CDsThere’s Lilt in the SongSongs and Ballads from Highland or Lowland or no!A selection of new and traditional Scots songs featuring arrangements by Stephen Doughty, Tommy Fowler and Ken Johnston. This selection of choral items and solos (performed by choir members) will alternately tug at your heart strings and set your toes tapping. There’s even a surprise honorary ‘Scots’ song to finish with!
CD Running Order
A Burns Sequence, Op 213, John Gardner (b 1917)Download a sound clip (WAV format) (~2 min download time) Download a sound clip (MP3 format) (~2 min download time) Listen to a track (Real Player) 
This work was commissioned by the British Federation of Young Choirs with funds provided by the Arts Council of England, and first performed by Strathclyde Schools Chorus and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Bell, in the City Hall, Glasgow on 12th March 1995. Composer's note: Though of peasant origin, Burns was a highly cultured man: vastly well read and with a knowledge of foreign languages, mathematics and music. He cut a striking figure amongst the cognoscenti of Edinburgh society. This sequence contains poems to do with some of the many varied activities which exercised his fancy during his short life: his religious conviction (in the hymns which begin and end the work); his penchant for writing new words to traditional Scottish melodies (in 2 to 7); his delight in both romantic love (in nos. 3 and 4) and philandering (in no. 5); and his not infrequent use of High English rather than the Lallans with which he is usually associated (in nos. 1, 2 and 8). He made two versions of Ca' the yowes (no. 6), being later dissatisfied with his first attempt to match this wonderful tune. Nevertheless I have used his earlier version which, though less 'literary' and less 'romantic' than its successor, has, I feel, more passion. This is the only traditional melody I have used, apart from an altered version of the Slow March Macpherson's Lament in no. 7, which sets a poem telling the stirring tale of the freebooter who played the fiddle at his public execution in the marketplace of Banff in 1700. The soloists are members of NYCoS No 3 - Ross Buddie, Tenor No 6 - Ronald Nairne, Bass and Louise Robertson, Mezzo-soprano Hymn to Matter, Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988) 13.06 Hymn to Matter was commissioned by Heriot Watt University Music Society for the opening of the Chaplaincy on May 14, 1978 with the financial assistance of the Scottish Arts Council. The text by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French philosopher, scientist and theologian, here presented in a translation by Simon Bartholomew, enumerates the many forms of matter, tangible and intangible, which inspire mankind in the eternal search for truth and unity. Kenneth Leighton composed many minor and major works which enjoy worldwide performance and was a significant figure in the musical life of Scotland during his long tenure of office as Reid Professor of Music in the University of Edinburgh. The Kenneth Leighton Trust was established in 1993. Its aim is to promote music in general and Leighton's music in particular, by providing funds for recordings, performances (especially by younger performers) and commissions. NYCoS is grateful to the trust for financial assistance for the 1998 project. The work is written for Baritone Solo, SATB Choir, Strings, Piano and Percussion. It is in one movement which divides into four sections - Largo, Tempo giusto alla marcia; Con moto (pin agitato); Largo, Alla marcia; Lontano (like a chant). Programme notes prepared from details supplied by Kenneth Robertson Soloist - Stewart Kempster, Bass-Baritone Six Songs for Female Voices, John McEwen (1868-1948) John Blackwood McEwen was born in Hawick. He studied at Glasgow University and then moved to London where he entered the Royal Academy of Music. After a spell as organist in Greenock and music teacher at the Glasgow Athenaeum in Buchanan Street (now the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Renfrew Street) in the late 1890's, he returned to London and the Royal Academy where he remained until his retirement in 1936, holding the post of Principal for the last 12 years. His compositions include a wide range of orchestral, chamber, piano music and songs. The McEwen Bequest to Glasgow University resulted in annual commissions and a series of triennial concerts which did much to stimulate the development of chamber music during the post war period in Scotland. Notes supplied by Scottish Music Information Centre Julia Lynch - Piano Superb choral singing characterises this exceptional recording.............. (Allison Buckley, Life & Work) ...the discipline and training of the choir is superb. The close harmony is razor-sharp, the diction precise...every word audible.... (Christopher Lambton. Times Educational Supplement, Scotland)
Magnifical and MightyDownload a sound clip (WAV format) (~2 min download time) Download a sound clip (MP3 format) (~2 min download time) Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time - Michael Tippett(1905- 1998) In November 1938, Herschel
Grynspan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew living illegally with his aunt and uncle in Paris, vainly attempted to gain official papers from the German authorities. Frustrated and angered by the persecution of his mother, he shot a German diplomat - an act which resulted in a violent pogrom in Germany. The boy was imprisoned and later disappeared after being handed over to the Nazis. Tippett used this story as the basis for his oratorio, extending the specific details into universal significance. A Child of Our Time was begun two days before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, and was completed two years later. T. S. Eliot was asked to supply the libretto, but on studying the composer's detailed synopsis he advised Tippett to write his own text. The chorus fluctuates between dramatic involvement and detached comment, and at crucial points in the drama it uses the modern equivalent of the Lutheran chorale - the Negro spiritual. The Spirituals appear at appropriate moments in the course of a Child of Our Time in much the same way as Bach introduced chorales in his cantatas and the Passions. Tippett saw spirituals as having two elements which were appropriate for inclusion in his oratorio - firstly, a simple straight forward and sincere depth of feeling which has a direct emotional appeal to the listener and secondly, the fact that the spirituals were the folk medium of the American Negroes who were also a race of people who suffered exploitation and ill-treatment. iii Go down, Moses (Bass: Ronald
Nairne) Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op 27 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Hymn to St. Cecilia was written in 1942 and is a setting for unaccompanied 5-part chorus
(SSATB) of words by W.H.Auden. Britten was born on St Cecilia's Day 1913. Take Him, Earth. For Cherishing - Herbert Howells (1882 - 1983) The motet Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing was written in June 1964 "In the honoured memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States of America". The text is taken from Hymnus circa Exsequias Defuncti by Prudentius(348-413) in a translation by Helen Waddell. Rejoice in the Lamb, Op 30 Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Festival Cantata for Treble, Alto, Tenor, and Bass soloists, Choir and Organ. Words by Christopher Smart Funeral Ikos - John Tavener (b. 1981) Unaccompanied motet for six voices (SSATBB) written to a text taken from The Order for the Burial of the Dead Priests in a translation from the Greek by Isabel Hapgood. Divo Aloysio Sacrum - James MacMillan (b 1959) James MacMillan was born in
Kilwinning, Ayrshire and read music at Edinburgh University and took Doctorate studies in composition at Durham University with John
Casken. After working as a lecturer at Manchester University he returned to Scotland, settling in Glasgow where he teaches part-time at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and
Drama. Of Divo Aloysio he writes:
|
