Administrivia

Coming Soon: Advanced music recommendations!

Kathryn

I’ve been rather quiet here for the last few weeks, and haven’t been providing the usual music recommendations for Sundays.

That’s partly because I’ve been fairly busy with other work: singing in two choirs, trying to keep things going as a freelance composer, organist deputy work, and doing a PhD all at once means that sometimes all the things happen at the same time and something has got to slide.

But it’s also because I’ve been working behind the scenes on Cecilia’s List. I’m adding new composers to my offline database all the time (though I’m still pretty far behind on actually updating the site with new music). I’m also switching to a more powerful database than I had been using, which will make it easier to find what I’m looking for and make appropriate recommendations.

More excitingly, I’m going to be offering the recommendations a few months in advance. A number of people have told me the music recommendations would be a lot more helpful if they were earlier, and I know from my own experience that this is true.

The new structure will be as follows:
Before the end of July, I’ll release music recommendations for December, in a .pdf document you can buy and download from Payhip.
Before the end of August, I’ll release music recommendations for January.
Before the end of September, I’ll release music recommendations for February.
And so on and so forth; I’d like to be further ahead than that, as I know some people plan an entire programme year at once, but it will probably have to wait until after my PhD. In the meantime, I hope this will still be useful for people who look at a month in their plans and realise they don’t have any music by women.

In the interests of not getting overloaded, and of leaving myself time to iron out any wrinkles with the advance recommendation pdfs, I’m taking the summer off from doing weekly recommendations. This is only a temporary break, though: I’m aiming to resume the weekly, three-days-in-advance recommendations from the beginning of September.

While I’ve given myself an end-of-the-month deadline, I’m actually finishing up the December recommendations this afternoon; so, watch this space and they should be available today or tomorrow.

Caecilia2

Music for Sunday, 27th May: Trinity Sunday, Year B

Kathryn

This week’s readings are:

Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17

Isaiah is the writer seeing the Lord, and angels worshipping him, and being purified by having a live coal pressed to his lips by an angel. THen the Lord says “Who shall go for us? Who shall I send?” and the writer says “Here am I; send me.”

Psalm 29 is about God’s greatness and power and glory, with particular reference to earthquakes, storms and floods; and it ends with a prayer for strength and peace.

Romans 8:12-17 is about how being led by the Spirit of God means we are children of God, and therefore joint heirs with Christ.

John 3:1-17 is Nicodemus visiting Jesus for a nocturnal conversation about being born of flesh and also of water and the Spirit, which Nicodemus doesn’t quite follow despite being a teacher himself. The conversation ends with the assurance that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son into the world, so that whoever believes in him might have eternal life; this is not to condemn the world but to save it.

Hilary Campbell has a setting of O Lux Beata Trinitas in the composition list at her website. I haven’t been able to find a publisher so it’s probably best to contact her for the score.

There’s also a two part setting by Carlotta Ferrari of the same text on CPDL.

If you prefer something in English, I have a two-part accompanied setting of Herbert’s poem “Trinitie Sunday”.

No recordings for any of these I’m afraid!

Some administrivia: later today I’ll be making a few changes to the site because of the EU GDPR laws. I aim not to keep any personal information about composers or other people who communicate with me, with the exception of e-mail addresses; what goes on the site and into my database is either information that’s already public (who wrote which piece and so on) or my own opinion, so this shouldn’t be onerous, but in the interests of simplicity I’ll be removing the music submission form and asking people to e-mail me with submissions instead.

New music this week: Sheena Phillips

Kathryn

This week I’ve added four pieces by Sheena Phillips to the Easter page. The site already had some of her work, but it’s good to be able to add some more, and fill out what was a rather sparse-looking Easter page. They’re very definitely on the “special occasions” side of things, involving not only organ but also brass.

A word to the wise: if you’re going to have some brass join you for Easter Day, and you want them to play at the same time as the organ, do check your organ is at A440 first. The one I used to play at St Andrew’s Leytonstone isn’t, it’s about 18 cents sharp, and it would have sounded absolutely dreadful to add an instrument tuned to standard pitch.

New music added: Windella, by Dorothea Baker

Kathryn

I’m — slowly — working through my data entry backlog, and finally at a point where I can start adding music to the site again.

Today I added a hymn with words and music written by Dorothea Baker. The words are based loosely on the Nunc dimittis, making it suitable for Evensong, Compline or Candlemas; I’ve added it to the Evensong category on the site, because I figure that’s where people will be looking for Candlemas stuff anyway.

Here’s an mp3 recording, which you can download if the embedded player isn’t working:

And here’s a .pdf to download:
PDF of ‘Windella’ by Dorothea Baker

I am fond of the serene simplicity of this hymn, and it shouldn’t be hard for a congregation to pick up. Though it’s scored for SATB, it might be prudent to sing it in unison unless you have basses who can sing a bottom E comfortably.

I would really love to include more hymns on this site in general: congregations may grumble a bit about new hymns, but once people have become accustomed to the idea of not always using the same hymnal it can be a great way to introduce new music. Some of this, of course, will come down to me buying a few of the newer hymnals and making some recommendations; but if you know of hymns with music by women that you’d like to see included on this site, then please use the music submission form to let me know about them.

11th February 2018: Sunday Next before Lent, Year B

Kathryn

The readings for this Sunday are:


2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

2 Kings 2:1-12 is the ascension of Elijah into heaven, with poor Elisha following him around and then eventually left behind.

Psalm 50:1-6 is God calling to the heavens and earth to gather the faithful together.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 is about how it is that some people seem to see the light of the Gospel and others don’t; about the way in which Christians should not “proclaim ourselves” but rather proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.

Mark 9:2-9 is the Transfiguration.

One of my own pieces, a setting of a poem by Marnanel Thurman, would be appropriate for this Sunday. It’s for flexible choir, it can be sung unison with or without solos or up to SAB. The music is available from CPDL and there is a demo recording on Youtube.

What’s seen is seen, and cannot be unknown;
and so he turned my soul, and turns it still.
We’d walked a while, just him and us alone;
we’d wandered up some ordinary hill.
The air was cold. The conversation died.
I wondered if I’d left the stove alight.
The curtains of the world were torn aside,
and naked glory overwhelmed my sight;
and oh, the voice, that called to him by name,
so comforting, so terrible to hear:
that man I knew, the same, yet not the same,
touches my arm, and tells me not to fear;
but as I raise my eyes, the light is gone,
and life, and something more, must carry on.

If you’re after something more traditional, any setting of O Nata Lux would be good. I don’t currently have one in the database, though, so if you know of one composed by a woman, do use the submit music form to let me know about it.

Administrivia:
Some non-Cecilia’s List deadlines and a winter bug slowed me right down, and I ended up skipping Candlemas (2nd February) and the Sunday afterward (4th February) here, both of which I actually have some good recommendations for. I’m trying to get caught up this week before going away so that I don’t get further behind and end up feeling even more overwhelmed. So far I’m about halfway through the easy part of my data entry backlog. And I do have music of my own for Ash Wednesday, at least.

New music this week: Ruth Watson Henderson

Kathryn

This week I was sent a wonderful list of music by women, thanks to the Multitude of Voyces project. I promptly fell down a rabbit hole of listening to lots of music instead of updating my database… hence this post is a day late.

When I finally pried myself away from the Tube of You, I added some work by Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson to the site, and I added a new page for works I haven’t sorted into categories yet.

Here’s Ruth Watson Henderson’s Missa Brevis:

[Listen to Missa Brevis by Ruth Watson Henderson on Youtube]

I’m going to take a couple of weeks off from updating the database, so there won’t be “new music this week” posts on Tuesday 26th December or Tuesday 2nd January. I do still intend to make music recommendations, though.

New music this week: Justine Koontz

Kathryn

During an already-busy time of year for church musicians (even ones like me who don’t have a steady post), something came up this past week that demanded a lot of my time and attention.

As a result I haven’t added very much music to the site this week. Just one piece, in fact: this rather lovely setting of “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Justine Koontz, for unison voices with piano accompaniment.

order the score from her website.

New music this week, and administrivia

Kathryn

This week I added some music by Isabella Leonarda, Leanne Veitch, Susan Partlan, and Helen Williams. Check out the pages for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Eucharist to have a look.

I’m also changing the format of the listings slightly, using H6 (heading six) tags within the lists to make individual works easier to find for people using assistive screenreaders. I haven’t updated absolutely everything just yet, so please bear with me while the site looks a bit mis-matched.

Finally, please do use the music submission form if you’d like to suggest music for me to include on the site. I’ve updated it slightly to allow for you to submit someone else’s work.

TEST: nothing interesting here

Kathryn

I’m doing some testing of formatting to make the site more accessible to people using assistive tech. Proper update later today!

  • Mary’s Whys. Williams, Helen.

    Words by Sarah Lutton. English, SATB with or without children’s choir, organ, 3:00, easy to medium difficulty. [Listen to mp3] [Download score from Canossa Choral Music] Inspired by Luke 1:26-38. Sarah Lutton’s poem imagines Mary’s response to being asked to bear the Son of God. Suitable for Mothering Sunday, the Annunciation or the Fourth Sunday of Advent. May be downloaded and used in Christian worship without charge. For other use please contact Canossa Choral music.