Here’s one I wrote the other month — premiered by the London Gallery Quire at St Andrew’s Leytonstone on 2nd July.

There is a version for West Gallery available from the London Gallery Quire website — it’s LGQ 533 — but I’ve also put a version for organ on the Choral Public Domain Library as usual.

Here are some robots singing it:

1 Lord, thou wilt hear me when I pray,
I am for ever thine;
I fear before thee all the day,
Nor would I dare to sin.

2 And while I rest my weary head,
From cares and business free,
‘Tis sweet conversing on my bed,
With my own heart and thee.

3 I pay this evening sacrifice:
And when my work is done,
Great God, my faith and hope relies
Upon thy grace alone.

4 Thus, with my thoughts composed to peace,
I’ll give mine eyes to sleep;
Thy hand in safety keeps my days,
And will my slumbers keep.

And here are the .pdf files:
Waterworks Corner – Full Score

Waterworks Corner — underlaid – Full Score

Thanks so much to the 23 people who supported me composing this music.
You can contribute and help me keep sharing music like this at Patreon.

This one is a bit out of season, but I always find that Lent comes awfully quickly. The words are by Reverend Ally Barrett, who has written a number of new hymn texts to familiar tunes. I like Picardy as a tune very much, but it strikes me as a bit static for words which are, ultimately, about the transformation of the dust of our lives through Christ’s redemption.

So I wrote a different tune, in triple time rather than duple, with a slur to accommodate the irregular number of syllables in the first line.
Here’s a PDF
Here’s a PDF with the text underlaid between the staves
And here are the usual robot guitars:

Dust to dust, we mark our repentance,
entering a guilty plea,
Ash to ash, we face our sentence,
Sin writ large for all to see:
Bearing signs of all our falls from grace,
Yearning for your strong embrace.

Dust of earth once shaped and moulded,
human form from Godly hand,
Male and female both enfolded,
part of all that you had planned.
Now O Lord reshape our damaged form,
Hold us till our hearts grow warm.

Dust that fuels the lights of heaven,
Stars and planets passing by,
Atoms of creation’s splendour,
Earth to earth and sky to sky,
Now our dust, redeemed, may sing along
with that universal song.

As usual, the music is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike: you can do what you like with it as long as you attribute me and you share under similar terms. Reverend Ally prefers to grant permission for non-commercial use only, though: if you want to use her words for commercial purposes, you have to ask her about it.

Thanks so much to the 23 supporters who funded me composing this music. If you’d like to see more of this sort of thing, you can contribute and help me keep sharing music like this at my Patreon page.

Last Sunday one of my psalm chants was sung in Guildford Cathedral, by the University of London Church Choir.

I wrote it for Psalm 119 vv 1-16, but as Anglican chant is meant to be flexible you could use whatever words you like. Accordingly, the copy over on CPDL doesn’t include the text. If you can’t read the PDF there is a midi file, though it’s a bit slow.

As usual, this is under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Thanks so much to the 23 supporters who funded me composing this music. If you’re not one of them and you’d like to be, please take a look at my Patreon page.

A rainstorm at sea, viewed from land. I took this picture in Aberdeen in November 2016.

This is a hymn I wrote last time I was in Aberdeen; or was it last time but one? I’m not sure; but I know I was looking at the sea when I wrote it.

I’ve used a paraphrase of verses from Psalm 107 (the bit that starts” they that go down to the sea in ships”) by Isaac Watts, but of course as with any hymn tune you could use a different set of Long Metre words and they’d fit.

PDF with text of first three verses underlaid
PDF with all verses separate from the score
Robot clarinets playing one verse:

Deliverance from storms and shipwreck;
or, The seaman’s song.

1 Would you behold the works of God,
is wonders in the world abroad,
Go with the mariners, and trace
The unknown regions of the seas.

2 They leave their native shores behind,
And seize the favor of the wind;
Till God command, and tempests rise
That heave the ocean to the skies.

3 Now to the heav’ns they mount amain,
Now sink to dreadful deeps again;
What strange affrights young sailors feel,
And like a stagg’ring drunkard reel!

4 When land is far, and death is nigh,
Lost to all hope, to God they cry;
His mercy hears the loud address,
And sends salvation in distress.

5 He bids the winds their wrath assuage,
The furious waves forget their rage;
‘Tis calm, and sailors smile to see
The haven where they wished to be.

6 O may the sons of men record
The wondrous goodness of the Lord!
Let them their private off’rings bring,
And in the church his glory sing.

The score is, as usual, also on the Choral Public Domain Library, and it is under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

Thanks so much to the 31 supporters who funded me composing this music. You can contribute and help me keep sharing music like this at Patreon.

I know, I know, it isn’t Easter yet, we’ve only just started Lent, and it’s probably too late for most people to use this hymn this year. But I liked the text, by Ally Barrett, very much:

Life comes to an upper room,

breaking through the fear and gloom;

walls and door-locks are no bar:

Jesus meets us where we are.

Life dispels the doubt of grief

bringing hope and new belief;

touching scars – these signs of pain

bring us back to life again.

Life comes to a broken heart,

bowed by sorrow, torn apart;

in the darkness of our tears

Jesus speaks to calm our fears.

On our journey life comes home,

in this fellowship made known;

with Christ’s body we are fed:

life revealed in broken bread.

Life comes to a sunlit shore,

sharing food with friends once more;

Fresh new callings banish guilt,

hope and faith and love rebuilt.

Jesus’ vict’ry over death

brings new life with every breath,

to the world it’s freely giv’n,

reconciling earth with heav’n.

You can read more of her hymn texts, which she makes available for non-commercial use in worship.

My tune:
Art House played by robotic clarionets

Art House with text underlaid within the score

Art House with the score and text separated, so you can use different words if you like

As usual, it’s all available from CPDL, and my music is under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, so you can use it however you like. Please ask Reverend Ally before using her text commercially, though.

My music is community supported, not commercial. If you can, please contribute via Patreon or Paypal. Thanks!

The past week has been a little less silly than some, but still busy.

The West Gallery course at Benslow last weekend was great fun, but hard work: we really could have done with another four or six singers, which would have resulted in me singing less and being able to pay more attention to conducting clearly; at times, I felt like I was a bit “wave arms around until music stops” rather than actually communicating anything more than the downbeat. But it was still a good experience overall, and I got some lovely (anonymised) feedback, too. My accommodation was pleasant and comfortable, and I am cooking up some plans to pitch another course to them, though I still need to develop my material a bit further.

I did, however, fail to take a proper day off at the weekend, which always results in lowered productivity for me during the week. On Monday I got a competition entry sent off, and then Tuesday was a complete loss. So I dialled back a bit on things the rest of the week, and I’m starting to feel a bit more caught up.

This coming Tuesday, my Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis will be sung by the University of London Church Choir at St Mary’s Undercroft Chapel, in the Houses of Parliament, at Evensong at 6.30pm. I’m excited about this: it’s the first time I’ve heard the Magnificat in person, and the first performance that I know of of the Mag and Nunc together. Of course, they may well have been sung some other time without my knowing: this is probably the biggest drawback of putting my music online for free.

Do please come along and listen if you can — and leave plenty of time to get into the building, as there is considerable security in place. I’m afraid I won’t be hanging around afterward, though: I’m booked onto the Caledonian Sleeper to go straight up to Aberdeen, for a supervision and, later in the week, a workshop with Juice Vocal Ensemble.

I’ve long enjoyed William Romanis’s hymn text, “Round Me Falls the Night” — so I decided to set it as an anthem. Originally I used TTBB voicing, but on balance, I like the SATB version better. I think it could be just the thing for a quieter Evensong service, or for Compline.

Robot clarionets:

PDF file: Round Me Falls the Night SATB

Round me falls the night;
Saviour, be my Light:
Through the hours in darkness shrouded
Let me see Thy face unclouded;
Let Thy glory shine
In this heart of mine.

Earthly work is done,
Earthly sounds are none;
Rest in sleep and silence seeking,
Let me hear Thee softly speaking;
In my spirit’s ear
Whisper “I am near.”

Blessèd heavenly Light,
Shining through earth’s night;
Voice, that oft of love hast told me;
Arms, so strong to clasp and hold me;
Thou Thy watch wilt keep,
Saviour, o’er my sleep.

As usual it’s under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike licence. If you want to sing this music, you can download it from CPDL, or buy it from Lulu. And if you want more music like this, I’d love it if you’d send me a tip on PayPal or support me on Patreon. Thanks so much!

This text by the Revd Ally Barrett was written shortly after the Orlando shooting in 2016, and then drawn to my attention again in 2017 after the Manchester attack. And since then there have been more terrorist attacks.

I’ve called it “Finsbury Park” because the attack on the mosque there was in the news while I was writing this, and because there wasn’t already a hymn tune of that name in the database at hymnary.org.

Here is a PDF of the score with the words in verses at the bottom, and a PDF of the score with the text underlaid beneath the music.

And here are the usual robotic clarionets, so you can hear it too:

1. O God of all salvation

In every darkest hour,

Look down at your creation

With pity and with power.

In all the pain we’re seeing,

 For stranger as for friend,

We’ll cling with all our being

To love that cannot end.

2. O God, your loving passion

 Is deeper than our pain,

Look down, and in compassion

 Bring us to life again.

When we are found despairing,

 When all seems lost to sin,

We’ll hear your voice declaring

That love alone will win.

3. O God, when hate grows stronger,

With fear to pave its way,

The cry, ‘Lord, how much longer?’

With broken hearts we pray.

In all that is dismaying

 In humankind’s freewill,

We’ll join our voices, praying

 That love will triumph still.

4. O God, whose love will never

 Be silenced, stalled or stilled,

Set us to work wherever

There’re bridges to rebuild.

We’ll take our life’s vocation

 To make, like heav’n above,

In this and every nation

A kingdom built on love.

As usual, you can also download the music from the Choral Public Domain Library, and the hymn tune is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Ally Barrett’s words are used with permission, under a license similar to Creative Commmons Attribution Non-Commercial; see her website for more details.

This music was brought to you by my lovely kind supporters at Patreon. If you’d like more, please consider whether you can join them in supporting me.

Another hymn tune! This one, I think, might be suitable for Harvest, though the Revd Ally Barrett based it on the theology behind the gospel story about tax: ‘render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s; render to God that which belongs to God’. You can read some more of her hymns on her website and there is also information there about permission to use the text in worship.

Here we are giving,
out of our plenty
fruit of thanksgiving,
tribute of love.
Hearts overflowing
cannot stand empty,
constantly growing
grace from above.

Gathered as one, and
thankfully bringing
all that we are, and
all that we do.
Serving and caring,
praying and singing,
building and sharing,
offered to you.

Love beyond measure,
total compassion,
We are your treasure:
wondrously giv’n.
Made in your likeness,
imaged and fashioned,
life that is priceless,
valued in heaven.

Music, then! I decided that since the words were written to fit Bunnessan, I would go with something in duple rather than triple time, for once, and this is what came out:

Tooting clarionets (robotic as usual):

PDF of the sheet music.

The music (not the words!) is, as usual, under a Creative Common Share-Alike licence, and if you’re a member of the Choral Public Domain Library (aka Choralwiki) you can download it there from tomorrow.

I’m able to do this work and share it with the world because of my kind supporters over at Patreon. Please consider contributing there if you can; even a small amount helps me a lot. Thanks so much!

I have a new project, Cecilia’s List, where (among other things) I make weekly recommendations for music composed by women and other underrepresented groups that’s suitable for church use. I’ve only really just gotten started, and so I still have a lot of music to look through and add.

This week I’ve had a bit of a struggle trying to find something suitable for Advent II, which is very much John the Baptist oriented. It’s entirely possible that, in all the recommendations I’ve been sent, there was something suitable and I’ve missed it. But there comes a point for any composer where the easiest way to solve a problem is to write more music…

So here is Colwall, a tune to Percy Dearmer’s “Lo, in the wilderness a voice”. I’ve modified the words slightly to make them more inclusive, though I couldn’t work out a good way of dealing with “cruel men” so left it in there, since there are still quite a few of those about.

1 Lo, in the wilderness a voice
‘Make straight the way’ is crying:
When all are turning from the light,
And hope and love seem dying,
The prophet comes to make us clean:
‘There standeth one you have not seen,
Whose voice you are denying.’

2 God give us grace to hearken now
To those who come to warn us,
Give sight and strength, that we may kill
The vices that have torn us,
Lest love professed should disappear
In creeds of hate, contempt, and fear,
That crush and overturn us.

3 When from the vineyard cruel men
Cast out the heavenly powers
And all the world denies its Lord,
The earth in ruin cowers.
Now come, O God, in thy great might!
Unchanged, unchanging is thy right,
Unswayed thy justice towers.

I asked my friend the Revd Dr Catherine Dowland-Pillinger to name this tune, since I spent some time with her today and was thinking of her when I wrote it, and since I haven’t asked her to name a tune yet. She chose Colwall, a village in Herefordshire where her husband Eric’s ancestors lived for centuries.

Here are some robot clarionets playing it:

And here is a download of the sheet music in .pdf format: Colwall.pdf

PDF and mp3 also available for download from the Choral Public Domain Library.

Like this? Lovely! Please consider buying me a hot chocolate vi Ko-Fi or supporting my work in some other way. Thanks so much.

(If I’ve done this correctly it should post on Wednesday night, UK time…)

Ready or not, Lent is upon us.

In January, Sally Martin-Brown asked me if I had anything suitable for the University of London Church Choir visit to Jerusalem. I had a rummage through my notebooks, sure I’d started something at some point, and sure enough, there was a sort of skeleton of this piece, the Latin version of Psalm 91:11-12: Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te: ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum. (God shall give his angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands: that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.)

I’m hoping to record the piece while we’re in Jerusalem, but in the meantime, here are some robots:

Angelis suis as sung by robots (mp3 from MIDI)

As usual you can download the score from CPDL. Please don’t sing it before Sunday, though, when we’ll be singing the world premiere of it at the site believed to be where Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan.

If you like this music and want to help me compose more, please consider supporting me in one of these ways. Thanks so much!

I’m not an American citizen.

I don’t have a lot of spare money at the moment.

What I can do is write hymn tunes.

So I’ve written one to this text by Gary Alderson:

1. You ran from oppression,
Crossed the baking sand;
Found your own safety
In an alien land.

And Rachel’s still weeping, weeping,
Weeping for her children.

2. And you found a haven
In that far off place;
Shielded and welcomed
By a foreign race,

And Rachel’s still weeping, weeping,
Weeping for her children.

3. Fled here as a stranger;
Ran in hope and fear.
What kind of welcome
Shall this child find here?

And Rachel’s still weeping, weeping,
Weeping for her children.

4. Now torn from my mother,
Caged in a free land,
Immigrant Jesus,
Come and take my hand.

And Rachel’s still weeping, weeping,
Weeping for her children.

It’s available on CPDL and here. CC by-SA as usual. I’ll try to get an underlaid version up by tomorrow morning, too, for people who prefer hymns with the words under the dots.

IMMIGRANT JESUS in pdf format

Robot clarionets:

Me singing:

My Patreon patrons are paying me for this, but I’m donating a portion of the funds to RAICES at the beginning of next month. I don’t know how much that will be yet, because I’ve committed other funds to some commissions, but it’ll probably be half of whatever’s left after that.

Please consider making a donation if you can.

I’m singing in Ely Cathedral this week, and staying in a guest house in Waterbeach, so I wrote a hymn tune today.

Here are the words, by Nathaniel Cotton:

1. Affliction is a stormy deep,
Where wave resounds to wave;
Though o’er my head the billows roll,
I know the Lord can save.

2. The hand that now withholds my joys
Can reinstate my peace:
And He who bade the tempest roar,
Can bid that tempest cease.

3. When darkness and when sorrows rose
And pressed on every side,
The Lord has still sustained my steps,
And still has been my Guide.

4. Here will I rest, and build my hopes,
Nor murmur at His rod;
He’s more than all the world to me,
My Health, my Life, my God!

(I left out one verse because it had the emphasis on the wrong syllable.)

The software I use to make the robots sing isn’t working with the midi file of this for some reason, and as I’m not at home I can’t put it into the big computer to see if that helps. But here’s the .pdf:

Waterbeach PDF

You can also download the pdf and also the midi file at the Choral Public Domain Library, as usual.

I was asked to compose a psalm chant for Psalm 91, for the University of London Church Choir to sing on our tour to Ripon Cathedral last week.

I can’t share the recording with you yet, as I haven’t heard it; but I hope to be able to eventually. In the meantime, the PDF and midi file are on the Choral Public Domain Library as usual. Also as usual, it’s under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, so you can use it for free as long as you clearly attribute me and you don’t prevent anyone else from copying and sharing it. If you like having access to my compositions in this way, you could support me in a number of ways; thanks ever so much to those of you who already do.

What else have I been up to this summer? There was the week in Ely, singing, toward the end of which I came down with a stinkin’ cold; there was part of a week in Somerset with my beloved spreadsheet mining husband, during which I attempted to recover from said cold; there was a week at home in which we both attempted to recover from said cold (sigh…), and then the week in Ripon, for much of which I wasn’t feeling at all well. I got through it, though, and had almost recovered my usual vocal range by the end. I’m sure the clean air up there helped!

These next few months will be fearsomely busy. I need to do my MPhil upgrade (no, really, I have to actually do it), and I need to compose all the music for my Big Final Project, as well as getting back into the swing of Cecilia’s List and various commissions. At the moment I’m trying not to feel too overwhelmed, and instead have spent some time this week trying to get my ducks^* in a row so that I can prioritise that work and not worry too much about other stuff. The ducks think this is a wonderful game, and keep swimming off in other directions.

^*Not real ducks. It’s probably just as well.

Here is my setting of an anonymous text from around 1420:

It was wonderful to compose this for the Cathedral Singers of Ontario, who I’ve sung with for many years on their visits to the UK, and to sing it with them at Canterbury Cathedral early this month.

1. There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu;
Alleluia.

2. For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;
Res miranda.

3. And by that rose we may well see
That he is God in persons three,
Pari forma.

4. The angels sungen the shepherds to:
Gloria in excelsis deo:
Gaudeamus.

5. Now leave we all this worldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth;
Transeamus.

6. Alleluia, res miranda,
Pari forma, gaudeamus,
Transeamus.

Res miranda — ‘wonderful thing’ or ‘miracle’
Pari forma — ‘equal in form’ — some sources use “pares forma” here, which is what we sang in Canterbury
Gaudeamus — ‘let us rejoice.’
Transeamus — ‘let us follow’ or ‘let us turn [from earth to heaven]‘

As usual, the sheet music for this is available from my page at CPDL — or you can download a pdf directly. I won’t trouble you with the singing robots this time since there is a choral version above! The music is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, or CC by-SA, which means you can sing it for free — but you must attribute it to me and mention the license, and you must allow recordings to be made.

If you would like to support me in sharing more music like this, you will get a warm fuzzy feeling from knowing you are doing good in the world, and if you choose the appropriate support tier you will also receive a postcard of the rose below, which I commissioned from Delyth Williams.

It was Refreshment Sunday today, and we had at least one of my favourite Marian hymns. Here’s my setting of the Ave Maria, then, played by robots:

Ave Maria PDF for download.

This is part of my Stations of the Cross, premiered in Aberdeen on 7th March; but I’m releasing it online now. Other pieces from the Stations that will work as stand-alone pieces will also be released in due course.

As usual, the sheet music for this is also available from my page at CPDL. The music is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, or CC by-SA, which means you can sing it for free — but you must attribute it to me and mention the license, and you must allow recordings to be made.

If you would like to support me in sharing more music like this, you may get a warm fuzzy feeling from knowing you are doing good in the world, and I will definitely get a warm fuzzy feeling from getting closer to being able to support myself on my earnings.

Here’s another movement from my Stations of the Cross — not really suitable for today’s feast of Ascension, but I didn’t want to wait until Holy Cross Day to post it.

Eventually I’ll do a Latin setting of this text. In the meantime, this SATB a cappella version is richer in texture than my SA and organ setting from 2010.

Faithful Cross, above all other,
One and only noble tree:
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be.
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee!

Faithful Cross PDF

As usual, this is licensed under a CC by-SA license, which means you can copy it and sing it for free. You can download the PDF from CPDL too.

Many thanks to my supporters and patrons who make it possible for me to share this music for free; if you would like to join them, either in a regular monthly donation, a per-piece sponsorship or as a one-off, please have a look at my Support page to find an option that works for you.

Here is my setting of the Ave Verum Corpus:

Ave Verum Corpus PDF file

Ave, verum corpus
natum de Maria Virgine:
vere passum, immolatum
in cruce pro homine:
cuius latus perforatum
unda fluxit sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum,
in mortis examine.
O dulcis, O pie, O Jesu, Fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.

In English:
Hail the true body,
born of the Virgin Mary:
You who truly suffered and were sacrificed
on the cross for the sake of man.
From whose pierced flank
flowed water and blood:
Be a foretaste for us
in the trial of death.
O sweet, O merciful, O Jesus, Son of Mary.
Have mercy on me. Amen.

I meant to post this for Corpus Christi, but ended up working on something else then.

As usual, this is licensed under CC BY SA and I can do that because of my kind supporters. Thank you so much!

I chose this poem by George Herbert for Station X in my Stations of the Cross, “Jesus is Stripped”. To have our clothing removed, particularly forcibly, is so vulnerable; but in asking Jesus to fill the emptiness of his heart and drive out sin, Herbert mirrors that vulnerability. Or so it seems to me, anyway…

The Passion

Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me, and fly away.

Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

My SATB setting of The Passion in PDF format.

As usual, this is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. That last bit means that you can print and photocopy and perform and record to your heart’s content: but you must also allow others to copy any derivative works under the same license. So none of this business of making a recording and then telling me it’s “not for public download,” as a number of choirs have now done: if you don’t want to abide by the terms of the license, then you’ll need to either pay me, or not sing my stuff. That’s the deal. That’s how it works.

Meanwhile, though: I do intend to keep putting my music online under CC by-SA. The occasional choir that doesn’t understand how the license works is a small annoyance compared to my feeling that music, and especially choral music, should be as freely available as possible. So if you’re one of my lovely supporters, thanks so much for making that possible! And if you’re not, and you’d like to help me keep composing and keep making my music available online, do have a look at the various options to support me.

Here’s my setting of ‘Good Friday’ by Christina Rossetti:

Am I a stone and not a sheep
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon—
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

There is a PDF of the score here or from the ChoralWiki; and this is, as usual, under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. That means you can have the score for free, make copies for free, perform it for free, and so on, but if you want to prevent people making copies of your arrangements, recordings or similar, you need to get in touch with me to negotiate other terms.

This is another movement from my Stations of the Cross.