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10 carol arrangements for mixed voices
Bob Chilcott
Vocal score
£9.25
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Songs and Cries of London Town
Here's fine rosmary, sage, and thyme
Vocal score
56 pages
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279x216mm
978-0-19-343297-0
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Paperback
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19 July 2001
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for SATB choir, upper voice choir, piano duet, and optional percussion
This is a vibrant and varied choral cantata in five movements. Together the movements evoke a contemporary impression of London's sights, sounds, and moods. The music is irresistible, by turns contemplative and thrilling.
All adult performers sing or play from the vocal score, which is also available on hire. The upper voice parts are published separately as London Bells. Forces or CategorySATB, upper voices, piano duet, & optional percussionDuration16
minutesDifficultyEasy to Moderately difficultProgramme NotesThe driving force for this piece is the poems - the first and last are poems for street cries. They were both originally set by Orlando Gibbons - I have adapted the last poem, but the first is as Gibbons set it.
I love the character, colour and humour of the poems, and have tried to reflect these characteristics with bustling, rhythmic music. This also applies to the middle song for the children's choir , London Bells, a well-known song which again drives along in this setting. The two slower movements The Flower of Cities all and the
famous Wordsworth poem written on Westminster Bridge reflect more wistful and calm sentiments. Ironically the first of these poems by William Dunbar, which paints such a serene view of London is written by a Scotsman. The Wordsworth poem is magical - when I was a student in London I used to sing in the choir of St Margaret's, Westminster, and for a short time in the choir of Westminster Abbey. I used to walk across Westminster Bridge from Waterloo Station on a Sunday morning. The atmosphere of the Wordworth poem was as poignant and real then as it surely was when it was written almost two hundred years before that time.
© Bob Chilcott
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press
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Bob Chilcott (b.1955) Bob Chilcott has been involved with choral music all his life, first as a Chorister and then a Choral Scholar at King's College, Cambridge. Later, he sang and composed music for 12 years with the King's Singers. His experiences with that group, his passionate commitment to young and amateur choirs, and his profound belief that music can unite people, have inspired him both to compose full-time and, through proactive workshopping, to promote choral music worldwide.Bob Chilcott's website
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"Bob Chilcott's Songs and Cries of London Town is described tongue-in-cheekily in the frontispiece as a 'capital' choral cantata. With London as its subject matter it is that, most certainly. It is also 'capital' in the old fogeyish sense of the word - good, very good . . . This is a work that would amply reward the attentions of any good choral society or strong school choir searching for a show-stopping 15-minute work with which to finish a concert." - Christopher Field, Music Teacher, August 02 "The music for the upper-voice choir, in the third and fifth movements, simple and in unison for the most part, gives a good opportunity for youngsters to join adults in a concerted work - an increasingly popular format. For the SATB
singers the challenges of tricky rhythm and occasional sly modulation would soon be surmounted, given the expertly grateful and encouraging part writing . . . Throughout, the music is unfailingly attractive, with lively ostinatos and cross-rhythms in the fast movements and, equally characteristic of Bob Chilcott's work, a delicate lyricism in the slow ones. This would be a happy, light-hearted and not too demanding item for a celebratory programme." - Howard Layfied, Mastersinger Spring 2002
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Come buy
The flower of Cities all
London bells
Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
Good morrow!
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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