Search Music:

This work was written at the request of conductor Elise Bradley for her highly regarded choir Key Cygnetures at Westlake Girls High School (Auckland).

It was intended for a ‘mid-winter Christmas’ concert which was to also feature Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. I therefore felt happy to turn to Christmas texts with some of the more traditional Christmas references (snow etc).

The first text is from the fifteenth century and is a general text mentioning Mary, the manger, the wise men, and the gifts they brought, and ends with call to delight in the Christ child. The second text, by G.K. Chesterton contains images of snow and night, and ends with the line that gives the work its overall title. The third text is a variant of the carol ‘I saw three ships come sailing in’ and may refer either to the medieval myth that Joseph and Mary travelled to England, or obliquely to purported journeys of the relics of the wise men. The fourth text is a lullaby by nineteenth century poet John Addington Symonds. Again the wise men and their gifts are mentioned along with the shepherds. The final text is another anonymous one, and is simply a brief and energetic welcome to ’heaven’s King’.

• Hamilton: A Child Comes Forth; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 2 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Hamilton: Dear Santa (How's It Looking?); computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Hamilton: Dear Santa; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 3  Year: 2011 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

This setting of the Kyrie from the Latin Mass is the first movement of ‘Missa semplice’. Having had for some time an intention to compose a Mass setting of modest proportions, in 2006 I wrote the work incorporating some other texts in English. The work was originally scored for three-part mixed voices (SAB). This re-working of ‘Kyrie’ for treble voices was made for Rangitoto College’s choir ‘Perfect Fourths’ at the request of conductor Bianca Abelskamp.

• Hamilton: Missa semplice; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Hamilton: Missa semplice; computer set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• David Hamilton - Music for Mixed Voice Choirs Vol. 1 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• David Hamilton: Missa semplice (2006)  Year: 2007 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

This work sets a poem by New Zealand poet Ruth Gilbert. The poem is in two verses – the first having a questioning and searching tone, while the second presents the resolution. Love is at the centre of the text: for it is love that is the “rose that will not die” and the “house not made with hands”.
The text begins:
Find me the rose that will not die,
The tree no axe can fell,
The spring no Summer’s drought shall dray,
And this last miracle: …

• Hamilton: Not Made With Hands; computer set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 2 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

The true origins of this Irish text are lost in the mists of time although it is generally agreed to date from around the 9th century. Amongst the various stories of its origins are that it was written by an Irish monk in Austria (or maybe Switzerland), in the margin of a manuscript (or maybe on the back of a page), and in Irish. One story even suggests it was written while the monk was working on the Book of Kells (almost certainly false though).

The poem was originally in a form of Gaelic and the generally acknowledged best translation is by the scholar Robin Flower (1881-1946) – an English poet and translator from the Irish language. The name of the cat, Pangur Ban, simply means ‘white Pangur’ or ‘white cat’, Pangur being a common name for a cat. In translation the cat is referred to as male – a talented tomcat!

One source sums up the poem this way:
Sometimes called ‘The Monk and his Cat’, the poem Pangur Ban was written by an Irish monk, in the 9th century. It details the similarities between the scribe hunting appropriate words and solutions, and his pet cat hunting mice.

Pangur Ban was written at the request of conductor Jane Money for Boston City Singers in the USA.

• Hamilton: Pangur Ban; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Hamilton: Pangur Ban; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 2 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

This short piece was written at the request of conductor Elise Bradley for the NZ Secondary Students’ Choir. The choir had been invited to sing in a broadcast performance while on their 2006 tour, and needed a short work on the subject of peace. The central part of the text for the work is the ‘Prayer for Peace’ which first appeared in England in the early 1980s. It is of unknown origin, and has no direct link with any particular religious or spiritual group. Added to this short text, is the ‘Dona nobis pacem’ from the Latin Mass, and a pair of lines in the Maori language from the Anglican communion service.

• Hamilton: Prayer for Peace; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• Hamiton: Prayer for Peace; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• David Hamilton - Music for Mixed Voice Choirs Vol. 1 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• 2005/06 New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir: Choral Champions  Year: 2006 

  CD
  
  $22.50
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

This short Christmas setting was requested for Bella Voce, one of the choirs in the Junior School at Diocesan School for Girls, Auckland. The music makes much use of canons as a simple way to achieve a two-part texture.

The short text is by Marion Schoeberlein, an American writer and poet who has featured in a number of anthologies. It suggests that some of the traditional images of Christmas are an essential part of the experience of Christmas day.

• Hamilton: Tell Me Again; computer-set 

  Full score | Hardcopy - computer set
  
  • Borrow

• Hamilton: Tell Me Again (the Story of Christmas); computer set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 3  Year: 2011 

  CD
  
  $15.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

I was inspired to write this piece after seeing Tim Hope’s remarkable award-winning animation The Wolfman, in which a scientist becomes bewitched by the moon’s intoxicating appearance at the end of his telescope, and subsequently becomes a wolf who crashes through planets on his carbon rocket. I have also been interested in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, which also talks of moonlight as being the wine which one drinks with one’s eyes. I have sought to use the choir to evoke a ritualistic atmosphere of a community becoming bewitched by the moon, and, in their state of intoxication, paying homage to it and endeavouring to become part of it.

I particularly wanted to use the choir in a way that would make them sound less like a spotlessly melodious well-blended choir and more like a wildly theatrical soundscape generator.

Claire Scholes

• Scholes: The Bewitching Moon; facsimile 

  Full score | Pdf - facsimile
  
  $8.00
  • • Quantity:

• Scholes: The Bewitching Moon; facsimile 

  Full score | Hardcopy - facsimile
  
  $8.00
  • • Quantity:
  • Borrow

• Claire Scholes: Two Works by Claire Scholes 

  CD
  
  • Borrow

When I chanced upon a copy of the book The Dragons are Singing Tonight I was immediately entranced by the poems and struck by their possibility for musical setting. Jack Prelutsky is an American poet, whose poetry for children is highly regarded and widely anthologized. Although not a cycle, the poems have a sense of progression through the book.

I have tried to retain that same kind of logical progression in my selection of about half of the original set of poems. The first two movements are performed without a break between them. The brief opening section serves as a caution to the listener and is followed by a description of one’s thoughts while waiting for a dragon egg to hatch. The third poem was initially set for treble voices for the choirs of Westlake Girls High School in Auckland. Although it was not originally intended for this work, I finally decided I liked it too much to leave out! Boom! the thunder dragon’ is a purely instrumental description of the dragon who claims “I am Boom the thunder dragon, taller than the tallest trees, I stir mighty whirlwinds when I whisper, mighty cyclones when I sneeze…”. The fifth piece is a lament by a dragon who is tired of being “repulsive, despicable, ruthless and fierce…”. Unfortunately he realises he can’t change his nature!

One of the early concert reviews of the work suggested that the work “went into a more pensive mood” in the second half. Therefore I’ve incorporated into the score I Have a Dozen Dragons’ between the original fifth and sixth movements. This was originally written for treble voices as an independent piece, and here retains that use of just the sopranos and altos. It’s a lively tale of someone buying a dozen (very small) dragons at the mall. The following piece gives the work its title and tells of the dragons awaking in their underground lair for their one special night of the year. The final movement suggests that while dragons were once believed in, their time is now over and they’ve lived their last. Or have they?

The Dragons are Singing Tonight was commissioned by Auckland Choral Society (conductor: Peter Watts) with funding provided by Creative New Zealand for a combined concert with one of the country’s top brass bands. The orchestral version was made in 2006 for the same choir to perform in its 2007 concert season. The texts from The Dragons are Singing Tonight are used by kind permission of the poet and Greenwillow Books, New York (a division of Harper Collins). The Dragons are Singing Tonight was first performed on 29 June 1996 by Auckland Choral Society and Fosters Auckland Brass, conducted by Peter Watts.

• Hamilton: The Dragons are Singing Tonight; computer-set 

  Full score | Pdf - computer set
  

• David Hamilton: The Dragons are Singing Tonight 

  CD
  
  • Borrow