Choral Archives - Cecilia McDowall

Songs of the North (2026)

SSATB and piano
Text: John Challis (North); Catherine Ayres (Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall); Ian Stuart (Journey North) These three poems can be found on the Poem of the North website:
https://poemofthenorth.co.uk/

Duration: 12 minutes
Commissioned by Newcastle Bach Choir to celebrate Eric Cross’s 40th anniversary as conductor

I North
II Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall
III Journey North

Songs of the North sets three texts from ‘Poem of the North’, a poetic collaboration celebrating 50 years of the Northern Poetry Library. As part of the project, poems were written with a new ‘821’ form: a structure characterized by 11-line, three-stanza poems that employ the ‘volta’ concept to subtly interconnect series of stanzas. The work’s celebration of Northern English writing begins with ‘North’, a flowing and forward-moving movement that reflects the poet’s consideration of north as ‘a progressive direction’. The second movement, ‘Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall’, has a folk-like simplicity and integrates the folk song ‘Waters of Tyne’ into the texture. Additionally, the poem’s references to the Sycamore Gap tree are given greater poignance following its illegal felling in 2023. The final movement, ‘Journey North’, has a rhythmic drive that evokes an exciting train journey through a fast-changing landscape.

Programme Note:

Songs of the North Cecilia McDowall

I. North
2. Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall
3. Journey North

These three poems, North, Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall and Journey North were written as part of a poetic concept, ‘Poem of the North’, created by Lisa Matthews to celebrate 50 years of the Northern Poetry Library, established in Morpeth, Northumberland in 1968. The library hosts the largest collection of post-World War II poetry in England outside London, home to constellations of finely-tuned, often moving and sometimes unnerving words.

Lisa Matthews writes, ‘the Poem of the North’ brings together the work of the fifty selected poets, in five cantos, published over a period of six months. By the end of 2018, the completed poem stands as a celebratory artefact: a tribute to the region and acknowledgement of the North’s rich seam of writers and written culture.’

The concept behind Poem of the North is that each poem is based on a new poetic form … 8-2-1 … a form devised by Lisa Matthews as a tribute to the poetry section of libraries. The 821 poetic form is an 11-line, 3-stanza structure which draws its inspiration from the number assigned to English poetry in the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system. Secondly, 821 utilises the “volta”, a concept traditionally associated with sonnets and used to create a subtly interconnected series of stanzas that turn or riff off one another.

Songs of the North, for mixed chorus and piano, was commissioned by the Newcastle Bach Choir to celebrate Eric Cross’ 40th anniversary as conductor. John Challis’ North is the first poem in this new work and he writes that his poem ‘considers north as a progressive direction’. The text gives a real sense of always moving onwards and holding the idea of ‘north’ close. Catherine Ayres’ poem, Notes made on Hadrian’s Wall has a spare quality about it; silence, a vast sky above the ‘shadow spine’ of the wall and a deep sense of history. The words, ‘I mean nothing, almost sucked towards the sycamore’s crown,’ are particularly poignant in the light of the wanton destruction of the Sycamore Gap tree. I have given this movement a simple ‘folk-like feel and integrated the folk song, Waters of Tyne, into the texture. The rhythmic drive of final poem, Journey North by Ian Stuart suggests an exciting train journey through a fast-changing landscape, pausing for a moment to observe ‘a blaze of sunflowers’, their faces raised ‘to the silent sky.’

Bird of Time (2025)

Soprano solo, SSATB and oboe, strings and percussion or piano accompaniment
Text: Kate Wakeling
Duration: 15 minutes
Commissioned by Henley Choral Society and conductor, Peter Asprey

I O Bird of Time
II Aubade (a lament)
III To Be Bird

In this poignant three-movement work, Cecilia McDowall sets texts by Indian political activist and poet Sarojini Naidu and frequent collaborator Seán Street. With the exquisite beauty of birdsong, often expressed by the obbligato oboe part, at its heart, Bird of Time explores themes of sorrow, loss, and hope for a better future. The opening movement is structured around questions posed to the ‘Bird of Time’ and features richly expressive instrumental interludes. A soprano soloist joins the choir for the second movement, which contrasts the optimism of a dawn chorus with a lament to the plight of the dwindling avian population. The energetic and playful closing movement explores the notion of a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of how humans might appear to these airborne creatures.

Programme Note:

Bird of Time Cecilia McDowall
soprano solo, mixed chorus, oboe, strings and percussion

On receiving this special commission from Ealing Choral Society, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, I was keen to involve the choir in some way. I asked if the singers would share their thoughts on poetic texts with me, something which might suggest a line of inspiration. There were many poems and texts I loved, and it would have been hard to choose from them all, but there was one I was fascinated by: a poem submitted by the Treasurer, Cynthia Haliburn, The Bird of Time by the remarkable Indian political activist, feminist and poet, Sarojini Naidu. And it seemed even more apposite to be setting Sarojini Naidu’s poetry now, during the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence.

After two years of pandemic, and all the difficulties which arose from this time, I think we have become more alive to what we hold most dear. With restrictions imposed on our day-to-day activities in lockdown, many of us took to exercising in the streets; there were few cars, no overhead planes, and in the silence we heard . . . the birdsong; exquisitely beautiful, full of variety and loud! And it is the idea of this precious sound at the heart of the cantata, Bird of Time.

Sarojini Naidu’s poem, The Bird of Time, embraces sorrow, loss and hope for the future. Each verse asks the ‘Bird of Time’ a question, ‘What are the songs you sing?’ In the lines that follow we learn of such poignant contrasts, of joy and despair, of dreams and laughter, of life and death. The movement closes by restating the opening couplet. Life’s full circle, perhaps.

The second movement, Aubade, for soprano solo and chorus is a setting of a poem by Seán Street. Seán and I have collaborated many times before now and it is always a joy to share ideas and work together. I have subtitled Seán’s poem, ‘a lament’. Growing up in the sixties I was very aware of the influence the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson had on my parents. I can even remember the arresting look of the book with a dead bird on the cover. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and conservationist, was far ahead of her time. The soprano soloist opens the movement, singing of the dawn chorus which we hear ‘out of darkness, song before flight […] dawn song before everything.’ The chorus picks up the phrase, ‘out of darkness.’ In the second verse the soprano intimates that the avian population is dwindling; this time the chorus sings, ‘into darkness’. In the last verse, ‘silent spring’ has arrived with its ‘haunting silence beyond repair’. The chorus responds, ‘beyond darkness’.

In the last movement, To be bird, we now have a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of how we humans might appear to these airborne creatures. And they are not impressed! When we discussed how this poem might be, Seán related how he had heard, during the pandemic when planes were a rare thing, a nestful of startled chicks squawking at the sudden rush of sound from an aeroplane. In the second verse Seán conjures up some indignation at such a disturbance. The final verse accepts that humans are hopeless; ‘You aspire to be bird? Oh my word – it’s absurd!’
©2022, Cecilia McDowall

1. The Bird of Time

O Bird of Time on your fruitful bough
What are the songs you sing? . . .
Songs of the glory and gladness of life,
Of poignant sorrow and passionate strife,
And the lilting joy of the spring;
Of hope that sows for the years unborn,
And faith that dreams of a tarrying morn,
The fragrant peace of the twilight’s breath,
And the mystic silence that men call death.

O Bird of Time, say where did you learn
The changing measures you sing? . . .
In blowing forests and breaking tides,
In the happy laughter of new-made brides,
And the nests of the new-born spring;
In the dawn that thrills to a mother’s prayer,
And the night that shelters a heart’s despair,
In the sigh of pity, the sob of hate,
And the pride of a soul that has conquered fate.

Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)

2. Aubade

Air made audible.
Out of darkness,
song before flight, before wing,
dawn song before everything.
Out of darkness.

A music maker
for those who sang,
for the diminishing choir,
less in each unfeathering hour.
Into darkness.

Absence visible,
and morning song
haunting silence beyond repair,
filling space where their voices were
Beyond darkness.

Seán Street (1946)

3. To Be Bird

You aspire to be bird,
beyond word into song,
beyond earth into sky,
but ground makes your sound,
too solid, too rooted
to be part of our choir.

Your thunder and roar,
the noise as you soar,
disturbing our night
and clouding our light
drowns all our protests,
the joy of our nests.

Were you as we, you’d see
how to grow into blue.
we are not here for you
but ourselves, so how can
we teach you the sky,
teach you transparency?
You aspire to be bird?
Oh my word, it’s absurd!

Seán Street (1946)

Link to OUP website

Music of the Stars (2024)

SATB and strings and percussion or piano accompaniment
Text: Brian Odongo (Music of the Stars); Neil deGrasse Tyson (The hardest thing): James Weldon Johnson (The Gift to Sing)

Duration: 15 minutes
Commissioned by the Chamber Singers of Iowa City member, James Petersen and his spouse David McCartney in 2020

I Music of the Stars
II The hardest thing
III The Gift to Sing

Music of the Stars offers an enlightening commentary on the power of music to console and uplift in challenging times. Characterful string writing accompanies the engaging vocal lines, with McDowall artfully employing vibraphone, glockenspiel, and suspended cymbal to sprinkle a touch of celestial sparkle throughout the score. An excerpt from a folksong from Ukraine is woven into the first movement’s gentle setting of Kenyan poet Brian Odongo’s atmospheric depiction of the music of the ancient stars that watch over humanity below. The second, up-tempo movement presents American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s absorbing explanation of ‘light’ and how we perceive it. Lastly, the affirmatory final movement sets American writer James Weldon Johnson’s well-known text ‘The Gift to Sing’, drawing the piece to a close with the emphatic, joyful statement: ‘And I can sing’.

Programme Note:

Music of the Stars Cecilia McDowall
I Music of the Stars
II The hardest thing
III The Gift to Sing

‘Music of the Stars’ was commissioned by long-time Chamber Singers of Iowa City member, James Petersen and his spouse David McCartney, to celebrate the Chamber Singers’ fiftieth season. In normal times this anniversary commission would have been programmed to take place during the 2020-2021 season but due to the global COVID pandemic has been delayed until this year.

James and David suggested a commission which could celebrate the power of music in these difficult times. I was most touched to be offered such a rewarding commission. Finding just the right text to set is such an interesting process and I felt this one was particularly engaging. In recognition of the racial issues which face us every day the commissioners and music director, David Puderbaugh, offered texts written by people of colour; James Weldon Johnson and Kenyan born, Brian Odongo. The latter text was discovered by another CSIC singer, Elaine Reding.

To continue the theme of music, singing and the stars I discovered an absorbing explanation of ‘light’ and how we perceive it by the American astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is an outstanding science communicator and I found myself drawn to, and fascinated by, his planetary postings which have a clarity I had not encountered before.

The atmospheric text of the first movement, Music of the Stars, evokes ‘dark night clouds’, illuminated by ancient, radiant stars as they watch over mortals’ adventures below; the ‘music of the stars’ sings to ‘seafarers, wayfarers and soldiers’. There is a gentle, almost mesmerising pace to the poem which I hope is reflected in the music. I wove a little Ukrainian folksong into this movement, just a wisp of the song, (In the garden flowers are growing, Boys will quarrel where I’m going) as it just seemed impossible to ignore the unfolding horror in Ukraine. I would be mortified if this seemed a posturing gesture but as I was writing I found it hard not to be affected by these shocking events and to feel, at the same time, utterly powerless as a witness.

In the text of the second, up-tempo movement, The hardest thing, Tyson explores the concept of how we analyse color. Certainly, when reading Tyson’s explanation of how the universe is studied, one begins to sense what an extraordinarily complex science astrophysics is. Setting prose to music needs a different approach, I feel, and I aimed to bring a more conversational style to the word setting, sometimes repeating the little phrase endings, to give a little more emphasis.

The poem, The Gift to Sing, will be so familiar to many. I found this a wonderful poem to set; there is something so quietly confident, so intimate and ultimately joyful about it. Each verse ends with a solution to the day’s challenges – ‘I softly sing’; ‘and sing and sing’; ‘And I can sing’. These heart-warming words bring an affirmation of what the power of singing can do for us all in times of difficulty. The text speaks to us all in these most exacting times. How glorious it is, at last, to sing again.

The work is scored for strings and percussion, and I have used the vibraphone, the glockenspiel and suspended cymbal to add colour to the texture, hoping to sprinkle a little celestial sparkle over the score. I do hope this work brings a response to the times in which we now live.
© 2022, Cecilia McDowall

Music of the Stars

Cecilia McDowall

1. Music of the Stars

The dark night clouds are starlit
As though to mock the moon
That arises at each twilight
To take the mantle from the sun
All united in an assignment
To light the dark auditorium below
The radiant stars gloriously move
Age to age whispering its adventures
It’s the music of the stars
Singing the past, present, future
Singing a past heard in legends
Singing a present felt by all men
Singing a future obscure to mortals
It’s the music of the stars.

The inaudible lyrics of the stars
That need neither lute nor lyre*
To arouse the heart with its ancient rhyme
That chime that is older than any note
Like a spell enchants the audience

Its melody wanes towards daybreak
Like a script come to a timely end
Its rhythm diminishes
Like beats fleeting from dawn
Its harmony dis-accords
Like harpers’ strings breaking
It’s the music of the stars
Singing a ballad to seafarers
Singing a hymn to wayfarers
Singing an anthem to soldiers
It’s the music of the stars.

*In the garden flowers are growing,
Boys will quarrel where I’m going.
[Ukrainian folksong]

Brian Odongo (1994)

2. The hardest thing to explain about the universe
The hardest thing, I think by far, is how we analyze spectra — light broken up into its component colors. It’s so abstract, so removed from the actual object we’re studying. See, chemists study chemicals in the lab. Biologists study life on Earth. But astrophysicists can’t go out there and grab a piece of a galaxy and put it in a laboratory. We have to study a picture of the thing, and then analyze the light that comes from it. Nearly everything we know about our universe comes through the analysis of light. It’s all just light – and ninety-nine percent of it happens to be invisible to the naked eye.

from Being an astronomer

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958)

3. The Gift to Sing

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day – I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note – And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song – And I can sing.

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

Link to Score

The Ice is Listening (2023)

Soprano solo, SATB, & piano/chamber orchestra

Duration: 16′
Oxford University Press
Commissioned by Henley Choral Society
First performance 1 April, 2023, Henley Choral Society | Richard Harker, conductor | St Mary’s Church, Henley, Oxfordshire, UK
Commissioned to celebrate Henley Choral Society’s 50th anniversary.

We live in times when ice is increasingly under threat, causing sea levels to rise and rivers to surge. The Ice is Listening sets evocative poetry by Kate Wakeling around the theme of ice: from the nostalgia of 17th century frost fairs to a reflection on today’s climate crisis, with concern for an uncertain future

Programme note:

The Ice is Listening

Cecilia McDowall (music)

Kate Wakeling (words)

1. Solid Waters
2. The ice is listening
3. Moulin

Finding that good starting point for any commission is an exciting process and Henley Choral Society’s suggestion of creating a cantata about the River Thames provided a wonderful ‘way in’ to explore a rich reservoir of ideas. My thoughts turned to ice. We live in times when ice is increasingly under threat, causing sea levels to rise and rivers to surge. I thought of times past, when frost fairs were not uncommon, occurring intermittently up to 1814. And then again, I found my thoughts turning to the future, and how scarce it seems ice might become.

Kate Wakeling has created a rich text for this work. Her poetry conveys the colour and vibrancy of the Frost Fairs on the Thames, London, alongside a deep insight into how the ice is shifting and diminishing; her text shows us how things once were, how they are now, and how they might be. This is not a cantata about ‘winter’; rather, it is a cantata for all time, a reminder that ice is a precious resource, something to treasure and hope we never lose.

Of the first movement, ‘Solid Waters’, Kate writes:

The text is drawn from a wonderful seventeenth-century manuscript that I found in the Old Library of Magdalene College, Oxford. Written by an anonymous source, An Historical Account of the Late Great Frost (1684) describes in marvellous detail the Frost Fair of 1683–4, when the Thames froze solid and all manner of ‘Roasting, Boyling, Eating, Drinking [and] Rejoycing’ took place on its surface.

The movement opens with great activity as ‘people began to walk upon the ice’ and repeated -note patterns on ‘weather’ represent the chattering of teeth. This spirited, vivacious mood is countered by more thoughtful moments; away from the clamour and bustle on the ice there is another world – one of quietness, cold, and hunger.

I feel the second movement will bring an air of regret and loss; it is a lament for the ice we have now but one day, we may have no more. Kate writes:

The text for this movement, ‘The ice is listening’, takes as its starting point a quote from the climate scientist Josh Willis—‘When the ocean speaks, the Greenland Ice Sheet listens’—and explores the impending loss of this ice sheet, paying close attention to the extraordinary amount of ‘history’ locked in the deepest ice here that will so swiftly vanish into air.

The choir is joined by a soprano soloist singing of the ice which ‘has borne time without complaint’. But now water challenges the integrity of ice which ‘is pressed at last to speak’. The chorus supports the soloist, perhaps in the fashion of a Greek chorus commenting on the unfolding of a tragedy.

Of the text in the third movement, Kate writes:

‘Moulin’, expresses something of the dynamism of these strange, magnificent waterfalls within the ice, and seeks to conjure up both their beauty and the threat they pose.

This movement presses on relentlessly, rather in the manner of a perpetuum mobile. Kate’s poetry brings colour to this icy propulsion and I have made play with the words ‘dizzy’ and ‘dazzle’ as if they fall downwards into a watery chasm or ‘moulin’ below. Often there is an expectation that a work of this kind might bring a note of optimism in its final moments but I feel we face such an uncertain future that it seems more in keeping to offer something quieter, more contemplative, perhaps even a little unsettling. In the final bars the lower strings drum their fingers on the body of their instruments in an uneasy undelay as the notes fade away.
This work was commissioned by Henley Choral Society, Richard Harker, conductor, and first performed on 1 April, 2023 at St Mary’s Church, Henley.

Cecilia McDowall, 2023

1. Solid Waters

Text drawn from ‘An Historical Account of the Late Great Frost’ (London: D. Brown & J. Waltho, 1684)

and the river

was all Frozen

the hardest

Weather set in

Tyrannous,

the Frost

altered the

Ancient Government

of this Stream

bound its

Liquid course

to Rigid Laws

and People began

to walk upon

the Ice

a street of Booths

was built

behold

the thriving Trader

at his Shop

the Sportive

at their Recreations

in all places

Smoaking Fires

on the Solid Waters

Roasting, Boyling,

Eating, Drinking,

others Chariotted

and Coach’d about

nothing heard

but rejoycing intermixt

with Drums

and Trumpets

nothing heard

in the fields

nothing heard

in the fields

starved with Cold

here the severity of the season

bore sway

we are taught the Truth

we must Tread backwards

2. The Ice is Listening

‘When the ocean speaks, the Greenland Ice Sheet listens’ –– Josh Willis, climate scientist and Principal Investigator of the ‘Oceans Melting Greenland’ mission, 2021.

The ice is listening.

Unblinking,

it waits.

The ice would only hold

its tongue.

So long

it has borne time

without complaint;

history soothed

and made still

by spotless cold

but now the waters

fret at its sides

and the ice

is pressed

at last

to speak.

Sunk low,

for shame,

the ice gives itself up

and everything

is spilled.

3. Moulin

‘Moulins are the conduits that allow water melting on the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet to drain to its base and cause the ice to flow faster. Forming a moulin in Greenland requires a crack on the surface that becomes filled with enough water to drive the crack all the way through the ice’ –– ‘Widespread Moulin Formation During Supraglacial Lake Drainages in Greenland’, Hoffman et al. Geophysical Research Letters, 2018.

crick crack

seep and swell

the water is a fist

that splits the surface

makes its gaping way

by swerve and tumble

gush and roll

to dizzy and set smooth

and all above the rivers run

shrill and terrific

how they rally now to the open mouth

then flush on and down

through maze of noise and blue

what thrall

what bright ruin is this rushing place

what untethering of thaw and dazzle

that would sweep the earth clean

Kate Wakeling (2023)

Good News from New England (2023)

SSATB and violin solo
Duration: 15′
Oxford University Press
Commissioned by Geoffrey Smeed for City Chamber Choir
First performance 12 July, 2022 | City Chamber Choir | Stephen Jones,
conductor | Carpenters’ Hall, City of London, UK

This exciting fifteen-minute work for SSATB and solo violin draws its title from Edward Winslow’s 1624 chronicles, Good Newes from New England, in which he describes the Mayflower Pilgrims’ settlement in the New World. The first of the three movements describes the Pilgrims’ perilous journey, the second, the mysterious disappearance of Governor William Bradford’s wife, and the third movement, Thanksgiving, is a time of rejoicing. The cantata closes with Henry Ainsworth’s version of ‘The Old Hundredth’, which was sung on the Mayflower; the audience is encouraged to join the choir in singing this hymn.

Next year will see the 400th anniversary of the 1624 chronicles on which Good News from New England is based.

Programme note:
Good News from New England Cecilia McDowall
1. An Unexpected Shore
2. Ghost of a feather
3. Thanksgiving leading to The Old Hundredth

Good News from New England was commissioned by Geoffrey Smeed for the City Chamber Choir and its founder and conductor, Stephen Jones. The first movement of the work, An unexpected shore, has been recorded for the Coro label by The Sixteen, conductor Harry Christophers, and is entitled, An Old Belief. The Sixteen have programmed this movement to be a part of their Choral Pilgrimage which moves between twenty-five cathedrals, priories and concert halls throughout the UK in 2022. The work is scored for mixed voices with solo violin and draws its title from Edward Winslow’s chronicles of 1624, Good Newes from New England, in which he describes the early experiences of the Mayflower Pilgrims arrival and settlement in the New World.

An Unexpected Shore takes its text from the journal of the Puritan separatist William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. Bradford was chosen to be governor of Plymouth Colony in 1621 and gives a telling account of the arrival of the Pilgrims in a new land after their long and perilous journey. These resilient non-conformist Pilgrims were inspired by a ‘sense of earthly grandeur and divine purpose’ and the opening movement charts their voyage from one shore to another by gradually descending from A Major, through Ab Major to G Major, perhaps bringing a sense of establishing a new community in this harsh landscape.

Ghost of a feather is fashioned from two very different texts, 400 years apart, on the same poignant matter; the death of William Bradford’s wife. John Greening’s subtle yet powerful poem describes how Bradford’s wife ‘fell’ overboard into a calm sea in the harbour, December 1620, while her husband was ashore. By contrast, there is something resolute, in the face of catastrophe, in Bradford’s own poem written after his wife, Dorothy’s, tragic death. In seeing the Bradford text I adopted a semi ‘Bay Psalm Book’ idiom, with its plain homophonic style, introducing occasional dissonance to intensify the anguish. In contrast the opening and closing section of this movement might seem more ‘folk-like’ with a violin accompaniment which perhaps reflects the known Celtic influence on fiddle playing in New England at the time. ‘Cole’s Hill’ refers to the first burial ground of the Pilgrims in Plymouth.

The third movement brings perhaps a sense of release and joyfulness in Thanksgiving. The violin solo is in playful dialogue with the dance-like vocal lines. These words are taken from Winslow’s Thanksgiving le􀆩er of 1621 written to a friend in England. A year after the Mayflower Pilgrims se􀆩led in Plymouth, they had much to celebrate. The following section reprises material from the opening movement which in turn leads to Henry Ainsworth’s version of The Old Hundredth which was sung on the Mayflower and subsequently in the Plymouth Colony. The audience is encouraged to participate in singing this hymn.

(1) An unexpected shore

And lo! The winds did blow us ever to the North; so that we that crossed the Seas to seek the Lord’s right worship and the Gospell’s sweet simplicitiee, did now espy an unexpected shore; yet still resolv’d in our extremity to make it ours, by Compact, orderly and free. And here is to be noted a spetiall providence of God, and a great mercie. For we did take a better view, and soon resolv’d where to pitch our dwelling; our first house to raise for common use. William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony 1630 (freely adapted and abridged by Nicholas
Dakin)

(2) Ghost of a feather (William Bradford’s wife, 23, falls overboard and drowns.)

A single cry from the ghost of a feather.
A solitary goodwife drops into the bay.
One burial, then another, then another.
The first house on Christmas Day.

Cole’s Hill (Burial Hill) by John Greening

Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust;
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth chas􀆟se,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.

William Bradford (on the death of his wife)

(3) Thanksgiving
After the famines of the first winter, our harvest now being gotten in, we did after a special
manner rejoice and give thanks together, many of the Indians coming in amongst us we
entertained and feasted. And although it was not always so plentiful again, yet by the
goodness of our God, we were so far from want, that we often wished you partakers of our
plenty.

For me a table thou hast spread,
In presence of my foes:
Thou dost anoint my head with oil,
My cup it over-flows.
And in the Lord’s house I shall dwell
So long as days shall be. (Bay Psalm Book)

Edward Winslow, December 1621, Thanksgiving Letter (adapted and abridged by Nicholas
Dakin)

(4) The Old Hundredth Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622) Book of Psalmes Englished both in
Prose and Metre (1612) freely adapted

Showt to Jehovah, al the earth,
Serv ye Jehovah with gladness;
before him come with singing mirth
Know that Jehovah he God is.

It’s he that made us, and not wee;
his folk, and sheep of his feeding.
O with confession enter ye his gates,
his courtyards with praising:

Confess to him, bless ye his name.
Because Jehovah he good is:
his mercy ever is the same
and his faith, unto all ages.

Henry Ainsworth, English Congregationalist, wrote the psalter that was used on the
Mayflower and at Plymouth, Massachuse􀆩s by the Pilgrims. Later, the first book published in
America would be another psalter, the Bay Psalm Book, but when the Pilgrims first sang
psalms in the New World, the lines came from the Ainsworth Psalter, titled The Book of
Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations.

Review:
‘McDowall’s radiant anthem sets the words of Puritan separatist William
Bradford as he recounts the voyage of the Mayflower. The work dextrously
captures both the sway of the ocean and the relief of reaching firm ground, and
this fine interpretation features a beautiful solo line from soprano Alexandra
Kidgell.’ – BBC Music Magazine

Link to buy score:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/good-news-from-new-england-%209780193540552?q=Good%20News%20from%20New%20England&lang=e%20n&cc=gb#

Link to view score:

Cecilia McDowall – Good News from New England

Thy voice, o Harmony, is divine (2009)

A cappella SSATB
Commissioned by Magdalen College School, Oxford

First performance 3 July, 2009 | The Choir of Magdalen College School | Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford

Commissioned in the year of Haydn’s bi-centenary to celebrate his visit to Oxford.

Thy voice, o Harmony, is divine was commissioned by Magdalen College School to celebrate the Bicentenary of Haydn’s death and the composer’s association with Oxford. It was first performed on 1 July 2009 by the Oxford Sixth Choir, conductor Jon Cullen, in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford as part of the MCS Arts Festival. Also performed at the same concert were works by Handel and Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis (Nelson Mass) by the Hanover Band, conductor Paul Brough.
The London premiere was given by the Esterhazy Singers, conductor Esther Jones, on 4 November 2009 at St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican, London.

This work is inspired by a little piece written by Haydn for the award ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre at which he received his honorary doctorate from Oxford University. Haydn’s Canzone à tre was composed as a round in a clever setting of the words, Thy voice, o Harmony, is divine, which could be turned upside down and sung backwards, simultaneously. The words are attributed to the Haydn.

The phrase shapes of this motet, Thy voice, o Harmony, is divine, derive in some way from Haydn’s Canzone, unfolding and overlapping between the voices. The central section presents a homophonic reference to the Haydn’s round with text and notes set in palindromic fashion. The conclusion of the motet dissolves into repeated, lingering phrases which melt into the air. The text is taken from the Haydn Canzone.

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