The London office of Ricordi, the music publisher famous for its Italian operas, has launched a new choral music library.  It currently features four British contemporary composers, Andrew Gant, Edwin Roxburgh, Francis Pott, and Peter Brown, as well as including some of the great opera choruses in arguably the best editions.

The Ricordi Choral Library includes two sacred pieces by Andrew Gant.  The first is the Evening Service written for Hendon Parish Church, for SATB choir with organ. It is a beautiful setting of the Songs of Mary and Simeon of only moderate difficulty, and the Magnificat also incorporates the medieval poem There is no rose of such vertu.  This section is written as a duet for sopranos, and can be omitted, although its inclusion enhances the work, particularly when it is performed as a concert piece.

The other piece by Gant in the collection is The Strength of the Hills, a setting of the morning canticle, Venite Exultemus, again for SATB choir and organ.  Although it could be sung during Mattins as a canticle, it is perhaps more suitable as an anthem, or indeed as a concert piece. Again, there is an optional cut, this time of verses seven to ten of Psalm 95, the Venite text.

Other titles in the series include Fall before the manger, a peaceful carol for SATB choir with piano or organ from Peter Brown.  The first verse is given primarily to the altos, and the tenors take the melody in the second, the other three parts humming the harmonies. The altos share the third verse with the sopranos, with the full choir joining together for the climax towards the end. Also on the Christmas theme are the Three Nativity Carols which Edwin Roxburgh wrote for the Chantry Singers of Bath, Noel, I sing of a Maiden, and Make we Joy.  For a cappella SATB choir, these are varied and very approachable.

More complex, but incredibly beautiful are the three pieces by Francis Pott. A Meditation extracts texts from seventeenth-century writer Thomas Traherne's Centuries of Meditations and sets them for unaccompanied SATB choir with some divisions.  O Sing unto the Lord a New Song is an anthem set to texts from Psalms 98 and 96 for SATB chorus.  This is a bright and lively anthem in which the middle section includes parts for two choirs.  The third title by Pott is for two SATB choirs throughout of the twelfth-century hymn text Jesu, the Very Thought of Thee.  A performance of this motet by the Schola Cantorum of Oxford is available from Guild Music.

And finally, there is a new arrangement entitled Stabat Mater. In 1958 Remo Giazotto composed a work for organ and strings based upon two thematic ideas and a figured base by eighteenth-century composer Tomaso Albinoni.  This work is generally referred to as the Albinoni Adagio, and it has now been arranged by Owain Arwel Hughes for SATB chorus to words from the Stabat Mater.  The beautiful melody lends itself perfectly to the sound of the human voice, and the result is a satisfying sing for choral groups large or small, and professional or amateur, which can be performed with piano or organ, or with the original string orchestra.

[Home] [Who We Represent] [Contact Us] [Links]