Extolling the beauty of Christmas Carols and other sacred music.
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Christmas Songs and Carols and the Multitude of Voyces Volumes
Christmas Song and Carols and the Multitude of Voyces Volumes
Multitude of Voyces are three volumes of sacred music by women published in 2019 and 2020. The first volume was dedicated to SATB anthems, the second to Upper Voices anthems from S to SSSSAA, and Volume 3 to Mixed Voices (mainly SATB) for Advent Through Candlemas. A fourth volume is planned to be dedicated to hymns.
But Multitude of Voices (VoV) is not just publications, it is a project/charity. It is described as:
Women have always composed sacred music, but their output has often been omitted from established
anthologies. In consequence, women are hugely underrepresented in this genre.
Our
Anthology series addresses this injustice in a bold way, presenting 63
women composers spanning 800 years of
music, across three printed volumes, with many historical works
published for the first time, and several works composed specially for
our volumes by both emerging and established composers.
Not only are the volumes published to promote the sacred works of women composer, but MoV also has a good YouTube (@multitudeofvoyces6516) and SoundCloud presence with performances of each entry in their volumes.
In Volumes 1 (2019) and 2 (2020):
Among the Christmas works in the volumes are:
Raphaella Aleotti's "Angelus ad pastores ait" (The angel [of the Lord] said to the shepherds):
"Angelus ad pastores ait"+
"Gebt in der Christnacht (Prayer on Christmas Eve)" by Fanny Hensel
"Gebt in der Christnacht"
"Weihnachtslied (Carol)" by Louise Reichardt (editorially reconstructed by Olivia Sparkhall):
I sing of a maiden SATB (divisi) by Alison Willis:
Alison Willis "I sing of a maiden"
"I sing of a maiden S"SS/A by Amy Bebbington:
Amy Bebbington "I sing of a maiden"
"Ave Maria": SAA Rebecca Clarke
Rebecca Clarke "Ave Maria"
"Hodie Christus natus est" SSA by Angelina Figus
Angelina Figus "Hodie Christus natus est"
Caroline Lesemann-Elliot "Regina Caeli" SS & continuo -See performance.
------------
Multitude of Voices Volume 3 Sacred Music by Women Composer (2020) is the volume that really has the seasonal works as it is title "Advent to Candlemas"
They include:
"Lo! The Star" by Judith Bingham
"A tender shoot" by Kerensa Briggs
A tender shoot by Kerensa Briggs
"Ivy Chief of Trees" It is by Sarah Cattley
"Ivy Chief of Trees It is" by Sarah Cattley
"The Shepherd" by Avril Coleridge-Taylor (lyrics by William Blake)
"Rhyfed, rhyfedd / Wonder, Wonder" by Rhian Samuel
"Gabriel’s Message" by Olivia Sparkhill
"Nunc dimittis" by Amy Summers
"Nunc dimittis" by Amy Summers
"Bethlehem’s Star / Betlehem’s stjärna" by Alice Tegnér, arr. Sarah McDonald
"There is no rose" by Alison Willis
"There is no rose" by Alison Willis
Elizabeth Poston
MoV is the official representative of the musical and
literary estate of Elizabeth Poston and the owner of her available
copyright. This is good news as much of her music has been unavailable. We are focusing a post on this soon.
For Christmas fans, this is "good tiding of great joy" as Poston was one of the predominant scholars and collectors of Christmas carols, writing two volumes dedicated to Christmas carols. This year (2024), MOV released a digital and print booklet of some of Poston's carols called "A Christmas Selection," which includes, free of charge, a copy of Poston's "Jesus the Apple Tree" as an encouragement to ensembles to do away with unauthorized and illegal copies of the carol.
MoV has also been newly licensed by CUP to publish and distribute printed leaflets of Elizabeth Maconchy's 'Nowell nowell nowell' (also to be found in our anthology Vol 3). It can be purchased at this link.
"Nowell, Nowell, Nowell"
MoV is working with Cambridge University Press to reintroduce Dame Maconchy's 'Candlemas Eve' on the poem by Robert Herrick
(SS or TT into 4-part round).(Note 1)
Sarah McDonald
MoV has released printed octavos of Sarah
MacDonald's arrangement of Alice Tegnér's well-known Swedish
carol "Bethlehem's Star/Betlehems stjärna" which MoV commissioned specially
for it Anthology Volume 3. It can be purchased here. (Note 2)
Overall, MoV is at the front lines of promoting women composers and reintroducing "lost' works by woman composers. Here at Christmas Carols and Sacred Musics, we scour the new carol books and recordings and even though, in our count, women are writing and publishing new carols than men, carol collections and recording continue to lack women's works.
+ Most of the Youtube videos we embedded are from Multitude of Voyces YouTube channel, but where we could not find a video, we tried to find another video of a performance, but these may not actually be a performance of the music as published by MoV. Our intent is to give you a sample hopefully spurring you to purchase the volumes and sheet music for your ensemble or private use..
2. Two self-promotions from us at Christmas Carols Blog: Make sure to see our post "The Christmas Music of Sarah MacDonald," which we know needs some updating but gives you a good dose of MacDonald's Christmas and seasonal arrangements up to 2021. Last, see our post
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