Oxford Book of Flexible Choral Songs

William H. Penn, arr. Alan Bullard: The Honeysuckle and the Bee
This charmingly delicate pastoral (or suburban) love song was a frequent item on the
music-hall stage at the turn of the twentieth century. (‘Where did you get that hat?’ is
another example of the music-hall genre.) Blending parallels between nature and courtship,
its universality, together with its memorably shaped melody, has ensured this
song’s continued popularity.
Alan Bullard: The Tiger
William Blake’s poem (taken from his Songs of Experience) is full of colourful
imagery, and the aim of this song is to communicate the changing moods by alternating
powerful punchy rhythms with smooth sustained passages.
Ralph Vaughan Williams, adap. Alan Bullard: The Water Mill
Fredegond Shove was the niece of Vaughan Williams’s first wife Adeline, and through
her cousin Virginia Woolf had links to the Bloomsbury Group. Her poem ‘The Water
Mill’ tells of a bucolic lifestyle that must have been somewhat nostalgic even when it
was written, and it inspired in Vaughan Williams a delicate pastoral setting, originally
for solo voice, whose changing moods are underpinned throughout by the sound of the
turning mill-wheel.
for online perusal only
Bob Chilcott: The Truth is Great
Originally written for upper voices, Chilcott’s setting of Coventry Patmore’s poem
‘Magna est veritas’ communicates its spiritual and universal message with flowing
melodic lines.
Trad. West African (Mandingo wedding processional), transcribed and arr.
Fred Onovwerosuoke: The Way of Peace (Kayra Sillo)
In this touching traditional chant, suggesting a mood quite different from the celebratory
character of most African weddings, the families of the newly-weds solemnly
pray that the union will bring peace to the community. Mandingo (or Mandinka) is
one of the Mande languages and is spoken in a number of countries in West Africa,
primarily Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia.
Sarah Quartel: There alway something sings
The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, originally simply
entitled ‘Music’, is a tribute to the power of singing to change lives. The composer
writes: ‘I chose to title the work “There alway something sings” because it is this line
from the text that captivated me most. Even in the “darkest, meanest things” a song can
be heard, music can continue, and beauty may still be found.’
Alan Bullard: Three Shakespeare Songs
From a chronological point of view, my Three Shakespeare Songs began with ‘Hark, hark,
the lark’—a setting that I originally made for upper voices. For this set I added a new
Tenor/Bass part, and made it the centrepiece of two more Shakespeare settings.
The set begins with ‘Full fathom five’, from The Tempest, which is full of magic and
mystery. Here the spirit Ariel sings of a drowned figure who lies five fathoms (30 feet)
deep and who is magically transformed; ostinatos and deep bass chords help to conjure
up the atmosphere.
In Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline, musicians are summoned to perform ‘a wonderful
sweet air with admirable rich words’—‘Hark, hark, the lark’. This poem is an episode of
gentleness amid a tale of deceit, rivalry, and seduction, and in my setting the piano
suggests the singing of the lark while the voices communicate the sense of
expressive calm.
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