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ALLAN BEVAN, composer

Echo

9/2/2017

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Voicing: SSAA and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Published by: Cypress Choral Music, CP1083 (2002)
Retail: Sheet Music Plus; Musical Resources Online; J. W. Pepper; Music Mart;
Notes: The Association of Canadian Choral Conductors Composition Competition 2002 first-prize winner, this work was composed in 2001 and premiered at Podium 2002 in Toronto by the National Youth Choir, Lydia Adams, conductor.
Echo is the final piece in Allan Bevan's trilogy, For a Dream's Sake. Echo can be performed separately, or with its two companion pieces: An End and Mirage.

View the complete score at Cypress Choral Music
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.


Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.


Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!




Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor; Pamela Reimer, piano; recorded on: Allan Bevan, Parlez-Moi (2011).
Performed by: The Manitou Singers of St. Olaf College, Dr. Sigrid Johnson, conductor; recorded on St. Olaf Records Repertoire for Women's Voices, Vol. 7 (2011)

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Christina Rossetti
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Parlez-Moi, arr.

2/21/2017

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Voicing: SSA and piano; SATB and piano
Text and Melody: France Levasseur-Ouimet
Level: Moderately Easy
Published by: Cypress Choral Music  CP 1217;
Retail: Sheet Music Plus; The Leading Note;  Northwest Musical Services; Panamusica;
Notes: Allan Bevan's arrangement of France Levasseur-Ouimet's "Parlez-Moi", was commissioned by Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc in 2010. This famous children's choir has sung the work in France, Spain and South Korea. There is also a newer version of the piece (2013) for SATB chorus also published by Cypress Choral Music (CP 1265). 
France Levasseur-Ouimet is a gifted francophone songwriter who lives in Edmonton. Allan Bevan and Dr. Levasseur-Ouimet have collaborated on many occasions over the past decade.

Notes: l'arrangement de Allan Bevan de France Levasseur-Ouimet "Parlez-Moi", a été commandé par Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc en 2010. Ce chœur d'enfants célèbres a chanté le travail en France, en Espagne et en Corée du Sud. Il ya aussi une version pour choeur SATB (CP 1265). La version SATB a été achevée en 2013.
France Levasseur-Ouimet est un auteur-compositeur francophone de talent qui vit à Edmonton.


"Je cherche un peu partout
Dans l’espoir de trouver
Quelqu’un qui connaît bien la mer et son halein’ salée
Qui pourrait bien me dire
Pour quoi j’ai dans la peau
Le bruit des vagues sur la plage
Le chant liquide et pur de l’eau.

Parlez-moi de la mer
Racontez moi son histoire
Dites-moi, parlez-moi
Pour que je sois marin pour que je sois marin Parlez-moi de la mer."

excerpt from Parlez-Moi by France Levasseur-Ouimet arr. Allan Bevan
© Cypress Choral Music 2012


Read the complete text and view the score at Cypress Choral Music


Enjoy a performance of Parlez-Moi by Concerto Della Donna at CBC Music

Marie Stultz of Spectrum Music, in Lexington, MA wrote this about Parlez-Moi in the Winter 2012-13 Choral Room:


Parlez-moi, by France Lavasseur-Ouimet, arr. Allan Bevan, French text, Cypress, CP 1217, SSA & piano. Difficulty rating 3-4. $2.25
Text Source: France Levasseur-Ouimet
Period and Nationality: 21st C. French Canadian
Style: Part-Song
Special Music Characteristics: This charming melody and text by Lavasseur-Ouimet resembles a folk song. Bevan has arranged the melody in two and three parts over a florid piano accompaniment in the key of D Major. A good introduction to French diction, the subtle dynamics will develop the choir's artistry. The piece concludes on a dramatic double forte on a unison d2 that will ring through the room.


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Performed by: Chorale Saint-Jean, Catherine Kubash, conductor (SATB)

Performed by: Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc, Nicolas Porte, conductor (SSA)
Performed by: ihana Youth Choir, Lisa Ward, conductor
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The Time Draws Near

12/2/2016

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Voicing: SATB and piano
Text: Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre
Notes: Commissioned by Pro Coro Canada in 2001. Something different and challenging for a Christmas concert, on a moving poem from Tennyson's In Memoriam.


The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

 Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

 Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

 This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish’d no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll’d me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

Performed by: Pro Coro Canada, Jeremy Spurgeon, piano, Richard Sparks, conductor, "A Pro Coro Christmas" December 8, 2001

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Tennyson, by C. F. Watts ca. 1863
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Danny Boy, arr.

6/8/2016

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Voicing: SSA and piano; SATB and piano; TTBB and piano
Melody: Traditional Irish melody ("Londonderry Air")
Text: Frederick Weatherly (1848-1929)
Published by: Rhythmic Trident Music Publishing
(RTBF-006) (2013)
Retail: Long and McQuade;

Notes: The original version of this arrangement (SATB) was composed in 1998 for the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor. The SATB setting is also published by Rhythmic Trident (RTBF-005) as is a new version for men's voices (RTBF-007). You may read a 2015 Choral Journal review of the SSA version of the work (under "Read more" below)

O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,
From glen to glen and down the mountain side.
The summer's gone and all the roses falling,
Its you, its you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back, when summers in the meadow,
Or when the valleys hushed and white with snow,
It's I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow,
O Danny boy, O Danny boy, I love you so.

But when ye come and all the flowers are dying,
And I am dead as dead I well may be.
Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying.
And kneel and say an 'Ave' there for me.

And I shall hear though soft you tread above me,
For all my grave will warmer sweeter be.
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.
Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor, Pamela Reimer, piano

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Frederick Weatherly
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LuAnn Holden, Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Girls Choir and music education faculty member at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee provided the following review printed in the November 2015 edition of The Choral Journal.

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There, in that Other World

5/23/2016

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Voicing: SSAA and Piano
Text: Mary Coleridge (1861-1907)
Published by: classica Music Publishers, EVW #021(2007)
Notes: Commissioned by Ariose Women's Choir, Dr. Marilyn Kerley, conductor in 2005. This work is on a poem by Mary Coleridge, the granddaughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ariose's original recording of the work can be heard on the right. This is from their beautiful CD, named There, In That Other World.
There, in that other world what waits for me?
What shall I find after that other birth?
No stormy, tossing, foaming, smiling sea,
But a new earth.

No sun to mark the changing of the days,
No slow, soft falling of the alternate night,
No moon, no star, no light upon my ways,
Only the light.

No gray cathedral, wide and wondrous fair,
That I may tread where all my fathers trod.
Nay, nay, my soul, no house of God is there,
But only God.

                                               Mary Coleridge



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Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Performed by: Ariose Women's Choir, Dr. Marilyn Kerley, conductor; Helen Stuart, piano
Performed by: Moody Bible College Women's Choir, Dr. Xiantang Hong, conductor
View the score at classica Music Publishers

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To Morning

4/16/2016

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Voicing: SSA and piano
Text: William Blake (1757-1827)
Published by: Cypress Choral Music CP 1076 (2000)
Retail: Sheet Music Plus; Musical Resources Online Store; J.W. Pepper; Panamusica; Foxes Music

Notes: Composed in 1996 to an early poem of the great English mystic, William Blake. The text describes the morning sunrise which is reflected throughout the setting. To Morning works well for women's choirs or accomplished treble choirs, but it requires an accomplished pianist as the piano has a large part in the creation of the pre-dawn atmosphere. A variety of audio and video recordings are posted here to provide an idea of the scope of the work. The recordings are just a selection of what is out there as this piece continues to be one of my most often performed works. Performances from Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Russia are featured. To Morning also exists in a transcription for String Orchestra composed in late 2005. This transcription was awarded the Member's Prize in the Mozart 250 Composition Competition sponsored by the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, Moscow in 2006. You may listen to their very atmospheric recording to the right.
The choral version is in e flat minor, while the string version is in e minor. See below for the link to Cypress Choral Music where you can see the entire score and listen to another fine recording.

O holy virgin! clad in purest white,
Unlock heav'n's golden gates, and issue forth:

Awake the dawn that sleeps in heav'n: let light
Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring
The honied dew that cometh on waking day.

O radiant morning, salute the sun,
Rouz'd like a huntsman to the chase, and with
Thy buskin'd feet, appear upon our hills.


     William Blake, from Poetical Sketches, 1783


View a sample score at Cypress Choral Music


The following review by Elizabeth Schauer appeared in the April, 1998 issue of The Choral Journal:
"Blake's poem O Holy Virgin receives a powerful setting by Canadian composer Allan Bevan. In the predominantly secular text, the poet bids the holy virgin to invoke dawn. A rich harmonic palette accompanies potent textual images. A slow, steady pulse and sustained, ascending vocal lines create the character of a solemn procession. Ranges and tessituras are comfortable with the exception of an optional b flat 2. The two primary voices occasionally cross and frequently sing at the interval of a second, requiring independence on the part of the singers. With a key signature of E flat minor, tenths in the right hand, and duple versus triple rhythms, the piano part is out of the reach of most student players. A worthy text and beautiful setting make this piece appropriate for any treble chorus."
Performed by: The University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor; Jeremy Spurgeon, piano; live from All Saint's Cathedral, Edmonton, November 28, 1998.

Performed by: The Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, Misha Rachlevsky, conductor.
Notes: Kremlin Chamber Orchestra has performed To Morning frequently at places such as Carnegie Hall, and on tour in Europe. The String Orchestra version is published by: Ludwig Masters Publications  #10250146
Retail: J. W. Pepper; Sheet Music Plus; Luck's Music Library; Stanton's;
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"...A contrapuntal, picturesque reflection on a poem by William Blake about the beauty of a sunrise (poem included in the score) it oozes its way (half note at 48, then 72) through a whole range of emotions with rallentandos, quasi echoes, quarter note triplets over two beats and finishes with a poco a poco raddolcendo (gradually sweeter and softer). Intensely gorgeous".
    -Stanton's Music


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Full Fathom Five

4/2/2016

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Voicing: TTBB and piano and SATB and piano
Text: William Shakespeare (1564-1616) (The Tempest)
Published by: classica Music Publishers; EVM #015 (2007)
Version for SATB and piano: MV #016

Notes: Composed in 2004 for Da Camera Singers, Edmonton, Canada. The text is one of Ariel's songs from Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest. Be sure to listen to the gorgeous live recording of the work sung by the men of the Ontario Youth Choir on the right. I have also done a version of this work for mixed voices and piano which is also published by classica. Full Fathom Five is also included in No Mortal Business, a large-scale work for choir and chamber orchestra on the life of Shakespeare (read more in my blog "Shakespeare's 400th"). See the Canadian Music Centre for further details on this work, and look for "No Mortal Business" in the blog section of this site to listen to the final movement in a live performance.

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark! now I hear them: ding, dong, bell.


View the TTBB score at classica Music Publishers

View the SATB score at classica Music Publishers

Performed by: The Ontario Youth Choir, conducted by Dr. Marta McCarthy, Leslee Heys, piano; Grace Church on-the-Hill, Toronto; August 24, 2014.
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Learn Your Choir Part! (TTBB) (youtube.com)

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Harp of Wild

3/31/2016

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Voicing: SSA and piano
Text: Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
Published by: classica Music Publishers, EVW #004 (2005)
Retail: Musical Resources Online Store;


Notes: This piece was the first-prize winner in the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors Composition Competition, 2004. First performed by the National Youth Choir, Timothy Shantz, conductor at Podium, Winnipeg, 2004.
Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor. From: Parlez-Moi: The Music of Allan Bevan (2011).

Harp of wild and dreamlike strain,
When I touch thy strings,
Why dost thou repeat again
Long-forgotten things?

Harp, in other earlier days,
I could sing to thee;
And not one of all my lays
Vexed my memory.

But now, if I awake a note
That gave me joy before,
Sounds of sorrow from thee float,
Changing evermore.

Yet, still steeped in memory's dyes,
They come sailing on,
Darkening all my summer skies,
Shutting out my sun.

                                                   -Emily Jane Bronte



See the score at classica Music Publishers

Marie Stultz wrote the following review in Spectrum Music's Spring 2005 Choral Newsletter:

Harp of Wild, by Allan Bevan, English text, Classica Music, EVW #004, SSAA and piano. Set to a text by Emily Brontë (1818-1848), this composition won the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors Composition Competition in 2004. Crossing voice parts and suspensions add to the atmospheres created in this music. Filled with numerous key changes and challenging rhythms, the piece would be tremendously successful with the accomplished woman's chorus. The lyrical counterpoint, in contrast to full homophonic sections on ever changing dynamics, makes the piece an artistic challenge. After some very complex writing in the middle section of the piece, it concludes simply in two and three parts with the second altos having the capability of singing a low e sharp. Difficulty rating 4-5.  


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Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad!


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The Eclipse (From Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan)

8/22/2015

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Voicing: SATB unaccompanied
Text: Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
Published by: classica Music Publishers, MV #011 (2005)
Retail: Musical Resources;

Notes: Awarded first prize in the 2000 Austin (TX) Pro Chorus Choral Composition Competition. This work was composed in 2000 and is the first of three pieces on the poetry of Welsh metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan. It may be sung separately or performed with its two companion pieces, The Revival and Peace. The complete work was premiered by the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor in 2001. Some other choirs that have performed this work include the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Da Capo Chamber Choir, and Musikay.


 
Whither, O whither did’st thou fly
When I did grieve thine holy Eye?
When thou did’st mourn to see me lost,
And all thy Care and Councels crost.
O do not grieve where e’er thou art!
Thy grief is an undoing smart.
Which doth not only pain, but break
My heart, and makes me blush to speak.
Thy anger I could kiss, and will:
But (O!) thy grief, thy grief doth kill.  
                                                                                               
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)


                                                                                              From Thalia Rediviva, 1678


See the score at classica Music Publishers

Performed by: The University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor; recorded on, My Soul There is a Country. (2001)
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Performed by: I Coristi Chamber Choir, Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor; recorded on, Songs of the Soul, 2008
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An End

8/13/2015

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Voicing: SSAA and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)
Published by: Cypress Choral Music CP 1090 (2002)
Retail: Sheet Music Plus; Musical Resources Online; J.W. Pepper; Music Mart;

Notes: Composed in 2001, An End is the first number in the trilogy of Christina Rossetti pieces that I have called For A Dream's Sake. An End, like its companion works, Mirage and Echo, deals with loss, a subject that Rossetti had a life-long attachment to. The idealized love who appears so often in her poetry, although fondly remembered (most of the time), generally dies or disappears at the most inopportune times. Rossetti's outlook on life, as evidenced by her bittersweet words, could be summarized in a nutshell as decidedly "glass half-empty".  Nonetheless, her poems ring with authenticity, vehemence, and tenderness.
So, if you are like me and love this kind of stuff, go ahead and take this piece on, but be warned! - An End is a difficult piece for women's choir.  You will need some good sopranos to get this piece to work, as the line is sometimes both high and soft.
Concerto Della Donna has performed this piece a number of times (listen to their beautiful recording to the right) and it has also been sung by the Manitou Singers of St. Olaf College, Sigrid Johnson, conductor and other top-notch women's choirs.  

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.


He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.


To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

See the complete score at Cypress Choral Music

Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor (2011) from Allan Bevan: Parlez-Moi.

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Christina Rossetti in the portrait painted by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Mirage

8/10/2015

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Voicing: 2 S. Solo, SSAA and piano
Text: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Published by: Cypress Choral Music: CP1089
Retail: J. W. Pepper; Sheet Music Plus; Musical Resources Online

Notes:
Mirage is the middle number (An End, Echo) in the Rossetti trilogy, For a Dream's Sake, composed 2001.


Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor. From Parlez-Moi: The Music of Allan Bevan, Concerto Della Donna, 2011.

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
For a dream's sake.
View a sample score at Cypress Choral Music


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Christina Rossetti

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Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan

6/16/2015

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Voicing: SATB unaccompanied
Text: Henry Vaughan (1662-1695)
Published by: classica Music Publishers

Notes: The Three Motets are a cappella settings of three short poems (see below) by Welsh physician, translator, and poet, Henry Vaughan. Vaughan's poetry is sacred in nature and heavily influenced by the Anglican poet, George Herbert. Vaughan was studying law at Oxford when the English Civil War broke out. A royalist, Vaughan returned to the much less tumultuous Welsh countryside where he lived out his quiet and contemplative life.
The Motets may be performed separately if desired (see entries on the individual works elsewhere on this site) or together as follows: The Eclipse, The Revival, and Peace.
The composer views this poetry as representative of 1) The Passion 2) Easter 3) Heaven.
The Motets were composed between 1999 and 2001 and were grouped together by the composer upon completion of Peace in early 2001. 
All of the performances that follow are from My Soul, There Is a Country, by the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor. This recording was made shortly after the first performance of the work by this award-winning Canadian university choir. This CD is available thru the CMC. See also the separate entries on each of the three pieces below.

The Eclipse

Whither, O whither did’st thou fly 
When I did grieve thine holy Eye?
When thou did’st mourn to see me lost, 
And all thy Care and Councels crost.
O do not grieve where e’er thou art!

Thy grief is an undoing smart. 
Which doth not only pain, but break
My heart, and makes me blush to speak. 
Thy anger I could kiss, and will:
But (O!) thy grief, thy grief doth kill.

The Revival

Unfold, unfold! take in his light,
Who makes thy Cares more short than night.
The joys, which with his Day-star rise,
He deals to all, but drowsy Eyes:
And what the men of this world miss,
Some drops and dews of future bliss.
Hark! how his winds have chang’d their note,
And with warm whispers call thee out.
The frosts are past, the storms are gone:
And backward life at last comes on.
The lofty groves in express Joyes
Reply unto the Turtles voice,
And here in dust and dirt, O here
The Lilies of his love appear!
Peace

My Soul, there is a Country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a wingèd sentry
All skilfull in the wars,
There above noise, and danger
Sweet peace sits crown'd with smiles,
And one born in a Manger
Commands the Beauteous files,
He is thy gracious friend,
And (O my soul awake!)
Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake,
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The Rose that cannot whither,
Thy fortress, and thy ease;
Leave then thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure,
But one, who never changes,
Thy God, thy life, thy Cure.

Neal W. Woodruff provided this substantial review of the Three Motets in the May, 2007 issue of The Choral Journal:


"Award-winning Canadian composer Allan Bevan has set a marvelous triptych of texts by the seventeenth-century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan. Texts of the first two motets are chosen from Vaughan's late publication, Thalia Redivivam, 1678 (revival of the muse of comic poetry), while the final text is culled from his most well-known collection entitled Silex Scintillans, 1650 (Flashing Flint). Specifically, the title of the 1650 work represents the "stony heart against which Divine flint strikes and produces fire." The fervor reflected in the poetry was stirred into flame during the various outbreaks of religious dissent and war in England.

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My Mother

3/17/2015

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Voicing: SATB a cappella
Text: Francis Ledwidge (1887 - 1917)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre 
Notes: This challenging work for unaccompanied mixed voices was commissioned by Dr. Debra Cairns and I Coristi Chamber Choir, Edmonton, as one of the choir's tenth anniversary projects in 2003 . It was premiered in Edmonton, performed at Podium 2004 in Winnipeg, and released on Echoes: Ten Years of Song by the Alberta classical recordings label, Arktos.
People sometimes think (based on the title) that I wrote the text and composed a piece about my own mother, but although there may be a few similarities, the woman described in the poem by "The Blackbird Poet" Francis Ledwidge, is much more about his mother, or a romanticized, imaginary mother-figure, than mine!
Ledwidge was an Irish poet who was killed in W.W. I while serving in the British army, just days before he would have turned thirty.

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God made my mother on an April day,
From sorrow and the mist along the sea,
Lost birds' and wanderers' song and ocean spray,
And the moon loved her wandering jealously.

Beside the ocean's din she combed her hair,
Singing the nocturne of the passing ships,
Before her earthly lover found her there
And kissed away the music from her lips.

She came unto the hills and saw the change
That brings the swallow and the geese in turns.
But there was not a grief that she deemed strange,
For there is that in her which always mourns.

Kind heart she has for all on hill or wave
Whose hopes grew wings like ants to fly away.
I bless the God Who such a mother gave
This poor bird-hearted singer of a day.
Performed by: I Coristi Chamber Choir, Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor


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Then Farewell, World

3/5/2015

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Voicing: SATB a cappella; or SATB Double Chorus
Text: 1) Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586) 2) Thomas Campion (1567 -1620)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre
Notes:

Then, Farewell World was composed on a commission from Pro Coro Canada in 2003, and sung by the choir in Edmonton, Toronto, and Ottawa the following year. The work sets two texts by English Renaissance poets on the subjects of love and faith, departure, and heaven. This is a challenging piece, a big sing, requiring an outstanding choir capable of maintaining intonation over the eleven or twelve minutes it takes to sing the work. Other choirs besides Pro Coro that have sung the work include Calgary's Spiritus Chamber Choir (please enjoy their outstanding recording to the right) and the Vancouver Chamber Choir who rehearsed the work in my presence (to my great delight) at one of their wonderful Interplay offerings for choral composers. In 2006, I rescored it for double chorus, so performance in either form is possible. The two works that comprise Then Farewell, World are inter-connected as material from the first number (Leave Me, O Love) returns at the end of the second (Never Weather-Beaten Saile). However, it is still possible to sing the two numbers separately, as they can stand on their own. The title is taken from the penultimate line in Philip Sidney's sonnet.
Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust; Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light, That doth both shine and give us sight to see.
O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to death, And think how evil becometh him to slide,
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see;
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.
                            Sir Philip Sidney from Certaine Sonnets, 1582



Never weather-beaten saile more willing bent to shore,
Never tyred pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied spright now longs to flye, out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.  
E’er-blooming are the joys of Heaven’s high Paradice,
Cold age deafes not there our ears, nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines, whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my spright to thee.              

                                                 Thomas Campion


Performed by: Spiritus Chamber Choir, Terry Edwards, conductor (2006).


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Sir Philip Sidney

Picture
Thomas Campion
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Singers To Come

2/10/2015

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Voicing: SATB and piano
Text: Alice Meynell (1847-1922)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre
Available thru: J. W. Pepper.com
Notes: This piece was commissioned by the Alberta Centennial Choir, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor for special performances celebrating Alberta's centennial year, 2005. The Massed Choir consisted of over 200 singers from around the province, and they presented performances in Alberta's three largest cities, Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
To song? What words of yours be sent
Through man's soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
And crown these towers in circling flight,
And cross these seas like summer birds,
And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
Some mystic part of you belongs
To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,
Which will mean so much in your songs.

from A Poet's Fancies IX



Performed by: Alberta Centennial Choir, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor

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Alice Meynell
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The Garden

2/8/2015

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Voicing: SSAA, flute, and piano
Text: Alice Meynell (1847-1922)
Published by: Canadian Music Centre
Notes: Composed in 2006 as a commissioned work for the National Youth Choir, which did the first performance at Podium 2006 in Victoria, B.C., Dr. Richard Sparks, conducting.
My heart shall be thy garden.
Come, my own,
   Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
   Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal thine alone.

Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
   Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.
   But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers
To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown.

For as these come and go, and quit our pine
   To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,
      Sing one song only from our alder-trees,

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,
   Flit to the silent world and other summers,
      With wings that dip beyond the silver seas
.
Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor, Pamela Reimer, piano, Josee Poirier, flute
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Picture
Alice Meynell
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