SKU: MQ.8087-E

English.

John Keats’s poetry is especially well-suited to music because of its rich imagery and clear formal structures. The music here was composed within an English musical aesthetic, appropriate for a text by an English poet. Much of the music, especially the double choir sections, were inspired by the English choral music in the Anglican tradition. In addition to antiphonal textures, this piece employs some complex polyphony, reminiscent of the Renaissance, with a rich harmonic palette full of clusters and cross-relations. The piece ends in a dreamlike state, where the grasshopper and cricket are blurred into the overall beauty of nature. May be performed jointly as Two Keats Choruses with The Human Seasons (8086).

SKU: LV.3702

How the Gates Came Ajar. Song and Chorus. Composed by Eastburn. Published 1869 by S. Brainard's Sons in Cleveland. Composition of strophic with chorus with piano and voice (solo and satb chorus) instrumentation. Subject headings for this piece include Angels, Crosses, Lyres, Heavens, Biblical references, Religion, Symbols, Mothers & children. First line reads 'Twas whispered one morning in Heaven, how the little white angel May..

About The Lester S. Levy Collection

The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music consists of over 29,000 pieces of American popular music. Donated to Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, the collection's strength is its thorough documentation of nineteenth-century American through popular music. This sheet music has been provided by Project Gado, a San Francisco Bay Area startup whose mission is to digitize and share the world's visual history.

WARNING: These titles are provided as historical documents. Language and concepts within reflect the opinions and values of the time and may be offensive to some.

SKU: A0.841250

A setting of a very powerful poem by English poet, Ted Hughes, about the onset of autumn in an English (Yorkshire) garden and the surrounding countryside.  It is full of pathos and passion, harmony and dissonance, chaos and peace - just like English weather!

This is a very individual and innovative choral setting of Hughes' poem which is, itself, rich in 'meaty' metaphor and colour - and the composer is a vegetarian! It evokes a savage Nature within a savage landscape where humans and animals compete for space and for food. It is October, the fields and woods and gardens of rural Yorkshire are readying themselves for the cold and desolation (and despair) of winter which isn't far away in time. 'A glass, half-filled with wine, left out(side) To the dark heaven all night, by dawn Has dreamed a premonition of ice across its eye as if the ice-age had begun its heave.'   That is only two and a half stanzas but you see from these lines that there are veiled threats of (Nature's) violence in the heavy tread of the poet's slowly-building angst over what is happening in the surrounding countryside - and his fear grows, and his awe grows, with every line. There is even fear underlining the very last line: 'And now it is about to start.' Winter is creeping closer and closer towards the house and it will not be pleasant to experience!

I have tried to instil a little of this in the music which keeps skidding from consonance to dissonance and back to consonance. Sometimes the dissonance piles up, like snow driven by the wind piles up into deep banks; sometimes the music relaxes into stillness and calm (painted in tonal music) like a crisp, mild late autumn or early winter's day when the sun warms the landscape and life appears bearable, tolerable. I hope this adds to the song's 'charm'. It wasn't easy to write: sometimes the right music was elusive. The music ends with the word 'October' repeated three times, with voices overlapping in a little canon. This conjures up the wistful feelings of the poet as he looks out onto a peaceful scene, soon to be filled with all manner of 'natural violence', while his inner peace will soon be shattered by the mayhem about to be unleashed around him.

Setting Ted Hughes is no easy task. It is for choirs and choirmasters to judge if I have succeeded in conveying the 'sense and sensibility' of a classic 20th century English poem.

The price is for one copy: please purchase a sufficient number of scores if you intend to perform this work. SMP Press offers discounts for multiple-copy purchases.

SKU: A0.993936

New music - by Harry Hicks, (taken from his forthcoming second book of over 400 hymns entitled Praise! 2) to an old hymn that deserves to be better known.
The first book - and other compositions - are also available.

SKU: A0.776016

This setting for Christmas represents the cold of a Northern winter (the cruel wind blows) although of course the actual events took place in rather warmer climes. It also reflects much of the liturgical and popular symbolism of the Christmas season: robins, holly etc and it brings our thoughts towards the season of Easter with the blood of Good Friday. A robin brought some holly all covered with snow. The cruel wind blows. From each little berry fell drops of blood, Which covered the earth where the Virgin once stood. The cruel wind blows. Dark was the sky when Angels came to stay, They brought old lanterns to lead the way. The cruel wind blows. Candles brightly shine for all to see, They glow tonight through the ageing year. Tender are the lilies as soft as her gown And white are the ringlets that fall to the ground. Mary with her child upon this Winter night, She walked through the darkness with yellow candle light. North winds blow across the fields, But only one child continues to dream. The cruel wind blows The cruel wind blows. ©Tom Clarke Buying this file gives the right to print six copies of the music score.

SKU: A0.994547

This is a new tune to an old hymn that needs to be rediscovered.
It is taken from a book of mine of over 400 hymns that have been given new tunes – written by me - that reflect the sentiment of the words. The book is entitled Praise! and is available. There are also some brand new hymns that need to be more widely known. All are Biblically sound, and all are suitable for congregational singing.

SKU: A0.994592

This is a new tune to an old hymn that needs to be rediscovered.
It is taken from a book of mine of over 400 hymns that have been given new tunes – written by me - that reflect the sentiment of the words. The book is entitled Praise! and is available. There are also some brand new hymns that need to be more widely known. All are Biblically sound, and all are suitable for congregational singing.

SKU: A0.994410

This is a new tune to an old hymn that needs to be rediscovered.
It is taken from a book of mine of over 400 hymns that have been given new tunes – written by me - that reflect the sentiment of the words. The book is entitled Praise! and is available. There are also some brand new hymns that need to be more widely known. All are Biblically sound, and all are suitable for congregational singing.