ALLAN BEVAN, COMPOSER

Ave Regina Caelorum

4/25/2022

 
Voicing: SSAA a cappella
Text: Anonymous antiphon, ca. 12th century
Unpublished: please contact the composer for copies

Notes: Composed in 2006 on a commission from Ariose Women's Choir, Edmonton, Marilyn Kerley, conductor.
​An ancient text excellent for Christmas concerts.
Ave, Regina Caelorum,
Ave, Domina Angelorum:
Salve, radix, salve, porta
Ex qua mundo lux est orta:

Gaude, Virgo gloriosa,
Super omnes speciosa,
Vale, o valde decora,
Et pro nobis Christum exora.


Hail, O Queen of Heaven.
Hail, O Lady of Angels,
Hail! thou root, hail! thou gate
From whom unto the world, a light has arisen:

Rejoice, O glorious Virgin,
Lovely beyond all others,
Farewell, most beautiful maiden,
And pray for us to Christ.
Performed by: Concerto Della Donna, Iwan Edwards, conductor

0 Comments

Peace

4/22/2022

 
Voicing: SATB a cappella
Text: Henry Vaughan (1622 - 95)
Unpublished: please contact the composer
Notes:
The last number in Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan, Peace was composed in 2001. Peace was premiered by the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor and recorded on My Soul There Is a Country which was released that same year. Another recording was made by I Coristi, Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor on Songs of the Soul in 2008. Between these two choirs alone, Peace has been sung at an ACDA Convention (Los Angeles, 2005 view, at right) and at Festivals in England and Wales.

My Soul there is a country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged 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 wither,
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.

from Silex Scintillans, 1650
Performed by: I Coristi Chamber Choir, Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor, from Songs of the Soul, 2008

1 Comment

Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan

4/21/2022

 
Voicing: SATB unaccompanied
Text: Henry Vaughan (1662-1695)
Contact composer
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."

Read More
0 Comments

The Eclipse

4/17/2022

 
Voicing: SATB unaccompanied
Text: Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)
Unpublished: please contact the composer


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 I composed on the poetry of Welsh metaphysical poet, Henry Vaughan.  It was composed in 2000 and revised in 2020. Some choirs that have performed this work include the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Da Capo Chamber Choir, Musikay, I Coristi, and the U. Alberta Madrigal Singers, and, most recently, on Good Friday 2022 by Pro Coro.

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


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

0 Comments

My Mother

4/6/2022

 
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.

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

Picture

0 Comments

Then Farewell, World

3/24/2022

 
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).
Picture
Sir Philip Sidney
Picture
Thomas Campion

0 Comments

Hide Thy Face

2/1/2022

 
Voicing: SATB a cappella
Text: Psalm 51: 9-10
Unpublished: please contact composer
Notes: Completed in 2008, this anthem was first performed by the Concordia University College Concert Choir, Dr. John Hooper, conductor.  Hide Thy Face sets two verses from Psalm 51, (Miserere Mei Deus) using the English translation from the King James’ Bible. It is set in a straight-forward, three-part form with the words of verse ten ("Create in me a clean heart, O God") providing the text for the contrasting middle section.  

Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me.
Performed by: King's University College Choir, Edmonton, Dr. Melanie Turgeon, conductor, from The Voice of My Prayer (2011)

Performed by: The Canadian Chamber Choir, Dr. Julia Davids, conductor, from Sacred Reflections of Canada: A Canadian Mass (2015)


0 Comments

The Huron Carol, arr.

12/25/2020

 
Voicing: SATB a cappella
Melody: Une jeune pucelle (Trad. French Carol melody)
Text: St. Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) Tr. by J. E. Middleton (1872-1960)
Published by: Lorenz CIM 1016 (1997)

Retail: The Leading Note ; Sheet Music Plus; J. W. Pepper; Music 44; Opus Two;
2) Voicing: SSAA a cappella
Contact the composer
Notes: Composed and first performed in 1994, this arrangement is a setting of three verses of the original Canadian Christmas carol, as translated by Jesse Edgar Middleton, a journalist and choral singer who lived in both Toronto and Montreal. Brebeuf's verses were in Algonquian, while Middleton made his translation from an earlier version in French. St. Jean de Brebeuf wrote the carol in 1643 as part of his mission to the Hurons.

'Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high:

Jesus, your King is born,
Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.


Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found.
A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high:

O children of the forest free, On sons of Manitou,
The holy child is born this day for you.
Come, kneel before the radiant boy,
Who brings you beauty, peace, and joy:


Performed by: Spiritus Chamber Choir, Dr. Timothy Shantz, conductor

Performed by: AccordEnsemble
Performed by: Heruvymy Ukrainian Female Quartet
from: And On Earth Peace

0 Comments

The Souls of the Righteous

2/10/2015

 
1) Voicing: TTBB a cappella
Text: Wisdom 3: 1-3
Published by: Cypress Choral Music
Notes: This work was composed in 1999 and first performed by Chor Leoni, Vancouver. It is the second of three settings that I have done of this particular text. The recording to the right was submitted by the choir as an entry for the 2002 CBC Choral Competition. It is conducted by the legendary Diane Loomer.  The text is a famous passage from the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom.
Performed by: Chor Leoni, Diane Loomer, C.M. conductor.
The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
There shall no torment touch them.
In the sight of the unwise, they seemed to die:
But they
are in peace.

Wisdom 3: 1, 2a, 3b
see the complete score at classica Music Publishers

2) Voicing: SATB a cappella
Published by: Cypress Choral Music, Vancouver CP 1075
Retail: J. W. Pepper; Foxes Music

Notes: This is an SATB scoring of the original TTBB version above. Text is identical but the ending is different. You may view this score at Cypress Choral Music.

Listen to Ensemble Phoebus of Montreal sing The Souls of the Righteous at CBC Music. This beautiful recording is from the 2015 CBC Choral Competition.
0 Comments

    Categories

    All
    Arrangements
    Award Winner
    Canadian Text
    Christmas
    French Text
    Latin Text
    Orchestral
    Sacred
    SATB
    Secular
    Shakespeare
    SSA
    TTBB
    Unaccompanied
    With Instruments
    With Piano


    RSS Feed

    For additional information, please view Allan Bevan's Composer Showcase on the Canadian Music Centre website.
    Composer Showcase
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Listen
  • Bio
  • Gallery
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Listen
  • Bio
  • Gallery
  • Contact