brought all those strands together in onebook. We felt that, as Associated Boardexaminers, candidates singing in foreignlanguages often had a very limited idea of howto pronounce the different languages – andeven less understanding of the text and dramathey are trying to convey.
If we are to produce singers of a high standardin this country, in line with other Europeancountries, we need to try to address the subjectof singing in foreign languages at a young age.Although children are learning foreignlanguages from a younger age, more and moreof them are choosing to drop these subjectsfrom the age of fourteen … and of course, asEnglish becomes increasingly accessible anduniversally popular, the perceived need foryoung people to study foreign languages isdiminishing. This could have a knock on effectfor future singers in this country.
So it was with much trepidation that we devised our own series of songbooks that would aim to bridge this gap and address thesituation, at least at some small level. Much ofthe repertoire chosen will be useful for thosetaking graded singing exams but will also beuseful for singers of any age exploringinternational song repertoire, right up touniversity and college level.
There are currently two books being published– Elementary and Intermediate in High and LowVolumes. The Elementary book focuses on
Italian, German and French songs and theIntermediate includes Italian, German, Frenchand Spanish. Each language is introduced witha detailed International Phonetic Alphabet(IPA) guide, using examples as close as possibleto English equivalents and the language that isto be studied. The songs have a literaltranslation underneath the music, and aseparate page of information including a poetictranslation, a detailed pronunciation guideusing IPA and a short amount of backgroundinformation on each song.
In addition, each book has an accompanyingCD, which includes a poetic reading of the textby our experienced team of consultants who,while being native speakers, are well known fortheir work in coaching students andprofessionals to sing in foreign languages. Thereis also a recording of each of thesong accompaniments – playedby international pianist JohnLenehan – for use in practicesessions.
We hope that these books will inspire and help bothstudents and teachers ofsinging to explore thiswonderful foreign languagerepertoire confidently andeffectively ... and to celebratethe Language of Song!
Heidi Pegler and Nicola-Jane Kemp
The Language of Song will be published inApril 2006.
Both Heidi Pegler and Nicola-Jane Kemp areavailable to give workshop sessions. These can betailored to your needs; for example, a session forsinging teachers as part of an inset day or aworkshop session with a group of young singers and singing teachers.
It was in 2003 that Nicola-Jane Kemp and Heidi Pegler first approached Faber Music withan exciting proposal for a series of graded songbooks that would help to develop the skillsrequired to sing in a foreign language. In this article, professional singers Nicola-Jane andHeidi talk about how their experience as ABRSM examiners and singing teachers (Nicola-Jane teaches at Clare College, Cambridge and Heidi is Head of Singing at St Paul’s Girls’School in London) helped them to create the perfect resource for students and teacherskeen to tackle this important area … to understand the Language of Song.
Celebrating the Language of Song
PICTURE: KEITH SAUNDERS
Jubilate Deo 0-571-52183-5Ave Verum Corpus 0-571-52184-3Spring in Winter 0-571-52225-4Remember O Lord 0-571-52311-0O Magnum Mysterium 0-571-52128-2Lute Book Lullaby 0-571-52385-4Adoro Te 0-571-52083-9
Language of Song Elementary High Voice0-571-52345-5Language of Song Elementary Low Voice0-571-52346-3Language of Song Intermediate High Voice0-571-52343-9Language of Song Intermediate Low Voice0-571-52344-7
PIC
TURE
: MA
RCO
BO
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REV
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