Why Do We Sing?

I Do Not Sleep

Focusing on the text that speaks of “what I am” rather than “what I am not,” this beautiful ballad is an inspiration. A lush and supportive Piano accompaniment enhances Vocal lines that soar.

How Do I Love Thee?

This anthem was composed for the service of thanksgiving for a Civil Partnership in June 2011. In looking for a suitable text the composer turned to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), one of whose sonnets he had usedfor another wedding anthem (Love is beautiful indeed) a few years earlier. As the title suggests, this highly expressive text puts into words the intense feeling of love and the mostly homophonic music reflects that throughluscious harmonies and beautifully shaped phrases. Suitable for intermediate choirs, this setting of a popular wedding text is a joy for both performers and audience.

Do not neglect : from The Stranger

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

A highly effective and poignant setting of the famous memorial text. It is completely homophonic with sumptuous harmonies, and perfect for a very special service or memorial occasion.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

O, Why Do You Turn To the Wild Sky

Tic Tac

Using half-empty Tic Tac® boxes as percussion instruments (or any other small, household item) Jim Papoulis reminds us that “all we have to do is listen and open our hearts to get along.” The rhythm of the music and the “shakers” is infectious and will have everyone tapping along.

Steal Away : Traditional Spiritual

This arrangement of the beloved spiritual Steal Away covers a wide dynamic and tonal range, from the ethereal opening and closing to powerful fortes in both verses. The SAB voicing makes it a welcome addition to all adult and school choirs that do not have enough tenors but seek mature arrangements.

Willie Taylor : Traditional Folk Song

This arrangement of a British folk song is so authentic in its sound, you will almost be able to catch a hint of salt in the air. Buoyant four-part writing and accessible harmonies convey the story of a sailor and his love, and tell of what can happen when hearts do not remain true.

Farewell (Agnus Dei) : from Requiem

Last year, Karl Jenkins' 'Requiem' for mixed choir and orchestra was a sensational success, above all in Great Britain. Now Boosey & Hawkes publish some of the most beautiful movements of the work in separate editions for various choral combinations and piano.Farewell is an atmospheric movement from this chart-topping piece of music by the composer of Adiemus. Setting of the Latin Agnus Dei alongside Banzan's Haiku, 'Mame de iyo' ('I pass as do all things like dew on the grass').

The Boosey Voice Coach : Singing in German

German language – difficult pronunciationHow do I say that in German?• Practical instructions by the singing teacher Mary King• Wide selection of German lieder and art songs• Editions for high and medium/low voiceGerman is often considered to be a difficult language for singing. Consonants, umlauts and regional accents make it quite difficult, especially for non-native speakers, to pronounce words correctly when singing. This edition solves those problems.This practical guide for all vocal students explains the peculiarities of the German language and its correct pronunciation through the use of repertoire. In doing this, it also offers a fantastic selection of the mostbeautiful lieder and art songs in German.

The Easiest Way to Improvise

Improvisation. Frightened about it? Always wanted to do it? Need to teach it? Not sure how to start? Improvisation can seem daunting. But now this revolutionary new series brings improvisation within the reach of all players and teachers, even beginners. And who better to write these books than Christopher Norton, a composer with an unrivalled reputation for writing and teaching popular styles. Christopher Norton's 'Easiest Way to Improvise' promises a new and truly easy approach! Designed for teachers and players who have little or no confidence in their improvisation skills, it reveals the magic move that will really transform your doodlings into fully fledged performances.Its user-friendly format combines a practical workbook and a fabulous CD resource.

The Boosey Voice Coach : Singing in German

The Boosey Voice Coach is an entirely new concept in vocal training. Not a self-teaching manual, and not filled with off-putting diagrams, this series is a wholly practical guide to singing - learning about technique and interpretation through the repertoire itself. Each volume is devoted to singing in one particular language or to singing in a specific context, such as musical theatre or oratorio. In each volume of the series, works from the vocal canon have been selected specifically by Mary King for their technical and musical challenges. Each piece is discussed at length, starting with the words ('Text' - including a literal translation as appropriate), moving togeneral advice about how the song might be approached ('Notes'), and then addressing the technical difficulties the music presents ('Skills'). Expressed in clear language, Mary King's approach is direct, practical and not limited to one particular teaching method. Any student will find that these books enrich and complement their vocal studies.German can seem like an awkward language to sing in - there are just too many consonants! How do you get your tongue around them? And there are lots of regional differences in accent: is there a 'correct' pronunciation? What exactly is an Umlaut? These issues and more are covered in this book, which contains settings from some of the masters of song-writing in the German language.

Requiem (KA)

In recent years Karl Jenkins has become one of the world's best-selling living composers. He continues to conduct his epic Adiemus Live Concerts with distinguished orchestras including the London Philharmonic, featuring in Festivals and concerts in Britain and abroad; and his moving choral work The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace is now firmly lodged as a concert favourite. This new work builds on the style which the British public have come to know and adore. Jenkins has set the usual Latin movements of the requiem mass, but, in keeping with his usual trait of drawing from other cultures, he has also set five Japanese haiku ‘death’ poems. Such poems are usually to do withnature, have a single idea, and consist of seventeen syllables divided 5-7-5 over three lines. As one can see from the text, the Japanese view nature’s water cycle (precipitation) as being synonymous with life. The Western and Eastern texts are combined in two of the haiku movements, Having Seen The Moon and Farewell, which incorporate the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei respectively. Both are intoned by male voices in a monastic style as a counterpoint to the Japanese text sung by females. The instrumentation of these haiku settings includes the ancient Japanese wind instrument, the shakuhachi. Elsewhere, as usual, Jenkins has used some ethnic drums (e.g. Arabic darabuca, Japanese daiko, frame drums) and even a hip-hop rhythm in the Dies Irae!

In terra pax op. 39 : Christmas Scene

Following the publication of Francis Jackson’s organ reduction of Finzi’s Requiem da Camera in 2014, Robert Gower, chairman of the Finzi Trust, recitalist and organist of Nottingham Cathedral, has created reductions of the full orchestra accompaniments to two more of Finzi’s choral works. These reductions broaden the reach of these works to choirs which do not wish to present the works with orchestra, as with other standards from the sacred repertoire such the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé. The reductions sympathetically recreate the orchestra scoring for a three-manual organ. Ingeniously, the manual couplings (II to III, II and III to I) are unaltered throughout, with pedalcoupled to manuals as appropriate. Detailed registrations are not indicated as these are best left to the performer, taking into account the unique circumstances of the particular instrument, size of choir and acoustic setting at each performance. The scores are user-friendly, in landscape format and with at least one principal vocal line cued throughout, and a cappella choral passages are reproduced in full. The reductions are fully compatible with the published piano vocal scores of the respective works which the singers will use. In terra pax, Christmas Scene for soprano & baritone soli, chorus & orchestra (1954/6). The text conflates Robert Bridges’s poem Noel: Christmas Eve (1913) and Luke 2: 8-14. Finzi suggested that the Nativity ‘becomes a vision seen by a wanderer on a dark and frosty Christmas Eve, in our own familiar landscape’.In terra pax is a masterpiece in miniature, Finzi’s pacifism at its heart, and his belief that men and women of goodwill should live harmoniously. Weaving through the music are three ideas: the pealing of the bells with their joyous message, a phrase from the carol The First Nowell, and the alleluia refrain from the hymn Lasst uns erfreuen.

For St Cecilia op. 30 : Ceremonial Ode

Following the publication of Francis Jackson’s organ reduction of Finzi’s Requiem da Camera in 2014, Robert Gower, chairman of the Finzi Trust, recitalist and organist of Nottingham Cathedral, has created reductions of the full orchestra accompaniments to two more of Finzi’s choral works. These reductions broaden the reach of these works to choirs which do not wish to present the works with orchestra, as with other standards from the sacred repertoire such the Requiems of Fauré and Duruflé. The reductions sympathetically recreate the orchestra scoring for a three-manual organ. Ingeniously, the manual couplings (II to III, II and III to I) are unaltered throughout, with pedalcoupled to manuals as appropriate. Detailed registrations are not indicated as these are best left to the performer, taking into account the unique circumstances of the particular instrument, size of choir and acoustic setting at each performance. The scores are user-friendly, in landscape format and with at least one principal vocal line cued throughout, and a cappella choral passages are reproduced in full. The reductions are fully compatible with the published piano vocal scores of the respective works which the singers will use. For St Cecilia, Ceremonial Ode for tenor solo, chorus & orchestra; words by Edmund Blunden. The original work was commissioned by the St Cecilia’s Day Festival Committee for the 1947 celebration of music’s patron saint. The ceremonial mood is established with fanfares, and the sonorous sweep of the choral writing reflects Finzi’s admiration for Parry and Elgar. The ‘catalogue’ of saints, shared between the soloist and chorus, are deftly delineated: St Valentine, St George, St Dunstan, St Swithin and St Cecilia herself. In rapt stillness, the English composers of the past – Merbecke, Byrd, Dowland and Purcell – are summoned. To close, Finzi creates a festal summation with exultant counterpoint and the saint’s name pealing around the chorus.

Friday Afternoons op. 7/12 : No. 12 Old Abram Brown

Text: anon. (in 4 parts) Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes Difficulty level: 1-2 This set of mainly unison songs [Friday Afternoons] for young voices is a gift for a concert of music for upper voices. It is a substantial work taken as awhole but its individual movements are both short and straightforward in their various challenges. Britten wrote the work for the boys of his brother's preparatory school (age 7-13), Clive House, Prestatyn, in Wales to sing.However he encountered a problem with copyright over the use of the Lone Dog. He therefore wrote Begone, dull care to replace it. When these issues were resolved years later the song was included as an appendix item in the 1994edition. The real beauty of these songs is that Britten never writes down for the children. These are art songs in the best sense of the word and mix both dark and light humour with seriousness and romance to create a little worldof changing scenes and emotions. The texts are, as always, carefully chosen to give Britten maximum variety of mood and to challenge and encourage the childrens' interest and involvement. The piano parts carry a lot of theresponsibility for the creation of mood and atmosphere and ideally need a pianist of reasonable accomplishment to do them justice. In There was a monkey Britten writes an increasingly challenging part which is very effective inmaking the charged mood rise to its climax. However, he writes an easier alternative part which can be played if the pianist finds the other too difficult. The mixture of texts gives Britten wonderful opportunities for wordpainting. The lively Begone, dull care which opens the work, the nonsense poem of A tragic story where a man wants his pigtail to hang in front so he can see it, the gentle story of the Cuckoo and his progress through the monthsof the year, the rather sobering story (especially in our post-fox hunting ban days) of the shooting of a fox by a farmer whose geese it has killed, the sublime A New Year's Carol - and so on, leading to the powerful four partcanon of Old Abram Brown. These little pieces demonstrate so clearly Britten's genius - his ability to write really good music which is so recognisably his - without any feeling that he is making compromises for the young singers.