Music played an enormous role in the works of William Shakespeare, while his own sonnets, poems and soliloquies have provided continuing inspiration for many composers through the years. The Novello Shakespeare Choral Collection, inspired by the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death in 2016, is an exciting anthology of choral works that are settings of Shakespeare's words. For choirs of all types and abilities, this collection has been edited by David Wordsworth so that all the pieces are fantastic both to sing and hear.The collection features some beautiful settings that have well and truly stood the test of time, such as Thomas Arne's Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind and Henry Leslie's How Sweet The Moonlight Sleeps. More recent settings from 20th century and contemporary composers include Ernest Moeran's Sigh No More, Ladies, Gary Carpenter's Lo, Here, The Gentle Lark and John Tavener's Fear No More and Look In Thy Glass.Not only this, the Shakespeare Choral Collection boasts several works that were specially commissioned, including John Joubert's Be Not Afeard, Richard Sisson's Light Thickens and Pawel Lukaszewki's Weary With Toil, I Haste Me To My Bed. Some pieces have never appeared before in print, such as those by Kevin Olsen, Bernard Hughes and John Gardner. These songs truly are a joy to perform, with some relatively simple arrangements that are purely fun to sing, while some more complex settings that will be thoroughly rewarding for choirs and audiences alike.A total of 26 fantastic works comprise The Novello Shakespeare Choral Collection, which would work as a wonderful concert programme on its own, or could provide a wealth of options for choirs looking to expand their repertoire with a range of unique settings. Also included is a fascinating introduction by editor David Wordsworth, and notes describing each piece.Words written by indisputably the greatest writer in the English language can only be matched with music by composers of talent and renown such as these. The Novello Shakespeare Choral Collection is an essential anthology of stunning settings of beautiful words which will be performed and enjoyed for many years to come. / Choeur Mixte (SATB)

I hide myself With a lily Go lovely Rose-Written early in Whitacre's career whilst at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Arranged for SATB choir includes a Piano line for rehearsal purposes.I Hide MyselfJust a simple song really. All of the musical suggestions come from a careful study of the poem a quiet passionate soul occasionally speaking a little bolder than the age will allow. She loves almost to the point of distraction and this mood mustprevail in the performance: shy and sullen her passion surging to the surface only to sink back into the silence that is herself.Go Lovely RoseThe piece is structured around the cyclical lifeof a rose and is connection throughout by the opening 'rose motif' a seed that begins on the tonic and grows in all directions before it blossoms dies and grows again. Each season is represented: spring begins the piece summerappears at bar 13 autumn at bar 26 winter at bar 39 with spring returning at bar 49. The form is based on the Fibonacci sequence (the pattern found in plant and animal cell divisions) - its fifty five bars are a perfectFibonacci number. The Golden Mean appears at bar 34 as all parts are reunited to complete the flower before its final blossom and inevitable cycle of death and rebirth.Each performance should be approachedwith a child-like innocence and naivety that allows us to marvel at the return of the rose each spring. The szforzandos throughout must be light and gentle.With A Lily In Your HandWater and Fire. If the performance of this piece connects these contrasting elemental ideas its success is guaranteed. Water: At bar 30 this ostinato should be fluid and gentle only interrupted at bar 32 asthe butterflies momentarily spring out of the texture; bars 35-38 the water should slowly transform back to fire. Bar 44 should be tiny bell-tones motivating the next nine bars another patient sensuous transformation back to

The world loves to sing. From barbershop groups to madrigal choirs to vocal rock bands there are tens of thousands of vocal groups in America. The success of mainstream television programs such as Glee and The Sing-Off not only demonstrates the rising popularity of vocal music; it reflects how current trends inspire others to join in. In addition through various online and on-the-ground vocal music societies the ???a cappella market??? is well defined and well connected. Like singing itself a cappella is a global phenomenon.At the heart of every vocal group is the music it performs. This often means writing its own arrangements of popular or traditional songs. This book is thelong-awaited definitive work on the subject wide ranging both in its scope and in its target audience - which spans beginners music students and community groups to professional and semi-professional performers vocal/instrumental songwriters composers and producers - providing genre-specific insight on a cappella writing.The tone of the book is instructive and informative yet conversational: it is intended to stand alongside any academic publication while remaining interesting and fun. A Cappella Arranging is a good textbook - and a ???good read??? - for every vocal arranger whether amateur or professional; every vocal music classroom and any professional recording studio.

British composer Patrick Hawes has crafted a beautiful work The Dane Tree for a Baritone Soloist SATB Chorus Oboe Trumpet Timpani and Strings. This sheet music contains only the Vocal Score: the Soloist and SATB Chorus. For this moving vocal piece Hawes has set the poem The Dane Tree by Alfred Noyes to an atmospheric composition in which the Baritone Soloist represents the Dane Tree of the poem. The work like most of Patrick Hawes's compositions takes its influence from Baroque and Renaissance periods of classical music but also a love of nature. Itis this affiliation that resounds in the poem on which this work is based about a solitary tree which sees years and years of history where humans come and go but where the one constant through memories created and lost is the tree. 

Among the UK's most noted choral composers and conductors Ronald Corp does not hesitate to bring his own musical vision to a much-loved poem by the sixteenth-century lutenist songwriter and 'Doctor of Physick' Thomas Campion following the example not only of Campion himself but also of Charles Wood and Hubert Parry. Eschewing the manner of Parry's resonant polyphony for a simple harmonised setting in a flexible verbal rhythm reflecting the measure of the words this is a heartfelt plea for spiritual release uttered in a quietly elegiac tone in which the serenity of the entreaty rather than its pathos is to the fore.