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

 

MST crest THE BIRDS (Czech carol)

4 pages SSC
Oxford Choral Songs

OUP 1958 [OBC no. 103]

 

 

MALE VOICES

 

MST crest HERE WE COME A-WASSAILING (English Traditional Carol)

Tenor solo, TTBB
[ OBC no. 15]

Boosey’s Choral Miscellany No. 236, 1949

COPAC

 

MIXED CHORUS

 

MST crest CAROL OF THE ADVENT (Eleanor Farjeon) you tube logo

"People Look East"
Alternative words: "Shepherds Shake off your Drowsy Sleep" (Anon)

SATB 5 verses with chorus;
OUP [OBC no. 133]

 

MST crest COVENTRY CAROL (O Sisters Too)
Pageant of the Shearmen Tailors, 15th century
You Tube logo

SATB

OUP [OBC no. 22]

 

MST crest GLORIA (for nativity plays)

2 pages SATB

Curwen 1931

COPAC

 

MST crest I SING OF A MAIDEN
(15th century, OBC no. 183)

SATB

[OBC no. 183]

Included in A CHRISTMAS READING
Novello 1962

 

MST crest NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP (Robert Southwell (1561-95))

8 pages SATB

Novello 1932. [OBC no. 170]

Included in A CHRISTMAS READING
Novello 1962

 

MST crest ROCKING (traditional Czech carol from the Oxford Book of Carols)

Oxford Choral Songs

OUP 1957; [OBC no. 87]

You Tube logo

This carol remains in Martin Shaw's copyright.
See 'Three Stories about Copyright'

 

MST crest SUSANNI (A little Child there is yborn)

5 short verses SATB

[OBC no. 118]

 

MST crest WONDER TIDINGS (from 15th c. manuscript)

2 pages Soli, SATB

Curwen 1931

COPAC WORLDCAT

 

 

ACCOMPANIED with organ or piano, unless otherwise indicated.

 

MST crest AS I RODE OUT (Old English Carol)

3 pages Unison

Curwen 1928

 

MST crest THE BELLS OF CHRISTMAS (Eugene Field)

Solo song; 2 pages A m. B m. D m.

Cramer 1927

COPAC WORLDCAT

 

MST crest COME REJOICING (Christmas Sequence Laetabundis, 11th c.)

Soprano & Tenor soli, SATB

Gordon V. Thompson 1958
Roberton 1975

 

MST Crest  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 1959

COPAC WORLDCAT

 

MST crest GLORIA -
(for nativity plays, written at the request of the Religious Drama Society)

2 pages SATB

Curwen 1931

COPAC

 

MST crest KINGS IN GLORY (Selwyn Image)

5 verses SATB
Treble solo for verses 1, 3 & 5

OUP 1928 [OBC No. 194]

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest SONG OF DECEMBER (Christina Rossetti)

2 part song

Cramer Music, 1927

 

MST crest THERE WAS A ROSEBUD BLOOMED IN THE SNOW (Doris Pailthorpe)

3 pages SATB

Novello 1930

 

MST crest WHENAS ALL THE WORLD (Sarum Antiphoner)

6 pages Baritone solo, SATB

OUP 1931

 

 

PAGEANTS & SERVICES

 

UNACCOMPANIED

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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

MST crest 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

 

MST crest 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)

List of Shaw's arrangements & FURTHER INFORMATION

OUP 1928