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Philip Norman  

A Man Who is Fifty

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 2001
for TTBB choir and piano

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Jonathan Crehan  

Amazing Grace

 Year: 2009
arranged for TTBB and a solo voice with piano accompaniment

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David Hamilton  

Ballad (O What is that Sound?)

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2006
for TBB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    If the choir is large enough to balance the sound, a snare drum may be added ad lib.
  • Programme Note

    This short work for 3-part male voices and piano sets a text by poet W.H. Auden. The text tells of the gradual approach of a group of soldiers and suggests a time of war in an earlier era of English history.

    The text is essentially a conversation, with most verses beginning with the question ‘O what is….?’ the answers detailing the progress of those approaching: have they stopped at the doctor, or the parson, or the farmer? The first character becomes more frantic towards the end, as the second decides it is time to leave: ‘…I promised to love you, dear, but I must be leaving’.

    Poet W.H. Auden was born in England but spent much of his life in the USA, having become an American citizen after his move there in 1939. His first book of poems appeared in 1928, with his 1930 collection ‘Poems’ firmly establishing his reputation. He served in the Spanish Civil War, and throughout his life was prolific as a poet, playwright, essayist, librettist and editor.

    The work should be sung with a sense of slowly increasing menace and danger. It should also have a gradually increasing intensity through to the climax at the second to last verse. The first verse may be sung as a solo, by all the tenors, or by the entire choir in unison. The piano part should give the impression of a drum, and, if the choir is large enough to balance the sound, a snare drum may be added ad lib.

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Jonathan Crehan  

Blame it on my Youth

Duration: 02' 30" Year: 2009
for TTB choir and piano

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David Hamilton  

Bring Us In Good Ale

 Year: 2009
for TBB, congas and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    Although on a surface merely a drinking song, this is really an early Christmas piece from the ‘wassail’ tradition. A wassail was a toast or a drink associated with Christmas festivities, and the term could also be applied to the drink itself: “a punch made of sweetened ale or wine heated with spices and roasted apples”. The text is probably from the time of Henry VI (1421-1471).

    When the text was printed in a carol collection in the 1851, the editor cautioned:

    “Good ale, however, like most other things when taken in excess, is attended by certain inconveniences, as the following song….will serve to explain.”

    Bring Us In Good Ale was written for Mainly Men of Rangitoto College (Auckland), and conductor David Squire.

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David Hamilton  

Crumpy!

 Year: 2000
for TTBB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    Barry Crump, who died in 1996, occupies a unique place in New Zealand’s literary history. His fiction captured the essence of the country’s rural life, and he was a best selling author from the time “A Good Keen Man” appeared in 1960. Less well-known is his poetry, especially the ballads which have been favourably compared to those of Australian Banjo Patterson. In his introduction to the volume “Song of a Drifter and other ballads”, poet Kevin Ireland writes:

    “…Crump’s words belong to an age-long folk tradition of ballads and songs, and his use of these forms is authentic. There is no false note in his lines and rhymes. They mean what they say, and they catch exactly the way he spoke and figured things out, the way he meant his writing to communicate and to be instantly approachable…There’s nothing scrubbed and tidy and ironed out about the way he wrote.”

    These three settings follow on from my setting of “Song of a Drifter”. The subject matter is again uniquely New Zealand with the unself-conscious use of local place names and colloquialisms. The first song is a tale of the experiences of a sheep musterer and the harshness of his life at Bullock Creek. The music is accompanied mostly by simple rolled chords, with the melody suggesting a rhythmic folk-chant. The second song no doubt grew out of Crump’s series of television advertisements for the Toyota car company. In these, he was generally seen driving enthusiastically over (often impossibly) rugged terrain accompanied by a terrified passenger. It is set in a lively style with a hint of the music hall. The final song is a ballad about a stray dog who never quite loses the wild and mean side of his nature, and comes to an ironically inauspicious end.

    “Crumpy!” was written for the recently formed National Male Choir of New Zealand (conductor Pete Rainey). The texts are used by kind permission of Crump’s widow Maggie Crump.

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David Hamilton  

Every Day'll Be Sunday

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 2006
for TBB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    This short work was commissioned for the choir of Rosmini College in Auckland. Conductor Christine Treseder-Hallett, and Head of Music Sue Williams, asked for a work for male voices that was limited to three-part choir, with the possibility of some solos for featured voices. Once again I’ve turned to traditional spirituals from the African American tradition for my text. This short text is typical with its repeated refrain of ‘bye and bye’ and looks forward to a future time when ‘every day will be Sunday’. The accompani-ment features a ‘walking bass’ against which the right hand has considerable syncopation.

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David Hamilton  

I Watched a Televangelist

 Year: 2000, r. 2004
for TTBB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Instrumentation
    original version for SATB and piano
  • Programme Note

    American poet Jack Prelutsky is best known for his numerous anthologies of children’s poetry. Since 1996 I have set a number of his poems, most substantially in the cycle for choir and brass band ‘The Dragons are Singing Tonight’ and ’Monday’s Troll’ for choir and orchestra. However he has also written poems for older readers, some of which appeared as the 1991 collection ’’There’ll be a Slight Delay’ and other poems for grown-ups’. In this collection are musings on various facets of contemporary life: everything from sexual infidelity to what dogs do on footpaths! ‘I Watched a Televangelist’ is a commentary on the typical (American) television preacher. Out to get your money, they promise salvation in return for your contribution, although perhaps not as blatantly as the one in the poem. The music includes passing references to several hymns, the ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus, and suggests the style of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’. The original version of this piece was written for Auckland choir GALS (Gay and Lesbian Singers) many of whose members, I felt, would respond to the text’s somewhat jaundiced view of religion. This re-working for male voices was made in 2004.

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David Hamilton  

I'm A-Going to Join the Band

Duration: 04' 00" Year: 2005
for solo bass voice, TTB choir and piano

Score Sample
  • Programme Note

    This is the third of 3 spirituals written early in 2005 with secondary school choirs in mind. Each takes a text from the Afro-American tradition of spirituals and sets it in a style suggestive of that tradition. The other two works are ‘Sunday Morning Band’ and ‘Witness for my Lord’. As with the other pieces written around the same time, the voicing here is aimed at developing choirs or choirs with limited resources, in this case three part male voices rather than the more common TTBB layout. A solo bass (or baritone) voice takes a significant role in the piece, with the choir parts remaining fairly repetitive from verse to verse. After a slightly slower introduction, the music is underpinned by a strongly rhythmic piano part throughout. The text talks of joining a band, the band of those who belong to God. There are references to typical images of the spirituals, the Jordan river, Joshua’s well-known battle, and Galilee.

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Cheryl Camm  

Maggie's Rant

 Year: 2008
for TBB choir with piano accompaniment

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