Searching for Jamie W. Hall - 14 results.
An unaccompanied setting of a beautiful Middle English text, As I Lay Upon a Night is a meditation on the
annunciation and provides a suitable alternative to the well known Annunciation Carol.
Written with the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in mind, pseudo-plainsong solos and simple choral verses create
an atmosphere of calm and stillness in which the listener can reflect on the very opening chapter of the story of
Christ's birth.
Also a suitable introit for use on the Feast of the Annunciation on 25th of March.
As I Lay Upon A Night has been sung by, among others, the BBC Singers, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Life! oh so old, |
I wake up now |
This Easter Day setting may be thought of as a prequel to the composer's earlier Easter Carol (included in The Novello Book of Music
for Lent and Easter) which imagines Mary Magdalene, having just recognised the risen Christ, running to tell the other disciples what
she has seen. This piece features three distinct sections which depict the earlier dawn, Mary herself weeping by the open and empty
tomb (complete with echo), and a final section which combines Mary's moment of joy at recognising Christ, with the disciples'
reaction to the good news of the Resurrection. The text, as is so often the case, links resurrection with the new life of spring.
A 19th century translation of a much earlier text (14th or 16th century), it first appeared as a hymn and the final section of this
setting nods in the direction of the hymn tradition, even leading — should it be appropriate and desired — into the playover
of that wonderful Easter Day classic Jesus Christ is Risen Today, the final alleluias added by the composer to cement that
relationship.
This piece was written for Colm Carey and the choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London.
Root-sharp winds blow, |
Blazes the day |
Poet's programme note
Seasons Family Tree began in Winter: I spotted one November afternoon on Facebook that Jamie had trouble publishing a
piece, and asked him why. His tale of failing to obtain permission from the poet's estate to use the original lyrics
reminded me of another choral composer's most successful work, and I asked whether he'd like me to try writing new words for
the music he'd already composed. He encouraged me to have a go, and by midnight I had the words, roughed out on a bike ride
to a rehearsal that bitterly cold evening. To avoid any chance of accidental plagiarism, I cast around for a second theme,
and immediately thought of my grandfather, slowly sinking in dementia, having lost my grandmother to the same dreadful
disease earlier that year. I tried to put his eloquently expressed feelings into the words he could no longer find.
When Jamie told me he was thinking of a series of seasons, the obvious route was to consider the other living generations of
my family. Since I have no children, and as writing about myself would create an awkward asymmetry, it was natural to veer
on to my brother's branch of the family tree; I wrote the remaining seasons in ascending order of age. The meter and rhyme
schemes were chosen so that each season becomes the next by swapping one pair of lines.
Poetry that can be explained in prose is merely verse, but some general remarks seem in order. In each season I tried to
remember or imagine what it was or would be like at each stage of life, and locate the knot of fear and hope that defines
each. Summer turned out to be the hardest both for me and Jamie: somehow the sideways step to become my brother was bigger
than the leaps forwards and backwards.
Jamie's deceptively simple music blends the characters and seasons along two musical axes: the four voices that compose each
season, and the musical shapes that recur in varying seasonal garb. These devices, impossible in text, cause each season to
echo in the others, and conversely makes each movement a miniature of the cycle. Simultaneously a wonderful privilege for
and stimulus to me, it's also a brilliant illustration of the immediate power of pairing words and music, which I hope will
pierce you too!
Composer's programme note
To Every Thing… is a choral cycle of poems by Reuben Thomas which capture, much like a family photo album,
snapshots from the changing seasons of life's year.
In creating this cycle, I have tried to remain faithful to the colours, contours and innate rhythms of each text, using
music as a vehicle for the poetry, allowing it always the space to be heard clearly and understood. As such the rhythmic
and melodic material used for each of the four voices is relatively straightforward, the interest lying in how these parts
interact. It is essential therefore that each part be sung with clarity and accuracy and tempi chosen to allow each
passing consonance or dissonance to speak clearly.
The cycle may be performed starting at any season and proceeding in seasonal order.
(Performance here by Kings Junior Voices.)
Wonderfully inventive and characterful settings for children's choir of three poems from Lewis Carroll's Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland:
How doth the little crocodile
The Lobster Quadrille
Soup of the Evening
I don't recall when I first decided I wanted to set these fabulously colourful and wonderfully silly texts from Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland - a book I can't quite believe is 150 years old this year! - but certainly The Mock Turtle's
Song was firmly in my mind when I was asked to write a piece for Cambridge-based children's choir, King's Junior Voices.
Even though my aim was always to produce something accessible and enjoyable I also wanted to write music that would
challenge young singers, something reflective of the contemporary music that is at the centre of my own musical life and
above all something that, even when in only one part, is truly choral, not simply a song.
Hearing that first performance, sung so beautifully in King's College chapel, I was determined to add to the set.
Just as Lewis Carroll presents his outlandish, near-nonsense poems in the familiar form of children's nursery rhymes, so I
have paired conventionally tonal melodic material with outlandish time signatures, (5/8, 7/8, and a heavily syncopated 4/4)
in a parallel which I hope captures the playfulness and twinkle of Carroll's texts.
I dedicate Curiouser and Curiouser! to King's Junior Voices and to their conductor Lynette Alcantara whose encouragement has
been invaluable.
I hope that you enjoy singing these songs as much as I have enjoyed writing them!
Sing, Oh! My love is a pair of two traditional carol texts treated to contemporary musical settings.
Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day was written for, and is dedicated to, a friend's mother - a lady with severe dementia - who was
seriously ill at the time, and who, in her own words 'loves to dance'.
This setting removes the expected anacrusis word setting of the opening line and instead makes the word stress with an octave leap. This
combined with fairly rapid text setting and regular use of straight crotchets against the dotted crotchet beat helps conjure breathless
excitement, youthful vigour, the somewhat jaunty verses giving way to the more sweeping chorus which juxtaposes compound 6/8 with 3/4
which, along with ever decreasing phrase lengths captures a sense of barely contained joy.
The more contemplative setting of Jesus Christ the Apple Tree is marked misterioso, and it is a sense of mystery that should prevail in
any performance. The 7/8 time signature is there not to add rhythmic interest but to create ambiguity - the piece should always move
forwards therefore but without any feeling of pulse or of being driven. The harmony too is ambiguous, though it never leaves the realms
of tonality, and it should be sung in as semplice a manner as possible to avoid overcooking the passing dissonances.
Above all the dynamic scheme should be preserved without ever the need for oversinging. The opening lines of the first and last verse
may be sung as a solo if desired, as may the closing line of the piece.
It wouldn't be Christmas without a ding dong or two and this new setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Christmas Bells buys
wholeheartedly into that tradition, its pealing piano figures crossing bar lines and giving a contemporary seasoning to a carol which is
nevertheless singable and memorable.
Composed with children in mind it has two vocal lines which may be thought of as either two equal voices or low and high voices, though
the ranges are restricted to enable just about any choir to sing it. Suggestions of SATB distributions are included but flexibility is
there to redistribute depending on the forces available.
The piece is neither overtly religious nor exclusively Christian, its overriding theme being one of peace and goodwill to all men, and
so it is particularly useful to choirs who wish to celebrate Christmas without too much emphasis on sacred music.
This setting of famous verse by Christina Rossetti is based on a single simple theme which then goes through a series of variations,
making it ideally suited to choirs who want a contemporary flavour in their Christmas repertoire but don't have endless learning time.
The two equal parts, which may be sung by either children or ladies, are underpinned by an atmospheric piano accompaniment which
invokes the winter wind, the flurrying snow, the icy cold.
Whilst this is an entirely new treatment of the poem, the composer couldn't resist a small nod to the famous and beloved setting by
Harold Darke... see if you can spot it.
Inspired by Richard Rodney Bennett's setting of The Holly and the Ivy - impressed that a new melody for such a well-established
carol could become so firmly bound with the text in his head after one hearing - Jamie W. Hall's first composition sets another text
which is very difficult to sever from its established melody.
Nevertheless, with only a small nod to Gruber's beloved melody, Silent Night is an original setting full of space and light.
Though marked only Lento (who wants to write 'Grave' at the top of a Christmas carol?), the tempo should be slow enough to ensure the
5/8 measures remain smoothly legato with no hint of the jauntiness a faster tempo might create.
Soul's Flight is a joyful, secular hymn which recasts Bach's famous chorale melody Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring as a bird-like
pastoral flute solo - reharmonised - which separates verses of a new melody and text celebrating singing together.
Written for the 10th anniversary celebration of King's Junior Voices, the piece may be performed either by children or adult ladies and
is suitable for any celebratory or festive occasion, and for civil and other wedding ceremonies where sacred texts are not permitted.
Where a flute is not available, any other solo instrument may be substituted.
Metronome marks are suggestions only. Tempos should be relaxed, never driven, and rubato is recommended to accommodate the soloist's
breaths without the need for snatching.
As I Lay Upon A Night
Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
Sleep, my Jesu
O little town of Bethlehem
Jesu Sweet
Silent Night
Jesus Christ the Apple Tree