This set of Preces and Responses was written for the Epiphany Parish Choir in Seattle in February of 2021, to be sung for Evensong. This piece was specifically written for SATB choir with no divisi, to make this workable for choirs with one or two singers per part, due to the limited capacity of singers that could be present during the Covid-19 pandemic.

To peruse or purchase a score, please visit my website at jessicafrench.net.

Preces and Responses

Organ voluntary: Prelude and Fugue in C minor - Mendelssohn

Not One Sparrow Is Forgotten, William Hawley

Ophelia Songs (2014)
text from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Written for the Western Washington University Concert Choir,
under the direction of Dr. Leslie Guelker-Cone, with Madeline Slettedahl, our fantastic choral accompanist, at the piano. McKenzie Clark, great choral conducting student and choir member, conducted this performance on my senior composition recital!

Solos (in order of appearance): Danielle Bayne & Nick Kim, Cammy Quaife, Eoghan Gormley

The texts for this piece are taken from Ophelia’s lines in Act IV of Hamlet.
--Spoiler Alert!--
This odd assortment of verses are ostensibly real folk-songs, that Shakespeare has given Ophelia to sing as she goes mad. Just prior to this, Hamlet, violently moody title character and lover of Ophelia, has both killed Ophelia’s father (perhaps in a fit of madness, himself) and departed Denmark for England. When Ophelia enters in Act IV, she has noticeably begun to lose touch with reality—instead of conversing with the King and Queen she sings snippets of folk-songs and spouts nonsensical utterances. Her grasp slips further as time goes on, especially as her brother enters and she does not recognize him. After a particularly touching scene where she hands out imaginary flowers to the characters present, she sings the last two stanzas below, and leaves. The next we hear about her—not even a scene later—is that she has drowned in the brook, after making herself “fantastick garlands...Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples”.

----------

How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

They bore him barefac'd on the bier;
And on his grave rain many a tear,—
Fare you well, my dove!

You must sing, Down-a-down, call him a-down-a.

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I, a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine!

And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
He never will come again.

His beard was white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
Heaven 'a mercy on his soul!

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27761/27761-h/27761-h.htm#sceneIV_1

Painting: "Ophelia", John Everett Millais
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Everett_Millais_-_Ophelia_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Ophelia Songs

Carol of the Angels, Eric Barnum

Jessica French is a Seattle-based composer and soprano, specializing in sacred and secular choral music.

Preces and Responses

Jessica M. French

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