Piano reductions of choral music

Piano reductions are an important facet of our unaccompanied choral music at the Chichester Music Press, just as they are in other places. Almost all of the unaccompanied pieces in our catalogue have a piano reduction, and a lot of thought has gone into them over the years.

Our approach to them is to bear in mind that piano reductions are to be played by pianists. They are there to make the business of playing the choral parts on a piano easier. Some people can read happily off four or more staves, but piano reductions are there for the benefit of people who find it easier to play from two staves. And there’s no point in going to the trouble of producing a piano reduction for such people, only to sabotage it by setting it out in a way that’s not helpful for a pianist.

Who can play this? A giant or some kind of clever dick.

It’s very easy, especially in this day and age of using computers to prepare music, to copy from the choral staves onto the piano staves, have the soprano & alto in the right hand, the tenor & bass in the left, and leave it at that, as if you’re preparing a short score for a choir, rather than a piano reduction for a pianist. It requires no effort and no thought from the typesetter, but the result is rarely the most helpful solution for the pianist who’s going to have to play it. You’re likely to get impossible stretches in one hand (see right), which could easily be played by swapping a note into the other. That’s what the pianist is going to end up doing anyway, so just cut straight to the end result. It is much more helpful to try to gather the notes together for the hands that will play them.

There’s also no need to put stems up and stems down unless the rhythms are different, and as the most practical thing to do in general is to present the notes in the simplest way, notes should share stems where they can. The music in our piano reductions is presented pianistically, rather than vocally, because it’s for a pianist rather than a singer.

Piano reductions are often printed on smaller staves than the singers are singing from. That’s not something we do at the Chichester Music Press. The one person who stands to benefit from the piano reduction – the pianist – will not be grateful for it, especially as the stave size in our choral music is already towards the lower end of the normal range for choral music across the industry.

Dynamics are normally not shown in choral reductions except for very skeletal ones, and we don’t normally don’t put them in at all. We produce our piano reductions from the assumption that the pianist will play as quietly as he can get away with to support the choir. He’s not necessarily being required to play loud bits loudly and quiet bits quietly. The piano reduction is not, in normal circumstances, intended for performance.

In setting out these thoughts, I went once again to Elaine Gould’s wonderful Behind Bars book, and will now selectively pick out a few quotations that back up our position. (Anything she says that doesn’t back us up you can go and read for yourself. It begins on page 473.)

…notate the reduction in a pianistic way…

…distribute the vocal pitches conveniently for the hands…

…reduce the notation to its simplest form…

…join as many parts as have the same note-value onto a single stem…

…reduction requires minimal dynamics…

Jubilate by John Hosking, featuring tonic solfa

John Hosking’s latest addition to our catalogue is his setting of Jubilate (Psalm 100). This particular setting is in Welsh, and has been produced for Trelawnyd Male Voice Choir, who’ll be giving it its first performance in October 2013. The Jubilate, I need hardly remind you, is one of the canticles used at matins in the Anglican liturgy, and begins with the words ‘O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands’, and John’s setting is a real outburst of joy, both energetic and driven.

A feature of this edition is the tonic solfa (no relation of Oxford-based composer Solfa Carlile), included above the conventional notation. Music is very commonly notated in solfa in Wales (as it is apparently in parts of Africa). It’s possible to walk into some chapels in Wales, and find hymnals set out in SATB with not a note in them, but just page after page of solfa, and that’s all the congregation needs to be able to sing, in all four parts.

SATB with not a note in sight.

In principle, solfa is quite simple. You have the notes doh, rey, mi, fa, soh, la and ti, which correspond to the degrees of the major scale, and there are names for the various accidentals too, e.g. fi for a sharp fa and si for a sharp soh (mi and ti already have that i vowel, because they’re already as sharp as they can be without becoming the next degree of the scale). Then the bar is divided up into beats by colons, and if you want doh you write d at the right position of the bar. If a note carries on into the next beat, you show the continuation with a hyphen. Different octaves are shown by ticks after the note, either superscript or subscript for upper or lower octaves. Rests are shown simply by leaving gaps in the bar.

I don’t claim to know solfa well enough to be able to sing from it, but I have had to include it before in pieces I’ve typeset for other publishers (Welsh ones wrth reswm). Luckily, Sibelius has a plugin that can convert normal notation into a solfa line above the stave, which does the bulk of the work. It was written in 2000 by James Larcombe, and subsequently tinkered with by Sibelius’s Michael Eastwood and by me. James himself later worked for Sibelius, and is responsible for some of Sibelius’s more wizardlike features like Dynamic Parts. He now works for Steinberg, developing their music scoring application, and is no doubt being a wizard there as well. But I digress. The point is that Sibelius can do solfa, more or less.

The downside of using Sibelius for solfa is that you can only do it once the music is finished, or at least, if you add solfa before the music is finished and then change the music it was built from, the solfa won’t update, and you have to either fix it yourself or run the plugin again on that chunk. Another problem is that ties aren’t properly supported (they should be shown as straightforward hyphens, which show that the same note is supposed to continue, but in fact the note gets repeated when Sibelius does it). These and other little glitches mean you have to be very careful with solfa in Sibelius, especially if you don’t know solfa well enough that any mistakes are obvious.

Solfa also takes up extra space. For this reason, this Welsh version of Jubilate is produced in A4 form, which is unusual for a choral piece that only lasts 8 pages, and it has a card cover to support what would otherwise be quite flappy pages. The result is a good and practical product, and I’m proud of having been able to include solfa in this version of Jubilate. I hope it makes the music even more accessible to singers, in Wales and beyond.

My thanks go to Bob Zawalich for uncovering some solfa resources for me during the preparation of this work, Meinir Wyn Thomas and family for being willing to raid their family hymnal collection, and James Larcombe for writing the Sibelius solfa plugin.

Copies of Jubilate (the TTBB version in Welsh) by John Hosking can be ordered here.

Steinberg’s new blog

I’ve written before about Sibelius. It is at the very heart of everything we do at the Chichester Music Press, and as a plugin writer I can even say I’ve written bits of it. I’ve come to know the people behind it, and so was very distressed when they were shed by Avid last year.

As upset as I was then, I was delighted in the same measure when the team was taken on wholesale by Steinberg, with the specific intention of producing a competing product of their own. I was greatly relieved on a personal level, because my friends and colleagues had been spared losing their livelihoods, but also on a professional level, because they are quite simply a great team with a proven track-record in conceiving and building innovative functions into Sibelius, keeping Sibelius at the cutting edge of music scoring software, right up to the moment Avid decided it was better off without them.

Time passes. Daniel Spreadbury has now launched a blog, called Keeping Score, in which he will detail the transplanted team’s plans for their new application. Unencumbered by an increasingly ageing codebase, they are ploughing ahead building their programme from scratch. It already sounds wondrous. I got such a buzz when reading it I even used the A-word in the blog’s comments, even though it’s Lent!

I look forward to jumping ship as soon as the opportunity arises.

Seasonal performances

The period around Christmas is arguably the busiest time for church musicians. Here’s a list of the performances of Chichester Music Press music we know about this Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. If you can fill in any details of any of these, or you know of a performance I’ve missed out altogether, please leave a message in the comments.

Dormi Jesu, by Victoria Larley (Preview, order.)

• St Richard’s Church in Chichester, at their ‘Midnight Mass’ (10.30pm on Christmas Eve)
• St Richard’s Church, either on the Feast of the Holy Family or at Epiphany, to be confirmed.
• St John’s Chapel, Chichester on Sunday 23 December, sung by the choir of St Paul’s Church, Chichester
• St Paul’s Church, Chichester on Christmas Day.

Missa Sancti Asaph, by John Hosking  (Preview, order.)

• Cathedral of St Asaph, at their Midnight Mass.
• Separate movements from the mass are being performed in the cathedral’s liturgy in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Mass From Verbena, Neil Sands (Preview, order.)

• Every Sunday throughout Advent at St Richard’s Church, Chichester, at 10am.

As I Lay Upon A Night, Jamie W. Hall (Preview, order.)

• Chichester Cathedral, sung by Chantry Quire, on Sunday 9 December, at 6pm. Admission is free (it’s the St Wilfrid’s Hospice carol service).
• St Paul’s Church, Chichester, sung by Chantry Quire, on Sunday 16 December, starting at 7pm. Admission free.

O Magnum Mysterium, Edward-Rhys Harry (Preview, order.)

• Arundel Cathedral, at their Midnight Mass.

O Magnum Mysterium, by John Hosking. (Preview, order.)

• Epiphany service at Chester Cathedral (sung by the Nave Choir).

Personent Hodie, by James Webb (Preview, order.)

• Hull Collegiate School on Monday 17 December.

Remember

Remember, by Edward-Rhys Harry

Edward-Rhys Harry’s latest piece is a setting of Christina Rossetti’s text Remember, which he wrote for the Child Bereavement UK charity. It’s for SATB and piano. It’s a pensive piece, intended to provide its first audience, at a concert in aid of Child Bereavement UK, an opportunity to pause, reflect and remember. As the composer says, it’s:

Reflective, sensitive but ultimately leading the listener to accept Rossetti’s words of comfort, and encouragement to be happy – yes even in loss.

I wrote about this piece recently in a blog article, and Rossetti’s words are quoted there, together with a little background about their origin. You can also read there about the various front covers we were considering using for the score.

The one we settled on in the end is the one with a child in a swing, reaching out towards an empty swing next to him. You can’t help but wonder what thoughts and feelings he is carrying, and to want to try to comfort him in his loss.

This cover didn’t go down universally well with everyone in his family, but I can now exclusively reveal, as if you hadn’t guessed, that he’s my family as well, and I’m fine with it, partly because I don’t see a creepy image of a blurry boy reaching out for his absent friend, but my son, who posed very nicely when I asked him too, but couldn’t quite do it without a smile on his face. That was one of the reasons for blurring that part of the picture – a practical matter, as well as for the disturbing effect it has. I’m posting the original photo below. It’s the way I remember the scene whenever I look at the cover, and I hope it dispels some ghosts for anyone disquieted by the altered version on the cover itself.

No ghosts here – just a little fella having a giggle

Copies of Remember can be ordered from this order form.

O Magna Mysteria – Our two settings of O Magnum Mysterium

No one can accuse us of not publishing enough settings of O Magnum Mysterium – we now have no fewer than two (2) in the catalogue. The first one, which has been there a little while and was first performed in 2007, is by Edward-Rhys Harry. The second, which has been there for about 15 hours as I write this, is by John Hosking.

John and Edward are very different composers. One is Welsh working in England, while the other is English working in Wales. One is an organ specialist, holding positions in more than one place including St Asaph Cathedral, while the other is a choral conducting specialist with five choirs at his command, including the London Welsh Chorale.

O Magnum Mysterium – John Hosking

So it’s no surprise that their two settings are very different from each other. To turn to the new one first: John’s O Magnum Mysterium begins with a smouldering organ introduction, with rising figures in Eb minor (Cb, please, don’t forget), which conjures up a flavour of mysticism, building as the voices enter to a climactic ‘et admirabile sacramentum’ (‘and wonderful sacrament‘). Plainsong fragments in the organ (Hodie Christus natus est and Dominum natum) help to add to the mystical sense of the piece, which finishes with a slow build-up in pitch and volume to a final, triumphant ‘Alleluia’. As so often in John Hosking’s work, the organ, and in particular the colours that come from his very carefully crafted registrations, are a headline feature.

You can listen to John’s O Magnum Mysterium on YouTube here.

Edward-Rhys Harry

If you thought Eb minor was a long way round the cycle of 5ths, you ought to hear Edward-Rhys Harry’s setting of the same text, which begins in Ab minor – as flat as you can go without having double flats in the key signature (and they’re not even allowed there). What is it about this text and flat keys? In contrast to John Hosking’s setting, this one is largely homophonic, relying not on a busy organist for its colour but on the exquisite harmony. It’s not difficult harmony – far from it – for the singers, and their parts move to a large extent by step above a supporting piano part, but the result is a very expressive, contemplative start to the piece. The effect is abruptly changed with the arrival of the words ‘Dominim Christum’, which are faster, louder, generally bolder and more energetic, before the piece recovers its former tranquillity for the ending.

Both pieces are being performed over the coming weeks, and I commend them to you most highly. We’ll be hearing more from both Edward-Rhys Harry and John Hosking very soon.

Interview with William Morris

We recently published Ring Out, Ye Crystal Spheres, text by John Milton, and music by our very own William Morris. It was given its first performance by Carl Jackson & the choir of Hampton Court Chapel in 2011, and by all accounts it went down well, with one of the singers remarking that the piece was eminently singable on the short rehearsal time available, and Carl himself commenting on the approachability of the piece’s contemporary idiom. Copies of Ring Out, Ye Crystal Spheres can be ordered here.

William, who is a very eclectic musician, and who has several other works in our catalogue, kindly agreed to let me interview him, and our discussion follows below:

Q. What’s your first musical memory?

I don’t know which memory came first but I can think of two influencing moments from my early life. I remember when I was very young my father spending time with me one weekend and playing me a record of Tchaikowsky’s 1812 Overture. He was a man who hid his emotions a lot but I clearly remember him getting very animated and excited as the music moved him. I think it was this that made me realise the power of music and made me connect it with making my father happy.

It was around that time when I saw the Bugs Bunny cartoon What’s Opera, Doc? It is entirely based on the music of Wagner and it was hilarious, yet the music was incredibly powerful all at the same time. It showed me that even the most inflated music could also be a source of humour. That same sense of humour tends to pervade everything I do now (for better or worse).

William Morris

Q. You were a chorister at Temple Church in London, where Walford Davies, George Thalben-Ball and the late John Birch were all organists. Can you describe your time there? How do you feel it equipped you for professional music?

It was an odd time really. I was there during John Birch’s tenure and we had some amazing experiences. In my first year aged 11 we sang on BBC radio, on an early Channel 4 film (with most of the cast of Four Weddings!), sang for the Queen and I’d sung solo with the Royal Choral Society on a tour of Poland. On the flip side I am now aware that John Birch wasn’t completely happy during this time and I think this atmosphere filtered down to the choristers.

The services were intellectual but spiritually dry, being conducted by a very learned and elderly Master and Reader. We had a congregation of about ten people on a weekly basis which included Thalben-Ball and Ernest Lough. In fact the former died while I was head chorister and I sang solos at his Temple Church funeral and St Paul’s Cathedral memorial service.

The quality of the music was first class and my experience gave me an early grounding in what constitutes a professional standard. Despite this though it was very isolated from an audience and was like performing in a vacuum. It was only when discovering musical theatre in my final year at university (not great timing for my finals!) that I realised how engaged an audience could be and how much fun it was.

Q. Your Gouache and the Night Sky and The Two Hermiones, among other things, are the results of collaborations with Susan Pleat & Simon Warne. How do you find the experience of working collaboratively, as opposed to working on your own?

Collaboration is an enjoyable and important part of my work as a musician. When you struggle with a musical problem like a piece of counterpoint you want to get just right, when it finally comes good you have a rush of satisfaction but ultimately you’re the only person who really knows what you went through to get to that point. When you collaborate with others to reach a common aim and struggle through different issues you get to share the satisfaction of completion whether the other people on the team are musicians or not. That’s a lovely feeling of connection!

Ring Out, Ye Crystal Spheres

Q. Ring Out, Ye Crystal Spheres, which is now published by the Chichester Music Press, was commissioned by the Kingston Festival Of The Voice and first performed under Carl Jackson. I remember Carl when he was a mere assistant organist at Croydon Parish Church in my own chorister days. What was it like working with him and the Chapel Royal?

As you might imagine it was a very businesslike exchange with each of us comfortable in the assumption that the other knew what they were doing. I had relatively little to do with the choir itself as I was working to a brief set by the Festival.

At the premiere itself the organ playing was brilliant, the direction spot on and the choir did amazingly well with what is a very challenging piece. The service had a very full, balanced programme and as is often the case with professional choirs they had to put it all together in only an hour’s rehearsal. If any choir likes a challenge and is planning to perform it in the future do get in touch; I hope you particularly enjoy the ‘nine-fold harmony’ in the middle!

Q. You have a long background in Christian music, but also you founded the choir of the British Humanist Association, which sang works of yours for Robin Ince’s 9 Lessons & Carols for Godless People. Does it get uncomfortable being so active in these two opposing traditions?

The key was I never saw them as opposing traditions. The highest aspect of any religion is the philosophy of morality and that is the same in the highest aspects of humanism. Whilst working for the BHA I always tried to celebrate the things which unite us as humans as opposed to the things that divide us. In ’96 I spent a year in India with a lot of different faiths and something I believe passionately is that everyone has the right to believe what they chose to if it doesn’t restrict another person’s right to their beliefs.

As a result I was a lot less interested in the political campaigning side of the BHA. If you’re not careful it gets dangerously close to telling other people what they should be thinking which ironically is a common criticism that was levelled at religion. It’s also hard to write a song celebrating what people are against or negative about. I much preferred writing about the wonders of nature and the more noble human instincts, something which is common to all faiths and humanism alike.

Q. What kind of music do you listen to for pleasure?

Hmm! Not sure I do anymore. I don’t know if all professional musicians have this problem but I find it very difficult to switch off when listening to music. It’s got to the point now where I can see the music written down as it’s being played and I find I can’t stop it. I would love to be able to go back to when I was younger when I could just experience the music in the way it was intended and enjoy the wonder of it again. A pleasure I do get is seeing my three and a half year old son and now my 8 month old daughter enjoying the music I’ve written for them. I can experience the wonder of music all over again through their perspective.

The music I most admire now is film music. It is written in the most part by highly skilled composers who have studied their craft for years and they will employ the complete palette of musical styles available often in extremely challenging timeframes. Even in mainstream films you can hear styles as diverse as twelve tone techniques to advanced computer generated music. Unfortunately the vast majority of film music is cliched quasi 19th century symphonic music and the popular perception is that that is the extent of the repertoire. I’m fairly confident that the best quality film music will be listened to for generations to come while the mediocre will fade away in the same way all classical music has been judged and sorted for centuries.

Q. Like me, you’re a father of two small children. When do you find time to do any work?

Very difficult! As soon as you sit at the piano there are little ‘helpers’ who want to get in on the fun. I am very lucky in having an extremely supportive wife who is also a keen music fan. She has on many occasions taken the children and dog out to the park to let me work with a semblance of a studious atmosphere! I owe her a lot and fortunately she loves what I write so I win both ways! If I’m working on an important piece though I find I can’t sleep at night if there are ideas flying around. It’s usually nice and quiet at 3 in the morning!

Q. You are a very eclectic musician and have fingers in lots of pies. Can you pick your favourite musical activity?

As a composer it is lovely to see a piece you have spent time with finally come to the page in the form you hoped it would when you started it. There is a fear as you write that you won’t be able to get your ideas down on the page in time to capture it at its best. Hearing it performed is then the cherry on the top but as it has spent so much time in your head sometimes it is difficult to match the reality and practicalities of a performance with the way you hear it in your mind’s ear.

However nothing can match the sheer joy of performance when you truly feel connected to a room, whether it is a polished professional performance or a rousing sing song round the piano surrounded by family and friends, fuelled by some quality wine.