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While the word ‘charm’ is mostly used to mean something pleasing, it can also mean an action thought to have magical power, or the chanting of a magic word or verse – an incantation. It can also be used as a collective noun, usually of birds.

This traditional text in Maori is a plea for the rain to depart and blue skies to appear. Preceding this, I have added several Maori terms for different types of rain – from misty rain through to drenching heavy rain. Rhythms in the work are often suggestive of typical Maori chant and kapahaka rhythms.

“A Charm for Rain: He Tua I Te Rangi” was written for Cantare (Westlake Girls’ High School) and conductor Fiona Wilson.

• David Hamilton: A Charm for Rain: He Tua I Te Rangi - hardcopy score 

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This piece was originally the fifth movement of a short Christmas cycle (“Angels and Shepherds and Wise Men All”) was written in 2012 for the end of year concert by South Auckland Choral Society to be conducted by the composer. The concert included my school choir, St Mary’s Schola, and I was keen to write something that the combined forces (including the soloists) in the concert could sing together.

The cycle doesn’t try to encapsulate the entire Christmas story, but focusses on those characters on the edge of the story – the angels, the shepherds and the wise man. In this piece, the characters who gathered around the infant Jesus are focussed on: the animals, the angels and the shepherds.

• David Hamilton: A Child Lay in a Little Crib - hardcopy score 

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• David Hamilton: A Child Lay in a Little Crib; audio 

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• The Treble Voice Choral Music of David Hamilton Vol. 4  Year: 2013 

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This is the second arrangement made of a song written around 1918 by Erima Maewa Kaihau (1879-1941). It follows on from E moe te ra made in 2007 – both pieces arranged at the request of David Gordon of Diocesan School for Girls. Erima Maewa Kaihau was also involved in the complex gestation of the song Now is the hour.

Akoako o te Rangi is also very much in the late Victorian tradition of ‘parlour ballads’ and owes little to traditional Maori song forms or styles. In fact the rather erratic word underlay of the Maori text suggests that the English version (hardly a translation though of the Maori) may have been te first made.

The text is short although there may have originally been further verses (the printed music, published in 1918, contains just the one verse). It is a love song – the scent of a loved one wafting on the breeze to awaken the sleeping lovelorn singer.

• Hamilton: Akoako o te Rangi; computer-set  Year: 2010 

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Using the traditional Ave Maria text this work gradually builds from unison, to two part, to three part. There are some uplifting key changes and the piece features a brief, but beautiful, a cappella section in the middle (optional accompaniment given).

• Lange: Ave Maria; computer set 

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By the Rivers of Babylon is a vocal setting of Psalm 137

• Graham Parsons: By the Rivers of Babylon (SSA or TTB) - hardcopy score 

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Twice a year we alter the clocks for daylight saving, so twice a year we have to battle with our digital clocks, each having its own particular method of adjustment.

• Parsons: Changing the Clocks - Trials of the Digital Age; computer-set 

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This sonnet, by Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), is part of a long sequence of poems titled “Astrophel and Stella”, which tracks the development of a love affair between the narrator (Astrophel) and the virtuous, intelligent, idealized Stella. Stella had a real-life counterpart who Sidney loved, yet eventually saw marry another man.

The thirty-ninth sonnet is “Come sleep. Oh sleep, the certain knot of peace” in which the narrator personifies Sleep. He prays that Sleep will come and release him from his current state of misery – only through sleep will he be able to be free from the war raging between his head and his heart, between reason and love. All he seeks is “…smooth pillows, a sweetest bed, a chamber deaf of noise and blind of light”. He rationalizes that he can entice Sleep by promising that the image of Stella will appear in his dreams, and Sleep will be able to watch. This would be the greatest tribute he could pay. The narrator prefers Stella to appear in his dreams, because he then need not face the reality that she is not his own.

“Come sleep. Oh sleep” was commissioned by Euphony (Kristin School, Auckland) and conductor David Squire.

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A setting of a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Lee. “Dopey” comes from the 2007 poetry collection “Yesno”, evoking – in the author’s words – “a world in which the demolition derby and the possibility of living more constructively in the natural order are both real. And at once. So, not just no; not just yes; but yesno.”

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Although Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetry is not as well known as it once was, his collection A Child’s Garden of Verses still stands as one of the most important early collections of poetry for young people. This fantastical poem tells of a child’s impressions of nighttime and the “thousands of millions of stars” which appear to be chasing him or her. Even when packed off to bed, the sight of the stars remains in the child’s mind’s eye. Several star constellations are named in the poem.

Escape at Bedtime was commissioned by Sydney Grammar School for the school’s music tour to New Zealand in 2011.

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In 2006 I wrote A Christmas Fanfare for a concert involving both Auckland Boys’ Choir and Auckland Girls’ Choir. This work for multiple choirs and orchestra was used successfully several times in annual Christmas concerts. In 2010 these two choirs decided to present their own Christmas concert. Rejecting the initial idea of re-scoring A Christmas Fanfare, I offered to write a new piece tailored to the needs of the two choirs, with organ accompaniment. Faithful Choir, Rejoicing Sing is the result.

The text, here in a modern English translation, dates from the twelfth century and is attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). I was drawn to the idea of an ancient text being delivered by fresh young voices. The text is a hymn of praise celebrating the birth of Christ.
Each of the voice parts first presents their own verse of the complete text. This is then followed by the four verses being sung simultaneously during a procession, in a kind of canonic texture. Following the procession the same music is heard once more with the parts coming in successively, and the whole piece ends with a final triumphant ‘Alleluia’.

David Hamilton

• Hamilton: Faithful Choir, Rejoicing Sing; computer-set  Year: 2010 

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