Adrian Batten: O Sing Joyfully

The St. Matthew's Choir (Hillsborough, NC) will be performing this little ditty coming Sunday, so I thought I'd mention it here.

Not O Sing Joyfully.

We will be performing O Sing Joyfully by Adrian Batten on Sunday. There, I mentioned it. 

This short work comes from the so-called Gostling Part Books at York Minster. These books are actually the Bing-Gostling Part Books, if you want to be pedantic (and I do). These part books were originally compiled by Stephen Bing (1610-1681). Bing was a very prolific music copyist while at his job as lay vicar at Westminster Abbey. He copied out a prodigious amount of music, which runs the gamut of music from this time, as he worked with such composers as George Jeffreys, John Barnard, William Turner, William Tucker, John Blow, and Henry Purcell. Many of the works are located only in this collection, and it has provided a rich source of study for many musicologists.

Where, then, does the Gostling part of the part-book come from?John Gostling was a bass singer, and was famous for his apparently wide vocal range; Henry Purcell wrote him a work or two. Now, the addition of John Gostling to the collection is due to the fact that Mr Gostling came into possession of the part-books after Bing's death, and he added 23 anthems and two services to the empty pages in the books.

The Batten piece comes from Bing's part of the book: a short anthem for SATB choir. Adrian Batten is known for other collections that he helped put together (or did himself) of many works by pre-restoration composers; his own music was apparently well known at the time, but has mostly fallen into obscurity since then. One reason is that much of it has disappeared over time. Strangely enough, although he did copy down some of his own music in his cleverly titled Organbook , he did not include many of his own works. 

Here is a version of O Sing Joyfully on Youtube.

The vicious circle

1. There are competitions that expect a live recording of the work in order to be considered. If I do not have access to an ensemble, or if I do not have the money to pay for the ensemble and equipment to get a recording,  how will this happen?

2. Often publishers want composers to be known in order to be published. This is the criterium to be published? How can one be known if one cannot get published? How can one get published if one is not known?

Writing for Choir

Writing for choir - a Capella or with accompaniment - is a chance to compose liquidious  lines of lyrical loquaciousness. Enough with the Alliteration! Creating music for a group of singers is a long process of discovering what the words actually say in order to support the text with feeling. Stravinsky stated about music in general:

". . . I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature. . . .
If . . . music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality."

I would say that Stravinsky, coming out of the Romantic tradition, was expressing his support of Neo-classicism. I am not, I must say, a huge follower of the romantic composers; I find it overblown and (dare I say) turgid, like feeling bloated from eating too much broccoli. However, I do feel that music is tied very much to our emotions, even if earlier composers (Bach, Gesualdo, Monteverdi) expressed them in widely varying ways.

Returning to the choir, the words matter very much. For example, in my Nunc Dimittis, which I set in English, expresses the feeling of our speaker, Simeon, when he finally sees the infant Jesus.

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Now Simeon may leave this world quietly and in peace. I have created a slowly pulsating pattern between the organ and choir in 3 flats (I use flats to represent lower, softer ideas).

The organ creates the pattern of rest, while the choir softly emphasizes peace and night. Of course, this does not continue this way throughout - Simeon goes on to talk about the light to lighten. The music changes here to a more glorious sound, the opening of heaven, the light of God shining onto earth.

He Never Failed Me Yet.

Dr. Robert Ray was the Director (and founder!) of the IN UNISON Chorus in St. Louis, Missouri until his retirement in 2010. The choir still performs; besides performing many shows around the country,  the choir presents A Gospel Christmas in their hometown, with many works from that tradition. Robert Ray composed many pieces for this choir, including “He Never Failed Me Yet”. This gospel tune is one of his best-known that he has written. The text is his as well.
This was performed March 31, 2019.

He Never Failed Me Yet

I will sing of God’s mercy,

Every day, every hour, He gives me power.

I will sing and give thanks to Thee

For all the dangers, toils and snares

That He has brought me out.

He is my God and I’ll serve Him,

No matter what the test.

Trust and never doubt,

Jesus will surely bring you out,

He never failed me yet.

I know God is able to deliver in time of storm.

And I know that He’ll keep you

Safe from all earthly harm.

One day when my weary soul is at rest,

I’m going home to be forever blessed.

Trust and never doubt,

Jesus will surely bring you out,

He never failed me yet.

Didn’t my God deliver Moses from King Pharaoh?

And didn’t He cool the fiery furnace

For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?

When I think of what my God can do,

He delivered Daniel,

I know He will deliver you.

Trust and never doubt,

Jesus will surely bring you out,

He never failed me yet.

Gibbons: Almighty and Everlasting God.

Orlando Gibbons is one of the greats in Anglican and Episcopalian composers; he wrote all his music only in English (at least according to what I have read).

The full anthem Almighty and everlasting God is in 4 parts (originally ATTB), and, appropriately enough, was written for the Third Sunday after Epiphany;
Gibbons took the text from the collects of the Anglican liturgy, rather than from the bible, which was the more typical way here.


Almighty and everlasting God,mercifully look upon our infirmities,
and in all our dangers and necessities
stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us,
through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

The music is to be found in the First Book of Selected Church Musick, compiled by our friend John Barnard, in 1641.

Advent I 2018 Adam Lay Ybounden

The text Adam lay Ybounden can be found in a book of middle English Lyrics, dating from the 15th Century. The manuscript is now held by the Britsh Library. The text to this song (the original music has long disappeared)  deal with the story from Genesis, but from the prospective of medieval theology, with Adam being bound after death with the patriarchs for "four thousand winter" until the crucifixion of Christ. The story here is handled in a very humane way, and expresses a true individuality of mind.

Carson P. Cooman has not set the original English, but a slight update. I will give the original text here:

Adam lay i-bowndyn,

bowndyn in a bond,

Fowre thowsand wynter

thowt he not to long

And al was for an appil,

an appil that he tok.

As clerkes fyndyn wretyn

in here book.

Ne hadde the appil take ben,

the appil taken ben,

Ne hadde never our lady

a ben hevene quen.

Blyssid be the tyme

that appil take was!

Therefore we mown syngyn

Deo gratias!

Coonan's setting (his opus 576! He is a prolific composer) is lively and fanfare-like; the original uses brass as well. Coonan keeps the rhythms jagged throughout, bouncing between 3/4 and 5/8, following the sharp outlines of the text itself. If you'd like to hear the piece, here is one from YouTube.

Come thou Long Expected Jesus

This week on the First Advent of the Christmas season, the St. Matthew's Choir performed Come Thou Long Expected Jesus by Henry G. Ley.
A quick note on Doctor Ley:

He lived from 1887-1962, and was a chorister in the St. George Chapel and Windsor Castle. He then became an organist at various churches, including St. Mary's and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. Henry Ley wrote many choir pieces, and one of them is apparently famous; a setting of the founders prayer of King Henry VI.

 Come Thou Long Expected Jesus was published in 1957 and was written for the Advent season. It's a standard glorious piece, ending with loud Amen!

It can be found in the Oxford Easy Anthem Book, published in 1962. The piece itself was written in 1937, but then re-released for this collection.