Chorale Prelude: When I survey the Wond'rous Cross

Chorale Prelude: Amazing Grace

Impromptu Valentine, originally an improvisation on 14 February 2022

Impromptu Valentine (composed & performed by MMS)

This 10 minute meditation is a  soft and soothing exploration of how you experience kindness and how you can harmonise it internally so that it’s there for you at any time. This refreshing pause can be used as often as you like. May it brings joy to your day.

Harmonising With Kindness

Ian Thompson (tenor) with Susan Daniel (alto) and Peter Hill (piano). Semichorus including Susan OGrady conducted by Nicholas Conran. Translated by MMS and produced by him at IBC Studios 1969

Diary Of One Who Disappeared 8

Sonnets to Orpheus 6 (Sonnet 1.17) Music /lyrics by Michael Maxwell Steer based on the German of Rainer Maria Rilke.

©2001. ®2004 by Frances M Lynch with the Argonaut Ensemble (Carlos Lopez-Réal saxes, Andrew Cottee percussion, Nick Hayward bass, MMS piano /director)

Sonnets to Orpheus 12: Silent companion of the empty spaces

Notes From Janàček’s Diary is an adaptation - written, composed, performed and realised by MMS - of certain fragments of Janacek's occasional musical text jottings collected & published by Vilem Tausky. It was commissioned by BBCr3 Features, producer John Theocharis, and created at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop over the summer of 1990, thanks to the cooperation of Brian Hodgson.
   The acoustic recording took place in June 1990 at the Paris Studio, L Regent St London, with Janacek as an old man played by John Moffat, Janacek as a young man by Stephen Garlick, all women's voices by Der Shin Hwang, violin Wilfred Gibson, piano MMS, and the children's voices of Laura-Jane Rich, Suzi Steer & Serafina Steer.
    The subsequent electronic realisation took MMS over 40 studio days in Maida Vale.
    Everybody in BBCr3 Features loved it. The one person who didn't was John Drummond, Controller R3; thus Notes From Janàček’s Diary was both my finest and final programme for BBC Radio.
   More details: http://msteer.co.uk/creative/janacek/janacek.html

Notes From Janàček’s Diary 6: The Beginning of a Novel

Between 2006-2012 Susan Nares & I would often meet at her home in Chewton Glen Farm, Christchurch, for spiritually-attuned improvisation. See also video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUID9Pg93l4&list=PLDA07DF0F23DCBECD  

Seven. SN, MS. 22/07/2007

Sometimes. SN, MS. 22/07/2007

Words & Music by MM Steer 2001, Vocalist Lucy Hayes 2020
Image courtesy Angie Farr

Lyrics
Between you, between me, a golden river runs to the sea, 
and it carries all my hopes and my dreams. 
Between me, between you, there flies a lovely bird that sings truth, 
and it chants that we are not what we seen. 
Away in the mountains, in a kingdom of cloud, 
lives the Ancient of Days and his daughter Mæbhruid. 
And to approach him is the journey of a lifetime‘s request, 
for no one can find him except in true quest. 

And shall you, and shall I, make this journey together? 
Shall we let our hearts merge in one? 
And shall I, and shall you, tread this pathway in all weathers 
until our lives walk be done. 
The way o’er the mountains is easy to lose, 
and it’s stony and steep and demands that we use 
every ounce of our strength if we want to succeed. 
So follow the pathway wherever it leads. 

But Mæbhruid is our guide and she will ever make us be true 
as she brings us away to her Da. 
And she calls me to offer all my heart loving to you
As we journey the way to his hearth. 
The way up the mountains is a carpet of flowers 
which the great man hath strewn all the way to be ours: 
and with my Mæbhruid as our guide and with love as our goal, 
let us journey together with heart and with soul.

Mæbhruid - final version

0:00     1st mvt:     Son Montuno
5:07      2nd mvt: Bolero-Chá
8:08     3rd mvt: Fantasía

Please listen with headphones!

Mæbhruid - final version

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