Category: compositions

New music for Pentecost: Sweet Spirit Comfort Me

Byartsyhonker May 18, 2012 1 Comment
St Paul's Cathedral had another composition competition. I only found out about it around ten days before the deadline but decided it was worth at least looking at the suggested texts and having a go at writing something. The result? Three verses of Robert Herrick's "Litany to the Holy Spirit", set for SATB. It's a bit mournful perhaps, but so is the text. Each verse is set differently, so adding...

When you made this planet

Byartsyhonker December 8, 2011 1 Comment
Some time ago, Thomas Thurman drew my attention to a text to try setting as a hymn. The story behind the text, as well as the text itself, is here. After spending the requisite months sitting in a "drafts" drawer while I got distracted by other things, and some help with editing from various people (Dr Christopher Parker at St Mary's Addington was particularly helpful), I think it's about as...

Song for October Ending

Byartsyhonker August 31, 2011 0 Comments
In around 2006 I wrote this SATB setting of a poem by my grandmother. The weather is a bit autumnal here today and a few people were talking about things they like about autumn, so I thought I'd post it even though it's two months early. SONG FOR OCTOBER ENDING For a season cold rain imprisons us; our lives circle around coffee cups, blue teapots, things simmering on the stove, baking in the...

Give Us Grace

Byartsyhonker September 23, 2010 0 Comments
Earlier this year, Rev Kathryn Fleming asked me to write something for the patronal festival of St Matthew's, Cainscross, which was this Tuesday. It needed to be something fairly simple, a round perhaps, something the congregation would be able to pick up quickly and sing at the service; it needed to be relevant to the occasion but useful for other situations as well.   I was happy to make an...

Two compositions

Byartsyhonker March 21, 2010 0 Comments
At some stage I will probably stop thinking of my life in terms of "since I finished at Trinity", but for now it's still such a change that I'm quite regularly struck by how different life is. One of the joys of having more control over my time is that I have been doing more composing. I have half a dozen things unfinished at the moment, but I've also written three pieces since December. One of...