Samuel Foxon
2023 Score Excerpt Competition!
Every year, I have a competition for all my GCSE and A level music students. This competition is designed to further their score reading abilities, and also provide them with some wider listening. The booklet contains 10 excerpts of musical scores. They are all Christmas related! (N.b. the competition element is only open to my…
Programme Notes for Byrd Concert
William Byrd – Struggle with the Establishment 400 years ago, the eminent English composer William Byrd died, leaving a legacy of over 470 compositions and a profound impact on the musical landscape of England. On his death the Chapel Royal described him, rather uniquely as a “Father of Musick”. Not much is known about Byrd’s…
2022 Score Excerpt Competition Answers
Each Bold Answer is 1 Mark- 27 in total
Rossini Programme Notes
Petite Messe Solennelle seems a curious name for this large-scale choral work. Translating to mean ‘Little Solemn Mass’, this title is wrong on almost every count; it is not little (it fills an entire concert repertoire), it is certainly not solemn (it is almost dripping with boisterous frivolity), and it would seem most out of…
2022 Score Excerpt Competition!
Every year, I have a competition for all my GCSE and A level music students. This competition is designed to further their score reading abilities, and also provide them with some wider listening. The booklet contains 10 excerpts of musical scores. They are all Christmas related! (N.b. the competition element is only open to my…
Rutter’s Magnificat Programme Notes
Music and the Magnificat The Magnificat, as recorded in Luke’s Gospel, is a hymn that has become a cornerstone for music making within the Church for over two millennia. In the Gospel, Mary sings these words on hearing that she will bear the Son of God. Today, we see the text used liturgically in the…
Music from the British Isles – Programme Notes
The Choral music in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales has often taken a different trajectory from its European counterparts. In part, this was due to the increased time it took for artistic ideas to permeate to Britain from the various cultural centres of Venice, the Vatican, or even Vienna. It is possibly the historical context…
School Ukulele Ensemble (SUE) Requirements
The School Ukulele Ensemble (SUE) series is a self-published series of music written and arranged especially for Schools Music leaders to have a repertory of arrangements. These guiding requirements are designed to allow a common language in Ukulele arranging for school ensembles, without inhibiting creativity. Objectives: Guiding Requirements for this series: 1. Submissions may be…
John Blow and the Court Ode
In Thomas Tudway’s (d. 1726) prefaces to his volumes of Services and Anthems, presented to Lord Edward Harvey between 1715 and 1717, give accounts (and opinions) on the state of church music after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 (see appendix 4). Tudway describes how, along with the monarchy being restored after the Commonwealth…
Music Edition: Arise my Melancholy Soul – John Blow