Keeping the harmonic framework (apart from the ending which involved a tiny amount of ad-libbing).

Unit 1, Project 2 - Ave Maria (Schubert) Contrast

Yorkshire poet Ebenezer Elliott's 'People's Anthem'.  I used three compositions (by Beethoven, Schubert and Bach) as textural and harmonic inspiration.  A work in progress.

When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
Not kings and lords, but nations,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they;
Let them not pass, like weeds, away;
Their heritage a sunless day:
O God, save the people!

Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it Thy will, O Father,
That man shall toil for wrong?
No, say Thy mountains; No, Thy skies;
Man’s clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs ascend, instead of sighs:
O God, save the people!

When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people; Thine they are,
Thy children, as Thine angels fair:
From vice, oppression, and despair,
O God, save the people!

Amen

Song setting for Ebenezer Elliott's People's Anthem

THERE 's little joy in life for me,
And little terror in the grave;
I 've lived the parting hour to see
Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,
Wishing each sigh might be the last;
Longing to see the shade of death
O'er those belovèd features cast.

The cloud, the stillness that must part
The darling of my life from me;
And then to thank God from my heart,
To thank Him well and fervently;

Although I knew that we had lost
The hope and glory of our life;
And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,
Must bear alone the weary strife.

by Charlotte Brontë

(Vocal and accompaniment a work in progress)

Song setting for poem - On the Death of Anne Brontë

SATB for Above the Dock by T E Hulme

Above the quiet dock in midnight,

Tangled in the tall mast's corded height,

Hangs the moon. [Hangs the moon.] What seemed so far away

Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play. [Forgotten after play.]

by T. E. Hulme

T E Hulme Above the Dock SATB revisions

A guitar prelude which made it's way into my mind while listening to a performance of Scarlatti's Sonata in F minor, K. 239.

Clara_ma