Advent 2011
A Dream of Love
Glasgow University Chapel
Performed by Glasgow Madrigirls and friends. All mp3s (c) Madrigirls, 2011.
Please contact us if you are interested in scores for any of these pieces, or for further information.
The notes for each piece include details of commercial recordings and sheet music, where these are available.
Please contact us if you are interested in scores for any of these pieces, or for further information.
The notes for each piece include details of commercial recordings and sheet music, where these are available.
1. Ak Fader
Music: Trad., from the singing of Sondre Bratland Text: Hans Adolph Brorson (1694 – 1764) Trans.: George Taylor Rygh (1908) Soloist: Joanna Tucker 2. Deus Creator
Music: 17th Century Angers Church Melody, arr. Katy Lavinia Cooper Text: Gregory I (540-604) and Ambrose of Milan (340-397) Trans. John M. Neale, 1851 and Charles Bigg, 1906. Soloists: Kirstie Edgar & Sarah Virgo 3. copyright restricted
4. The truth from above
Music: English traditional Text: A good Christmas Box, (1847) Violin: David Titterington Symphonie: Allan Wright 6. Annunciation
Music: Catriona Hutchinson & Katy Lavinia Cooper Text: Catriona Hutchinson Soloist: James Hutchinson 9. When righteous Joseph
Music: Sussex Mummer’s Carol (Roud 1066) Soloists: Catriona Hutchinson, Katy Lavinia Cooper & Heather Thompson Accordion: Daisy Abbott Violin: David Titterington Symphonie: Allan Wright 10. Cantem Encara Music: ?Bas Quercy carol, arr. after Eric Montbel Text: translated from Occitan by Edward Bliss Reed (ed. Catriona Hutchinson) Percussion: Allan Wright Timbrel: Allan Wright 11. Like Noah's weary dove
Music: arr. Chapin (1812), modern arr. Marsha Genensky and Katy Lavinia Cooper Text: Wm. A. Muhlenberg (1827) Copyright restricted 12. Return again
Music: William L. Williams, 1850 Text: John Newton, 1779, Sacred Harp (Georgia, 1991), 225 Soloist: Daisy Abbott 13. Three words from the Sacred Harp
Drew Hammond (b. 1974) MOVEMENT ONE Soloists: Catriona Hutchinson and Katy Lavinia Cooper MOVEMENT TWO Soloists: Catriona Hutchinson, Katy Lavinia Cooper, Carly deFranco, Heather Thompson & Lindsay McIntyre MOVEMENT THREE Soloists: Catriona Hutchinson and Heather Thompson 14. Carol of the birds
Music: French traditional Text: translated from French by Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins (ed. Tim Eriksen) Soloists: Catriona Hutchinson & Katy Lavnia Cooper Symphonie: Allan Wright Violin: David Titterington 15. Christ child's lullaby
Music: Ranald Rankin (d.1863), Taladh Chriosda, arr. Kathryn Lavinia Cooper Text: Translation as sung by Cathal McConnell Soloists: Josie Dinwoodie & Anna Ghazal 16. Gaudete
Music: Piae Cantiones (1582) Additional arr. Katy Lavinia Cooper (verse) Drums: Allan Wright |
Notes:
Norwegian folksinger Sondre Bratland’s collaborations with the Oslo Kammerkor (then directed by Grete Pedersen) resulted in the album Dåm (Kirkelig Kulturverksted, 1995), which combines modern choral arrangement and composition techniques with the unique sound and vocal timbres found in Scandinavian folk singing. This carol from the album is sung here in translation. It uses a traditional, plainchant like tune from Bykle in South East Norway. Notes:
This setting combines the texts of two Latin hymns. The first, Deus Creator Omnium, is traditionally ascribed to St Ambrose (340-397) and is sung during Saturday Vespers. Lucis Creator Optime dates from the 8th century or earlier and is also sung during Vespers. We use the tune Lucis Creator from the English Hymnary, a seventeenth century melody from Angers, near Paris. RECORDED ON ALBUM RETURN AGAIN Notes:
Notes:
The text of this carol is selected from the sixteen verses given in A Good Christmas Box, an influential chapbook that contained 58 carols published by Walters of Dudley. This tune was collected by Cecil Sharp at Donnington Wood, Shropshire and published in his English Folk-Carols (1911). Notes:
In Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth’s The Story of the hymns and tunes (1906), this folk-like song is described as an ‘old revival hymn’ which ‘was a common old-time piece sure to be heard at every religious rally, and every one present, saint and sinner, had it by heart, or at least the chorus (verse 3) of it’ Notes:
One Saturday morning Catriona decided to see if she could write the words to a carol. So she wrote these. She chose the Annunciation as it's somewhat appropriate for Advent and that was the next concert Madrigirls were doing. Then she started humming a tune and this came out to fit the words... She wasn’t sure what to do with it next so she gave it to Katy who arranged it thus. This particular arrangement was inspired by a track by popular Irish singer Brian Kennedy (…no really). Notes:
Before the Scottish Reformation in 1560, Jhone Angus had been a Benedictine monk, with responsibility for 'ensuring a high standard of music for the comples Latin-rite services at Dunfermline Abbey, one of the wealthiest and most important religious houses in the country. Nothing whatever has survived of Dunfermline's repertory of music for the old Church. What we do have, however, are fourteen very beautiful ssettings of Protestant metrical texts, which Jhone Angus composed in the mid-1560s, for the worship of the new Kirk'. (Jamie Reid Baxter, Jhone Angus: Monk of Dunfermline & Scottish Reformation Music). Notes:
This rhythmic piece is contained on interpolated pages in a largely non-music manuscript containing a volume of Augustine’s commentary on the psalms. The volume is associated with Reading Abbey and was presented to Bodleian library by William Burdet of Sonning near Reading in 1608. The binding of stamped brown leather over older reversed wooden boards is Reading work of c. 1500. Notes:
This carol was collected by Lucy Broadwood and published in 1908 in English Traditional Songs and Carols. Broadwood explains that this ‘very beautiful carol was sung several years in succession by Christmas Mummers, also called in Sussex "Tipteers" or "Tipteerers", a name still unexplained in our dialect dictionaries. It was noted in 1880 and 1881, after which the Mummers ceased to act in the neighbourhood of Horsham. They clustered together, wooden swords in hand, at the close of their play "St. George and the Turk," and sang, wholly unconscious of the contrast between the solemnity of the carol and the grotesqueness of their appearance, for they wore dresses of coloured calico, and old "chimney-pot" hats, heavily trimmed with shreds of ribbon, gaudy paper fringes and odd ornaments’. The first and last verses are taken from the Sussex Mummer’s Carol, with verses 2-6 from When righteous Joseph wedded was from Ancient Christmas Carols (1823) by Davies Gilbert. Notes:
This lively Occitan song is sometimes referred to as a ‘Bas Quercy’ carol. It is sung here in translation. Notes:
Copyright restricted Notes:
Another revival hymn that like Garden Hymn, found its way into the shapenote singing tradition. This hymn is referenced in the second movement of Drew Hammond’s Three words from the Sacred Harp (see below). RECORDED ON ALBUM RETURN AGAIN Notes: Three Words from the Sacred Harp is constructed around the words “I”, “Will” and “Sing”, which were taken from the Sacred Harp, 1991 Edition. In the first movement, a duet on I, the extracts dwell on ideas of journeying home. In the second movement, on Will, the words deal with inviting God into the home. The third movement, Sing, deals with death and eternity. Many thanks to the Madrigirls for their wonderful singing, to Creative Scotland for making this project possible, and to fasola.org for providing such a unique way of examining the Sacred Harp. ANOTHER RECORDING AVAILABLE HERE Notes:
Another carol associated with the Bas Quercy region in south-west France. Tim Eriksen is an Amercian musician and musicologist, and leader of the band Cordelia’s Dad. He was consultant for the soundtrack of the film Cold Mountain. Tim Eriksen’s version of this carol is included on his new album ‘Star in the East’ which was released on Thursday 1 December, 2011. Notes:
This ‘memento, or "cuimhneachan," was written by the Rev. Ranald Rankin, C.C., and given by him to the children of his congregation at Moidart, when he was parting with them for Australia, in 1855. ... The Rev. Ranald Rankin (W.D.), Australia, died in 1863, aged 64’. (Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, Volume 15, 1888-89, p.236). Notes:
Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum (Devout ecclesiastical and school songs of the old bishops) is a collection of late medieval Latin songs possibly edited by Jaakko Finne, and published in 1582 by Theodoricus Petri Rutha (c.1560- c.1630). Jaakko Finne was a member of the clergy at the cathedral school at Åbo (now Turku) and it seems likely that the collection contains the medieval repertory of the Åbo school. |