Love Bade Me Welcome

Love Bade Me Welcome by Roxanna Panufnik. Arranged for unison voices, mixed voice choir and piano.

Comfort Me With Apples

Commissioned by the Dunedin Consort in 2006, Errollyn Wallen's Comfort Me with Apples is for soloists and instrumental ensemble and sets words from The Song of Songs. First performed by Susan Hamilton (soprano), Matthew Brook (bass) and the Dunedin Consort conducted by John Butt at the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh on 22 September 2006.

Dont weep for me

Can you hear me?

Love bade me welcome

A setting for unaccompanied SATB choir with divisi of George Herbert’s poem. The richly textured homophonic piece ends with a beautiful ostinato. Duration 4’30"

Vos dergeystu mir di yorn : Why do you pester me

Song To The Moon

Taken from Rusalka, the eighth of Dvorak’s nine operas and the one that has remained his most popular. The story was adapted by Jaroslav Kvapil from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and relocated toBohemia, with a Czech water-spirit or Rusalka in the principal role. Rusalka loves a mortal prince, a witch grants her humanity but the romance doesn’t work out and she returns, heartbroken, to the water where she joins herbeloved in death. The Song to the Moon comes from Act I. From her woodland pool, Rusalka sings of her longing in the shimmering moonlight Silver moon upon the deep, dark sky…tell me, tell me, oh where does mylovedone bide?

Earth and Sky

Earth and Sky was commissioned by the BBC for the Proms 2000 season. In keeping with the millennial theme, a work presenting a vision of the future was requested. Trying to be helpful, the BBC provided me with the predictions of various pundits, but their ideas seemed dizzyingly contradictory. Then the simple thought struck me that however varied and complex the answers, the big questions will always remain the same. We may now have a map of the human genome, but how to use the map? "How shall I know where I should go? How may I see the I that’s me?" As a musician I am hopeful that, no matter how the world develops, future generations will still come together to "dance and sing and play". The mysterious power of music to bind us socially and inspire us individually seems to be built into our genes. So, a song of questions; a song about music – these were the ideas which I took to Vikram Seth, who had generously agreed to write the words for me. The resulting poem provided lots of inspiration. It is entirely monosyllabic, enabling considerable variety of rhythmic treatment. I love its permutations and its imagery of paradox and inversion and I have amused myself by playing similar games with the musical material. But there is seriousness as well as fun – the text’s juxtaposition of the certainty of death with the search for purpose in life achieves great poignancy when sung by young voices. (Alec Roth)

Earth and Sky : (4 Players)

Earth and Sky was commissioned by the BBC for the Proms 2000 season. In keeping with the millennial theme, a work presenting a vision of the future was requested. Trying to be helpful, the BBC provided me with the predictions of various pundits, but their ideas seemed dizzyingly contradictory. Then the simple thought struck me that however varied and complex the answers, the big questions will always remain the same. We may now have a map of the human genome, but how to use the map? "How shall I know where I should go? How may I see the I that’s me?" As a musician I am hopeful that, no matter how the world develops, future generations will still come together to "dance and sing and play". The mysterious power of music to bind us socially and inspire us individually seems to be built into our genes. So, a song of questions; a song about music – these were the ideas which I took to Vikram Seth, who had generously agreed to write the words for me. The resulting poem provided lots of inspiration. It is entirely monosyllabic, enabling considerable variety of rhythmic treatment. I love its permutations and its imagery of paradox and inversion and I have amused myself by playing similar games with the musical material. But there is seriousness as well as fun – the text’s juxtaposition of the certainty of death with the search for purpose in life achieves great poignancy when sung by young voices. (Alec Roth)

Christ's Nativity

The text comes from the pen of the seventeenth-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughan, a leading metaphysical voice during the Commonwealth period (1649-1660), when the republican government of Oliver Cromwell banned the Anglican Church. Christ's Nativity was commissioned by the Cathedral Choral Society of Washington D.C. with support from the Richard Wayne Dirksen Memorial Endowment Fund. The selected lyrics by Welsh poet Henry Vaughan fascinated me immensely and therfore prompted me to think about a specific musical environment for the piece, best suited for merging the music into this wonderful poetic landscape. This poetry brings about a strong mixture of the Evangelicalmystery of Christ's Nativity, mystically evoked by Nature, and at the same time reveals the optimism and drama of an ordinary individual that any human being can easily identify with.

Psalm 122

An unaccompanied work for SATB choir (with no divisi) set to Psalm 122 – I was glad when they said unto me. Commissioned at the request of the Very Revd Mark Bonney, Dean of Ely Cathedral, for his father John Bonney, and first performed on 23 October 2016 by Sing Aotearoa (New Zealand Choral Federation), Kokako Singers, directed by the composer, in Rotorua, NZ.

Since We Parted

When Jeffrey Skidmore of Ex Cathedra approached me to write this piece, he specified that it should be remembering the first World War and, if at all possible, the words should be by or about a woman.A friend steered me towards Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth and, spookily, the book fell open on page 163 where appeared Kathleen Coates' s poem "A Year and a Day". This was written between 1910 and 1913 but is, I think, prophetic of the impending war in its depiction of a woman and man in love, reluctantly separated and missing each other. Around the same time, my mother sent me the poem 'Since we parted, yestereve' by Victorian statesman and poet Robert Bulwer-Lytton(1831-1891) — it seemed to fit beautifully as a refrain to 'A Year and a Day'.We start with the refrain in which I try to create a sense of yearning — with harmonies that lean into each other and suspensions that only partly resolve. I have given the ladies the first verse of 'A Year and a Day' — I have used mellow flat keys as this is marked "languorously" as I picture a calm but pining Edwardian lady, reclining in a warm, English Summer's garden. When the men take over in the second verse this comes from a darker place — maybe a noisy, fetid trench where dreams of love and happiness are sometimes hard to conjure. The music shifts in harmonic uncertainty — the harp oscillates and rumbles, creating instability. This part is written in sharp keys which, I think, have a more stringent feel about them. The whole piece is made up of my typical major-minor harmonic language which sets a bittersweet atmosphere and the trumpets remind us, from time to time, of the backdrop of war. The piece ends meditatively, with 'Eleven Armistice Chimes' and lasts approximately 10 minutes. It's dedicated to Jeffrey Skidmore and Ex Cathedra and my deepest thanks go to them for commissioning the work and Jane Arthur for sponsoring the commission.

The Pearl

When I was approached by Salisbury Cathedral to write a 30th anniversary anthem for their Girl Choristers, I immediately thought of the traditional 30th wedding anniversary symbol  a pearl. When George Herbert was also requested, it was incredible serendipity that he had actually written a poem of that title: The Pearl. Matthew 13:45. This was inspired by the very short parable which compares the immense value of the Kingdom of Heaven to the most exquisite pearl a merchant could sell: a merchant seeking goodly pearls, on finding one of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Herbert expands all that he had to include things of worldly worth such as learning, honour and pleasure, but concludes that there is an immeasurably greater and more priceless gift: the costly love of Christ which is the Kingdom of Heaven. I worried that a poem claiming knowledge of some quite grown-up things might not be suitable for the girls, but their luminescent ageless sound and their incredibly mature attitude in rehearsal dispelled that fear. They gave me a list of things theyʼd like included in the piece  I managed nineteen out of twenty-three requests: smooth, soft, strong, high, staccato, triplets, semiquavers, minor keys, suspension, high parts, gentle bits, two part harmony, medium pace, soft but nice, quick and music telling a story. I am very grateful to John and June Chichester and the Salisbury Cathedral Girl Choristersʼ; Foundation for this prestigious and exciting commission, to David Halls and Precentor Anna Macham for their musical and theological collaboration throughout the creative process and especially to the girl choristers themselves, for suggesting me for the job. Roxanna Panufnik, 24th March, 2020

Songs of Love & Friendship

When the Groot Omroepkoorʼs (Netherlandʼs Radio Choir) Chief Conductor Benjamin Goodson and Stiftfestivalsʼ violinist-director Daniel Rowland approached me to write a piece for them, I immediately googled Dutch poets. I was intrigued to find the French-sounding name, Isabelle de Charrire (1740  1805). Also known as Belle van Zuylen, she was born and brought up in Utrecht, where the premiere of this new composition would take place. In the 18th century, it was common for well-to-do families to appoint French tutors for their children and, as a result, everything Belle wrote was in that language. Her writings cover all aspects of life and love, but I was particularly drawn to these two poems. 1. Companion, for which I have taken three verses from her longer poem Heureux moineaux, tells of her envy at how much easier sparrowsʼ relationships with each other are than those between humans. The poem was Belleʼs reaction to hearing of the philandering Marquis de Lassay, inspiring her to express that it is good to flee from love and to prefer a less jealous, less worrisome friendship. The violin sets the scene, imitating authentic sparrow calls from Californian, Argentinian and Spanish sparrows and the choir enters, taking the sparrowsʼ rhythms and harmonizing the pitch progressions. Here, the English words feature alongside the original French as a bird-like accompaniment. 2. Conquest, or Quels accents vien-je dʼentendre is a beautifully structured and intensely passionate poem, written as a song for Mademoiselle de Tuyll de Serooskerken, elder daughter of Lord of Zuylen. It was originally set to the air: Vous amants, que jʼintresse  possibly a pre-existing tune or one composed by Belle herself. I have relished creating overtly romantic harmonies with restless textures in English accompanying the yearning melody in French. The violin alternates between accompanying them in lilting broken chords and soaring ardently over the choir. I am deeply grateful to both Benjamin and Daniel for asking me to do this and to AVROTROS and the Stiftfestival for commissioning the work, on the occasion of Benjaminʼs inaugural concert as the choirʼs Chief Conductor. Roxanna Panufnik (8 June, 2020)

Arion and the Dolphin

Music runs through the story of Arion, which begins with a singing competition in Sicily. Arion wins the prize, and this puts his life in danger: his newfound wealth excites the greed of the sailors who are supposed to bebringing him back to Corinth, and they threaten to kill him. They allow Arion to sing one last song, and the power of his singing attracts dolphins to the ship.  At the end of his song, he jumps overboard, and one of thedolphins carries him to safety.  So Arion’s musical gift gets him into trouble, but it is also his salvation.   The idea of being rescued by a music-loving dolphin is very appealing. In RobertGraves’account of the myth, the dolphin could not bear to be parted from Arion, and accompanied him back to court, where “it soon succumbed to a life of luxury.”  However, Herodotus says that, after hisrescue and return to Corinth, Arion failed to return the dolphin to the sea, and it died there.  Apollo placed the dolphin among the stars, and next to it, Arion’s lyre, in recognition of his musical skill.  Thisis one of the mythical explanations of the origins of the constellations Delphinus and Lyra. It seems natural to sing a story that has singing at its heart. When I was asked by the Nicholas Berwin Charitable Trust to writea choral work for Making Music, something that would be within reach of many choirs, and involve children, this story struck me as ideal: the men of the chorus could be the bloodthirsty sailors, and the women could create anatmosphere of mystery for the arrival of the dolphins, represented by children’s voices. There would be one solo voice: Arion, the marvellous singer. Andrew Fardell, the conductor who was advisor to this commission, hadsuggested that I might use the same instrumentation as a popular arrangement of Orff’s Carmina Burana, a work that, as well as using children’s chorus, features a solo countertenor. I thought the magical, otherworldlyquality of this