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Music & Song
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CHRISTMAS
No list of Shaw's work would be complete without a list of his music written for Christmas. It was a subject in which he seemed to specialize, beginning with his work on the English Carol Book.
SONGS & ANTHEMS
UNACCOMPANIED
FEMALE VOICES
THE BIRDS (Czech carol)
4 pages SSC
Oxford Choral Songs
OUP 1958 [OBC no. 103]
MALE VOICES
HERE WE COME A-WASSAILING (English Traditional Carol)
Tenor solo, TTBB
[ OBC no. 15]
Boosey’s Choral Miscellany No. 236, 1949
COPAC
MIXED CHORUS
CAROL OF THE ADVENT (Eleanor Farjeon) 
"People Look East"
Alternative words: "Shepherds Shake off your Drowsy Sleep" (Anon)SATB 5 verses with chorus;
OUP [OBC no. 133]
COVENTRY CAROL (O Sisters Too)
Pageant of the Shearmen Tailors, 15th century
SATB
OUP [OBC no. 22]
GLORIA (for nativity plays)
2 pages SATB
Curwen 1931
COPAC
I SING OF A MAIDEN
(15th century, OBC no. 183)
SATB
[OBC no. 183]
Included in A CHRISTMAS READING
Novello 1962
NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP (Robert Southwell (1561-95))
8 pages SATB
Novello 1932. [OBC no. 170]
Included in A CHRISTMAS READING
Novello 1962
ROCKING (traditional Czech carol from the Oxford Book of Carols)
Oxford Choral Songs
OUP 1957; [OBC no. 87]
This carol remains in Martin Shaw's copyright.
See 'Three Stories about Copyright'
SUSANNI (A little Child there is yborn)
5 short verses SATB
[OBC no. 118]
WONDER TIDINGS (from 15th c. manuscript)
2 pages Soli, SATB
Curwen 1931
COPAC WORLDCAT
ACCOMPANIED with organ or piano, unless otherwise indicated.
AS I RODE OUT (Old English Carol)
3 pages Unison
Curwen 1928
THE BELLS OF CHRISTMAS (Eugene Field)
Solo song; 2 pages A m. B m. D m.
Cramer 1927
COPAC WORLDCAT
COME REJOICING (Christmas Sequence Laetabundis, 11th c.)
Soprano & Tenor soli, SATB
Gordon V. Thompson 1958
Roberton 1975
FANFARE: GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO
duration ½ - ¾ minute without repeat
SATB with Organ & two Trumpets
Curwen 80596, 1922, 1950,
SATB with Organ & Handbells arr. Dick Averre
TTBB Curwen 1956
SSC Curwen
arr. Maurice Jacobson 1959COPAC WORLDCAT
GLORIA -
(for nativity plays, written at the request of the Religious Drama Society)
2 pages SATB
Curwen 1931
COPAC
KINGS IN GLORY (Selwyn Image)
5 verses SATB
Treble solo for verses 1, 3 & 5
OUP 1928 [OBC No. 194]
MAKE WE MERRY - a warning to spoil-sports.
Poem, Old English
Unison, 4 pages
Make we merry, both more or less,
For now is the time of Chris-te-mas, of Chris-te-mas!
Let no man come into this hall,
No groom, ne page, ne yet marshall,
But that some sport he bring withal.
If he say he cannot sing,
Some other sport then let him bring,
That it may please at this feasting.If he say he naught can do,
Then, for my love, ask him no more,
But to the stocks –
But to the stocks – then let him go.Make we merry, both more and less,
For now is the time of Chris-te-mas,
of Chris-te-mas , of Chris-te-mas,
of Christ-mas.!
Curwen 1926
COPAC
OLD CHRISTMAS (adapted by Sir Walter Scott & Thomas Miller)
Unison, 4 pages
On Christmas Eve the bells were rung,
On Christmas Eve the Mass was sung;
The damsel donn'd her kirtle sheen,
The hall was dressed with holly green,
–Forth to the wood did merry men go, to gather in the mistletoe.Chorus:
Then drink to the holly berry,
With hey down, hey down derry
With mistletoe we'll pledge also
And at Christmas all be merry.The fire with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide
–Then came the merry masquers in
Anc carols roared with blithesome din.–
England was Merry England when Old England brought his sports again.–Chorus....
from 'A Christmas Pageant'
Curwen 1925
SONG OF DECEMBER (Christina Rossetti)
2 part song
Cramer Music, 1927
THERE WAS A ROSEBUD BLOOMED IN THE SNOW (Doris Pailthorpe)
3 pages SATB
Novello 1930
WHENAS ALL THE WORLD (Sarum Antiphoner)
6 pages Baritone solo, SATB
OUP 1931
PAGEANTS & SERVICES
UNACCOMPANIED
THE CRIB (C.M.Baines)
STB soli & SCTB Chorus, performance time 8 minutes, 20 pages.
One Soprano - Mary
One Bass - The Ox and Balthazar
One Baritone - First Shepherd & Joseph
Two Tenors - The first sings the Ass & Caspar, the second sings Melchoir
Curwen 1925
COPAC WORLDCAT
ACCOMPANIED
AT THE SIGN OF THE STAR (Barclay Baron)
A Chrismas mime retelling the Christmas story c.1800
Soli, chorus, overture: 24 pages
Orchestral score may be available from OUP archive
OUP 1929
COPAC WORLDCAT
A CHRISTMAS READING a carol service:
Once in Royal David’s City
The Lord at First
I sing of a Maiden,
Joseph in Slumber,
New Prince, New Pomp,
O Little one Sweet,
Fanfare,
Hominum Laudes,
As I Rode Out,
While Shepherds watch’‘d their flocks,
Three Kings in great glory,
This Endris Night,
Adeste Fideles with faux-bourdon,
As If ye would hear,
O Come all ye Faithful
Novello 1961
A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT (secular)
18 pages
The Wassail Song
The Yule Log
Old Christmas
Dame Get Up
I saw Three Ships
Here we come
The Boar’s Head Carol
Ule, Ule!
Oranges and Lemons
God Bless the Master of this House
Curwen 1925
COPAC WORLDCAT
THE CHRISTMAS MYSTERY
A carol service for church choirs with special music by Martin Shaw. Originally written by Sylvia Carpenter & Enid Welsford.
23 pages
EH Hymn 8 (A&M 49) O Come O Come Emanuel
I Sing of a Maiden
Shepherds in the Field abiding
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Come, Rock the Cradle
I heard an Infant Weeping
Kings of Orient
EH Hymn 28 to 'Adeste Fideles'
O Sisters Too (Coventry Carol)
As up the Wood I Took my Way
Up! Good Christian Folk and Listen
Finale: E.H. 435 (A&M 214)
A.R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd. 1927
COPAC WORLDCAT
CAROLS
THE ENGLISH CAROL BOOK (Ed. Percy Dearmer)
"It is a remarkable thing that the Victorian era –which produced, in the ordinary way of business, a book with such beautiful and appropriate wood-cuts as those contained in a popular volume of Carols now lying before me– should have produced no musician willing to arrange the tunes for choral use in a manner corresponding to the sturdy peasant-note which is so characteristic of them ; no musician, indeed, who could even perceive that a folk-tune is a different thing from a sentimental part-song..."
From Shaw's Preface to The English Carol Book
70 + pages 32 traditional English carols
A R Mowbray 1913
COPAC WORLDCAT
OXFORD BOOK OF CAROLS Shaw's compositions listed by carol:
ALL BELLS IN PARADISE : 184 (General)
IN EXCELCIS GLORIA : 178 (2nd tune, Nativity)
I SING OF A MAIDEN : 183 (General, Medieval)
KINGS IN GLORY : 194 (treble solo vv. 1,3, & 5, Christmas, Epiphany)
MAKE WE MERRY : 172 (Christmas, secular)
MERRY CHRISTMAS : 189 (Secular)
OUT OF YOUR SLEEP : 177 (Nativity)
OUP 1928
