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Recently, I and a group of fellow-composers based in East Anglia (members of ‘Colchester New Music’ but actually more widely spread) were invited to contribute to a Choral Evensong for Pentecost at Chelmsford Cathedral – pictured here. As it turned out, all of the music (apart from a couple of the hymns)  was new and local: composers Phillipa Joy, Theresa Chapman, Samuel Bristow, Peter Thorne, Alexander Blustin and Mark Bellis were each represented by choral items, and I wrote the organ prelude and postlude.

The diverse programme was a very successful experiment and although the music was by many different composers the choice of texts gave a real feeling of unity and a profound sense of worship in the beautiful space of the cathedral. The choral singing, under the direction of Emma Gibbins, was superb and the colour of the two linked organs echoed sonorously around the building.

My organ pieces followed the standard expectation for pieces of this nature – a more meditative mood before the service, and a lively and jubilant postlude as the choir and clergy process out. Both pieces are based on the plainsong melody Veni Creator Spiritus (Come, Creator Spirit) which is associated very closely with Pentecost. The melody goes back to the ninth century and today is often sung to the words ‘Come Holy Ghost, our Souls inspire’. I have set these English words to a different tune in the past (in fact that version was sung at Ely Cathedral this Pentecost as well), and also written another anthem based on the original plainsong – so the words and music are fairly entrenched in my inner memory. In this service the two organ versions were expertly played by Samuel Bristow (prelude) and Emma Gibbins (postlude)

The plainsong melody is clearly stated in the Prelude, in the middle of the musical texture, and is then developed by being played in longer notes, accompanied by fragments of the melody in shorter notes. Finally the melody appears in its simplest form before the final ‘Amen’

The Postlude is a ‘Toccata alla giga’ – a lively 6/8 featuring clear contrast between two musical textures on different manuals (at Chelmsford there are actually two organs, and it is possible to play the larger nave organ from the third manual of the chancel organ which, being near the choir, is normally used for services). Here fast-moving passages based on sections of the melody form a background to the complete melody in the pedals. The musical fragments are then treated contrapuntally, a little louder for each statement, punctuated by much louder and grander statements of the first four or five notes of each phrase of the plainsong melody – eventually building up to a fuller statement of the last phrase, and the ‘Amen’ as a vibrant coda, echoing around the building.

You can hear and see the whole service (apart from some of the Prelude) here, and you can follow digital scrolling scores of my Prelude and Postlude here. The music is currently unpublished so please contact me for details.

‘Piece of the Week’ is on holiday next week.

Here’s another piece of mine from the past: written in 1987 and first performed in February 1988, it was commissioned by the Colchester Chamber Orchestra (conductor Christopher Phelps) with funds provided by Eastern Arts. The rest of the programme was the Rodrigo Concerto di Aranjuez for guitar, and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony – and I can’t remember the reason for the choice of ‘no woodwind’ for my three-movement concert opener, but it certainly gave me a particular musical focus and the opportunity for some colourful textures.

I think that the scoring must have suggested to me a kind of contrast between the brass (in this case two horns and two trumpets) and the strings (normal orchestral forces) with the percussion in the middle, perhaps as a kind of umpire or commentator. Now the most comfortable keys for brass instruments are on the flat side – F, B flat and E flat major– whereas for the strings the sharp keys lie under the fingers more naturally – G, D, A and E major. So this suggested a harmonic contrast as well as a textural one, which I exploited in a number of ways.

The first movement, marked ‘fast and precise’, introduces the basic contrasts and ideas common to the whole work. There is a steady pulse but fluctuating metre, and the low strings and percussion determinedly repeat their sharp-side chords while the brass interrupt with flat-key held notes, and then this moves into a more fugal section with much instrumental interplay ending with fragments of the material thrown around the three instrumental groups.

The second movement has a very different feel and is marked ‘slow and mournfully’. Again the contrasting keys are exploited, and the pulse is steady, but here there is a sense of slow growth achieved by melodic shaping both in the brass and strings, sometimes simultaneously, but at other times punctuated by brass/percussion chords seemingly unrelated rhythmically to the strings, or by relaxed fluctuating string chords as accompaniment to the more decorative brass melodies – all underpinned by low timpani rolls and colourful pitched percussion. (In my sketches, which unusually I have kept, I can see plans and matrices –  a little Birtwistle-like…)

The third movement is marked ‘fast and lively’ and, I wrote in the programme note, ‘presents material that we have already heard before, but now in a more dance-like manner’. Actually I’d defy anyone to dance to it, as the metre changes almost every bar at the beginning, though it does bounce along a bit more regularly later on.  What is a little different to before is that in this movement there is more of a sense of rapprochement between the two keys, and thus, after a slower interlude, achieving a final feeling of resolution. Listening again now, I can see ways I might have done it differently – but there we are!

The image is of part of the second movement.

I prepared the scrolling score of this piece very recently, using the recording of the first (and only) performance in 1988 and the handwritten manuscript of the score. I hadn’t listened to it for many years, and it was good to revisit it again. Although the performance is accurate and skilful, there are balance issues, which may partly be due to the recording, but it perhaps needs a larger string group for the brass and strings to be perfectly balanced. Hope you enjoy it!

There is a very long tradition of composers borrowing secular tunes for sacred purposes; for example the medieval folksong L’homme armé has provided melodic material from Josquin des Prez in the fifteenth century to Karl Jenkins much more recently. And sometimes, particularly in Renaissance times, composers delighted in concealing secular (sometimes downright rude) songs within serious religious works by stretching then out into slow moving notes only recognisable to the initiated.

When I was editing the Oxford Flexible Anthems series I tried a similar approach, by ‘borrowing’ traditional melodies and fitting them to appropriate religious words. One tune that particularly took my fancy was ‘Bruton Town’, an English folksong – hundreds of years old – collected and notated by Cecil Sharp in the early twentieth century. It tells a very bloodthirsty story of how two brothers murder a servant who was courting their sister to rescue her from the ‘shame’ of marrying below her class – ending with the sister following her lover to the grave. Here is the beginning:

In Bruton Town their lived a farmer
Who had two sons, and a daughter dear;
By day and night, they were contriving
To fill their parents’ hearts with fear.

One told his secret to none other,
But unto his brother this he said;
I think our servant courts our sister,
I think they have a mind to wed.

(another eight verses follow)

In choosing this song, I think I may have had in mind the saying ‘Why should the devil have all the best tunes?’ – variously attributed to Luther, Charles Wesley, General Booth, or others!

So, now forgetting the original words, the song has a beautifully wide-ranging modal tune which sweeps across the vocal range in a way that suggested to me the wind bringing revitalisation and restoration; and thus it seemed ideal for a Pentecost anthem or for a service of renewal.  So now in steps Bessie Porter Head (1850-1936), the Belfast-born missionary and hymn-writer, whose words facilitated the reincarnation of this tune. They begin like this:

O breath of life, come sweeping through us,
Revive your church with life and pow’r;
O Breath of life, come cleanse, renew us,
And fit your church to meet this hour.

O Wind of God, come bend us, break us,
Till humbly we confess our need,
Then in your tenderness, remake us,
Revive, restore; for this we plead.

(one more verse)

 The performance linked to here is a remarkable one. Produced during the Covid lockdown in 2020, it brings joyfulness and togetherness to a scattered congregation in Scotland’s Highlands and Islands – the Presbytery of Aberdeen and Shetland – truly a message of revival, renewal, and love, sung and played with enthusiasm and commitment. Hope you enjoy it!

The anthem is published (for voices in up to three parts and keyboard) in The Oxford Book of Flexible Anthems.

From Honegger’s Pacific 231 to Steve Reich’s Different Trains, and from Whitacre’s Ghost Train to Edward White’s Puffin’ Billy, the excitement of the steam train has been an inspiration to many composers.  And even Dvořak was an avid train-spotter!

The power of the engine, the escaping steam, the regularity of the pistons and the clatter of the rails has resulted in many steam-inspired pieces, often in a rhythmic  two-time or four-time. And, perhaps in a more gentle, three-in-a-bar, Flanders and Swann (‘Slow Train’) mood, I was inspired by the interminable announcements that one hears on trains today – ‘do not leave any belongings unattended’, ‘please make sure you have the right ticket’, ‘familiarise yourselves with the safety notices’, and ‘this train is for …. wherever’ .

My little piece, ‘Safety Notices’ (for performance see last paragraph) is a movement from my short set of safety-inspired pieces, ‘Health and Safety’. I wrote this for a boy’s choir (mid-range changing voices or cambiata) originally, but then later made versions for upper voice choir and mixed choir.  All three versions are published by OUP and can be obtained here. And on this page there are links to various recordings.

Today, our experience of steam trains is from heritage railways, and there are certainly some of those in New Zealand, too, judging by the impressive train noises (as well as the singing) from the young people of Wellington in this recording.  Hope you enjoy it.
(the image is of a New Zealand loco)  Choo-Choo!

A recent performance that I found on YouTube reminded me that a few years ago I was commissioned by the Childrens’ Chorus of Greater Dallas (now called the Greater Dallas Choral Society for Children and Youth) to write two short songs for them. The organisation has a number of different children’s choirs, of different ages, and a large programme of concerts and courses with a range of directors and in different venues – and my pieces were to be aimed at the youngest children, aged around 7 to 10.  Once a year they have a big concert in the prestigious Meyerson Symphony Centre in Dallas, Texas, involving all the choirs, and these are really spectacular occasions, with beautiful and vibrant singing from a succession of well-turned-out young voices. My songs were premiered in the 2019 concert, at which I was delighted to be present (and to explore Dallas for a few days!).

One of the challenges of concert choral writing is, of course, finding suitable words. For the performer and the listener the words are just as important as the tune, if not more so, and when writing for young people the difficulty multiplies as an older composer like me tries to get onto an appropriate wavelength.  I find the best approach is to seek out something a bit ‘magic’, a bit ‘mysterious’ a bit ‘other-worldy’ and not to attempt to be ‘up-to-date’…

So for this song I went to a distant past, and to a distant country (for young Texans) – the Scottish islands, choosing for my text two adapted sections from traditional Hebridean poems as collected by Alexander Carmichael in the late nineteenth century. Here are the words:

I am turning my eyes to the sky,
I am lifting my eyes to the stars,
I am raising my eyes to you, bright new moon.

As you shine in the starry night,
As you lighten the darkened world,
As you radiate calm and peace, bright new moon.

Be your light above for all of those in need,
Be your guidance below for voyagers to heed;
Be your lustre bright for each and every one,
Be your course complete when morning’s light is come.

(repeat first six lines)

For the first six lines I wrote a twisting and turning melody in which each line starts low, and rises and falls – then in the more impassioned middle section (the last four lines) each phrase starts on the highest note and slowly descends. A few mysterious piano chords then lead into a repetition of the first section, later with an optional descant of more sustained notes. So the structure and ideas are, I hope, suitable and memorable for a young choir, and the range of the melody is just one octave.

The music is published by Oxford University Press.

Here is a recording of the first performance, in Dallas, 2019

Here is a recording of a subsequent performance by the Scunthorpe Co-operative Junior Choir – one of the few children’s choirs in the UK that has a training programme comparable to the large American ones.

And here is the Greater Dallas Choral Society’s 2025 performance. I was really pleased that the choir revived it, with a whole new set of young voices!

Welcome to my May newsletter!

Wondrous Cross
As I write I’m enjoying the sunshine, but looking back on the performances that I went to in Holy Week – the time of year when my cantata Wondrous Cross often surfaces: there were several performances that I heard about, and I went to three of them!
One of them was at Ely Cathedral, with the Cathedral Choir directed by Sarah MacDonald, and you can see that one here. The music was interspersed with readings and prayers read by the Dean, and the result was a very meaningful Passiontide service in the calm and beautiful cathedral. I also attended a Good Friday service where the Deanery Choir, conductor Sally Pudney, led worship with a performance of it in the bright and ornate, mainly Victorian, St. Mary’s, Ardleigh. And the third performance was in the modern town-centre church of Lion Walk, Colchester, at the Passion Sunday morning service in the octagonal first-floor sanctuary overlooking the shops – for this one the director was Ian Ray, and I was singing in the choir!  All the performances were colourful and moving and it was fascinating to hear three different approaches to the same piece so close together.
There are more details of Wondrous Cross here.

Cats – but not the feline variety
Sarah MacDonald, who conducted the Ely performance and who is in charge of the Girls’ Choir at the Cathedral, is also the conductor of the Chapel Choir at Selwyn College, Cambridge. And this choir have, for many years, been associated with the John Armitage Memorial Trust (JAM), giving premieres of pieces by a wide range of composers. This year I was lucky enough to be included, and my piece The Cats are Crowding us was selected from a pile of anonymous submissions and performed in March at their 25^thanniversary concert at St. Bride’s Church, Fleet St.  You can hear the sparking and exciting performancehere – the short piece is not actually about cats, but about a Scottish clan – you can read more about it here.

Church Organs
Last Friday I went to a service, followed by a workshop, at Chelmsford Cathedral. The service was a VE Day celebration – a moving event, with lots of medals and flags. And it was good to hear the Cathedral Choir in very good shape under their new director Emma Gibbins, singing anthems by Ireland and Bainton (the beautiful ‘And I saw a new heaven’), and some very sensitive organ playing from Samuel Bristow (Assistant Music Director). The workshop that followed featured compositions by members of Colchester New Music, and Emma led performances and discussion of pieces by Alexander Blustin, Theresa Chapman, Mark Bellis, Phillipa Joy, and Peter Thorne, which will be sung at the Pentecost Evensong on June 8^th. Finally we were treated to a mini-exploration of the cathedral organ (actually two organs at different ends of the building) and an enjoyable try-out, by Emma and Samuel, of the organ prelude and postlude that I’ve written for that Pentecost service, both based on the plainsong Veni Creator Spiritus.
The next evening I went to another service – the dedication of the new organ at St. Mary’s Church Dedham. Newly renovated and installed by Nicholson’s of Malvern, the Binns organ was originally built for a Glasgow church in 1902 – and, now fully restored, it sounded glorious, and after the service we were treated to an effervescent recital by Jonathan Scott. It’s wonderful that the church’s organist, Antony Watson, and his team, were able to raise the funds for this wonderful instrument via several years of events and ‘organathons’.

Mindfulness
Music with the ‘mindfulness’ tag is a very popular option in these times – and I’ve recently been experimenting with writing some piano pieces that fit into that category. It’s an interesting challenge, and writing music for mindfulness that is not mindless is more difficult than one might think. But I was reassured yesterday when I saw on the BBC website that my short choral piece Peace in the World, sung by the BBC Singers, was played recently on Radio 3’s ‘Mindful Mix – Tranquil Harmonies for Restful Moments’.
So I think I can now consider myself a fully paid-up member of the Society of Mindfulness.

New and Old
As well as writing new pieces, I’ve been spending time looking out some of my older pieces and making them available again. One piece that I recently came across was a lively setting of Psalm 150 that I originally wrote for a male voice choir in Stoke-on-Trent (The Audley Male Voice Choir), and which I have now also arranged for SSAA choir and SATB choir – more about that here.
And I’m continuing to do quite a lot of arrangements, including a bunch of piano accompaniments for the 2026 ABRSM woodwind syllabus books, and two for a Recorder Mix book, which are currently in proof stage.

But I’ve also been doing some choral, and piano solo arrangements, and these are all published and on sale from Colne Edition.
The choral ones are aimed at small church choirs and are arrangements of popular hymns and worship songs, often flexibly scored, suitable as easy anthems within church services. Published in the series Prayer and Praise for Choirs, they have sold sets of copies in several countries, and they include The Servant King, Make me a Channel of your Peace, How Great Thou Art, A New Commandment, and It is Well with my Soul.   You can see a complete list here.
And, picking up from that, I’ve recently started a new series, Piano Prayer and Praise. Having written a lot of organ preludes for church services recently, I thought it was time to give church pianists a go – so I’ve written four (so far) fantasias on popular hymns, suitable as interludes or during communion. I’ve put them on Soundcloud, where they seem to be getting plenty of plays! Details here.

Recent Colne Edition publications:
Psalm 150 – three editions, TTBB, SSAA, and SATB, all with organ
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus and  Be thou my vision – arrangements in the Prayer and Praise for Choirs series
A New Commandment, Slane,  Londonderry Air and Noël Nouvelet – fantasias for piano solo in the Piano Prayer and Praise series

Recent GIA publications:
Infant Holy – arrangement of the traditional Polish carol for mixed voice choir – details here
Little Jesus, sweetly sleep – arrangement of the Czech ‘Rocking Carol’ for mixed voice choir (in preparation)
Both of these are arrangements that I wrote for the once-a-year St. Mary’s Friston Christmas Choir (Suffolk)

Thank you for reading to the end.

The image is of the Nave Organ at Chelmsford Cathedral. This can also be played from a linked manual on the Chancel Organ – it’s complicated…

This short song for upper voice choir (SSAA) unaccompanied received its first performance a few weeks ago, in the twenty-fifth anniversary concert of the John Armitage Memorial Trust (JAM) at St Bride’s Church in London’s Fleet Street. It was performed – brilliantly – by the upper voices of the Selwyn College Chapel Choir, director Sarah MacDonald. This choir and its director have performed and recorded quite a lot of my music over the years – but this performance was a bit of a surprise, to me, but also to them I think, as the music for the call for scores was submitted anonymously.

I wrote the piece in 2023, and when I first came across the lines of text that I used, taken from Alexander Carmichael’s nineteenth-century collection of hymns and incantations entitled ‘Carmina Gadelica’ (Songs of the Gaels), what sprung into my mind immediately was hordes of gigantic cats rampaging over the Scottish highlands and islands, destroying everything they encountered!

That may not have been far from the truth – but then I read that the ‘Cats’ were a tribe of human warriors – possibly the Cat tribe whose name is preserved in the English name Caithness and the Gaelic name ‘Cataich’ or ‘men of Sutherland’.  And like many tribal battles of the past and present, it’s clear that the people who suffered most were the women and children, left behind to guard their homesteads and their livelihood.

Here is the text:

The Cats are crowding us,
But we are firm, we are strong, we survive.

They break upon us,
The lift the spoil from us,
They steal the *kine from us,
They strip bare our houses, our homesteads;

But we are firm, we are strong, we endure, we survive.

The Cats are crowding us,
But we are firm, we are strong, we survive.

For murder and for mauling they are come,
For howling and for hazard they are come,
Murder, mauling, hazard, howling,
For pillage and for plunder,
And for our mothers, and for our children
And all we hold dear, and close.

The evil Cats are crowding us,
In the evil hour, the Cats are come;

The Cats are crowding on us,
But we are firm, we are strong, we survive, we endure,
We are firm, we are strong!

*kine = cattle

Whether ‘cats’ or ‘warriors’, the opening lines suggested a rhythmic approach in which the ‘cats’ are thrown from voice to voice – and, almost throughout, the music maintains the rhythmic and forceful drive established at the opening as the text outlines the struggle against adversity for those whom the warriors have left behind. There is just one change of mood – without slackening the pace, the lines ‘and for our mothers, and for our children’ is given a more expressive and expansive treatment – but this is soon taken over by the return of the rhythmic chanting which characterises the rest of the piece.

The song is quite short, and I would like to incorporate it into a set of three movements for upper voices on related texts – this movement would probably be the finale – so I’m hoping to get some ideas soon. But in the meanwhile, you can hear and see the first performance, live at the concert, here. Thank you to JAM, and to Sarah Macdonald and the Selwyn College Chapel Choir, for a most memorable and exciting concert!

Please contact me if you’d like to see a score, and the illustration is of Scottish crofters in the nineteenth century.

I think that composers sometimes find that a piece emerges really easily, going straight on to the page, whereas they find that other pieces take time, many sketches, different attempts, before they reach a satisfactory state. I certainly find that myself – and today’s piece, ‘Lyric Overture’ is one of those pieces which looks as if it went onto the page quickly and smoothly, without second thoughts.

Actually, I can’t remember why I wrote it! It was in 1976, and I’d just started teaching at Colchester Institute and bought a little house in a village a few miles away. There must have been a reason for my writing it – perhaps it was for a competition, or a call for scores – but it didn’t win or get selected. However, three years later I was delighted when a colleague of mine, Christopher Phelps, gave it its first performance with the Ipswich Orchestral Society, in the Corn Exchange in Ipswich. It was an exciting performance, and I think this was the occasion that I left my seat after the performance to shake hands with the conductor, and, when I returned, a late-comer was in my seat, and to avoid embarrassment I went and stood at the back.

I recently revisited the piece (after nearly 50 years!), put it on music software, and pressed a few buttons to make a digital performance – not quite as exciting as the live one I remember, but better than nothing.  And it was interesting to look at this piece again, and wonder why I wrote it!  I’d written orchestral pieces before, and they’d been performed, but I think this is the first one where I feel now that I knew what I was doing, and would be happy to hear once more.  It does seem to be a very cheerful piece, apart from a more expressive interlude, based on the opening motif, and a couple of quasi-dramatic moments, and feels like a lively curtain-raiser and designed to appeal to the audience.

If I were writing it today?… well, I think I might cut it a bit. Occasionally it sounds as if I’ve got carried away and moved into another piece – but maybe that’s part of its charm? Anyway, I’ve not revised it. It does feel quite pictorial, and makes me think of the seaside, perhaps. I can’t remember if that was the specific intention – it would probably have been in the title if it was? – but I can imagine a busy and noisy sea-side resort, with a pier, amusement arcade, fish and chips, and so on, and walking along the promenade the music changes as you pass the different stalls.

So there are a few question marks about this week’s ‘piece of the week’ – but I hope you enjoy it. And I’ve added a seaside image – Clacton-on-Sea, Essex – to get into the mood.

Recording, with scrolling score, here.

This piece, recently reissued, originated as a setting for male voice choir, commissioned in 2004 by the Audley Male Voice Choir, and I remember with pleasure the energetic performance, directed by conductor Philip Broadhurst, in the grand Victoria Hall, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire (see picture). I’ve often thought it would be of interest to other types of choir as well, and so I recently revised it, and made two more versions to complement the original setting for TTBB and organ – so now there are also versions for SSAA and for SATB, both with organ.

Psalm 150, particularly associated in the liturgical calendar with Easter, is one of the most joyful of the psalms, and its references to various musical instruments have made it a popular one with many composers and choirs.  So when the Audley Male Voice Choir specified this psalm for their commission, it gave me the opportunity for much musical imagery. What composer couldn’t be excited by such lines as

Praise him in the sound of the trumpet;
Praise him upon the lute and harp;
Praise him upon the strings and pipe;
Praise him upon the loud cymbals!

So, although with just choir and organ at my disposal, I hope that I managed to suggest these various instruments, and blend the whole psalm together in a joyful song of praise.

Here are digital performances of each version, with scrolling score:

Male Voice Choir (TTBB)

Upper Voice Choir (SSAA)

Mixed Voice Choir (SATB)

And details of how to obtain copies are here

Last week I wrote about a setting of a deep, thoughtful, and troubling poem of William Blake, conjuring up dark forests and frightening beasts of prey – so by contrast, here’s a much less challenging poem in praise of Springtime! The poem is by the eighteenth century John Newton, sailor, reformed slave trader, abolitionist, and cleric. A man who was not afraid to put his soul on the line in ‘Amazing Grace’ – but here is in much more bucolic mood, in this joyful song of praise.

As one of the hymns he wrote for his parish in Olney, Buckinghamshire, it’s printed in the original 1906 English Hymnal, and although it’s much less sung as a hymn these days, its bright and happy lines inspired me to write a new melody for it, as the second movement of my cantata ‘Welcome Spring’. This is a short and light-hearted cantata for choir and strings (or piano), whose four movements take us from melting snow to the glory and promise of summer, and which was commissioned and first performed by the Maia Singers and Stockport Youth Choir, director John Pomphrey.

Here’s the first verse of Newton’s poem:

Kindly Spring again is here,
Trees and fields in bloom appear,
Hark! The birds with artless lays
Warble their creator’s praise.

In my setting I use this verse as a chorus, flanking the two other verses. The melodic line couldn’t be simpler – just rising and falling scales – and in the accompaniment there are hints of birds (including cuckoos) trilling and calling. The intervening verses continue the simple and open scale-wise character, twisting and turning the melody in various directions.  So there is nothing complicated about it, and I hope in its simplicity it gives a feeling of youthful joy.

You can hear Hymn to Spring here, with words, and springtime views of the village church of Friston (Suffolk) and the surrounding fields

And the complete cantata, Welcome Spring! is here, with scrolling score

And purchase details are here – I can also supply this movement individually, though it doesn’t say so on the website.