Now is the cherry in blossom, Love,	
  Love of my heart, with the apple to follow;	
Over the village at nightfall now	
  Merrily veers and darts the swallow.	
 
At nightfall now in the dark marsh grass	       
  Awakes the chorus that sings old sorrow;	
The evening star is dim for the dew,	
  And the apple and lilac will bloom to-morrow.	
 
The honeysuckle is red on the rock;	
  The willow floats over the brook like a feather:	    
In every shadow some love lies hid,	
  And you and I in the world together.

(Mary Eleanor Wilkins)

==

I really have no space left here!!  Rest of the "soundtrack" is at:
https://sonatina-3.bandcamp.com/album/infinity-crisis-ost

Now is the cherry in blossom (ensemble ver.)

gah I miss RPG music...

(using intentionally limited sound palette/quality for old skool purposes!)

Sad rpg music ....

I will come into thy house in the multitude of the mercy
Harken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning.

Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness.
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness
But thou wilt bless the righteous
With favour wilt thou compass her as with a shield.

-
Words taken from Psalm 5.

The final part of my piece 'Between in God's Eternity', commissioned in as part of the 2016-2017 Sounds and Silence in Bristol Cathedral project. Performed by University of Bristol Schola Cantorum conducted by Emma Hornby, November 2017.
  
In the context of the whole piece, this comes after some heartache and dissonance and space of silence, but I'm dealing with soundcloud space limitations here :/

Between in God's eternity

Psalm

Live recording of Missa Brevis by Sara Garrard (2017) performed by University of Bristol Schola Cantorum conducted by Emma Hornby, in Victoria Methodist Church, March 2018.

Missa Brevis

2 Gloria

1 Kyrie

3 Sanctus

Performed March 2020 by University of Bristol Schola Cantorum, conducted by Emma Hornby, featuring soloist Lizzie Britton.  We were hoping to get some more performances of this piece, but what with one thing and another it may be a while before we're all together again!  

The whole piece is made from a collage of various texts, see below, on themes of love.

[1. AS LILIES]
As the morning star in the midst of a cloud,  and as the moon at the full, 
Shining in the temple, as shines the sun. 
As the rainbow that is bright in the far fair clouds, 
As the flower of the rose in the springtime of the year, 
as lilies by the water-brooks, 
as frankincense sweet-smelling in the days of summer,

As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning. 
 Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth,  
Like a brook of water thronged with lilies.
You are far and sweet as the high clouds.   
How have you come to dwell with me?  
How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart?  
My throat sings the joy of my eyes:

My well-beloved is as a bundle of myrrh: 
my well-beloved shall lie between my breasts. 
My love, behold, thou art fair: thine eyes are like the doves.
 My love, behold, thou art fair,   
Very kind hast thou been to me.

======

[2. AS HIS OWN SOUL]
When love has knit together two souls as one,
 they are two boundaries of the same destiny;  they are two wings of the same spirit. 
What love commences can be finished by God alone.

And Jonathan said, "David, my brother, 
This morning there was a man, 
And it was Jonathan, who many years
 Had gone snared in a purpose not his own, 
Always I knew, 
Walking by my side, 
Another self, the true self, in a shadow

Then change and completion fell upon me, 
Not from myself, nor of my own devising,
 But marvellously spoken in a space of golden light  that glowed about the form of a boy standing in my father's tent.
Quite suddenly the thing I lacked was there,
 The shadow whispering at my side had gone 
And stood there bodied in you,
O dear young shepherd from your sheepfolds called!  
Myself it was there standing, 
Or barren branches of myself in flower. 
My jailored thought flooded with light of song, 
And in that moment nothing was between 
Your soul and mine. 
I must in your love prosper or not at all."

I did not live until this time     
Crowned my felicity,  
When I could say without a crime,   
 I am not thine, but thee. 

======

[3. HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN]

How are the mighty fallen  in the midst of the battle, 
O Jonathan, Jonathan, 
Thou wast slain in the high places. 
O Jonathan, my brother, woe is me for thee,
 Very kind hast thou been to me. 
Thy love was wonderful to me.

If you could come once more
 From your high place,
 I would not question you for heavenly lore, 
But, silent, take the comfort of your face. 

======

[4. MOTHER]

Which of you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone? 
 
Do you remember, at the feet divine of Mary and her Child, 
That mother bringing her own poor baby-boy? 
Sign of healing there was none; 
only the whine of that child,
 only the clinging of gaunt hands, 
The haloed image tranquil. 

Then I looked to you, 
Your pitying face holy with motherhood.

As God is our Father, so God is our Mother, 
He saith:
 I am! the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood;
 I am! the Wisdom of the Motherhood;
 I am! the Light and the Grace that is all-blessed Love: 
 I am the sovereign Goodness of all things. 
I am that which maketh thee to love: 
That which maketh thee to long: 
I am the endless fulfilling of all true desires.

Sources:
	•	Ecclesiasticus 50, Amy Lowell (In excelsis), The Song of Songs, 
	•	Victor Hugo (Les Misérables: A heart beneath a stone), John Drinkwater (David and Jonathan), Katherine Phillips (To My Excellent Lucasia On Our Friendship),
	•	2 Samuel 1, Katharine Lee Bates (If You Could Come),
	•	Matthew 7, Katherine Lee Bates (Madonna), Julian of Norwich (Revelations of Divine Love chapter 59)

'As the morning star' - excerpts

Cor anglais and piano performed by Amy Alcock and Yang Su at the Contemporary Music Venture concert March 2020.  This was a programme of pieces inspired by Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata.  Mine was in four extremely short movements of which this is this is the first. 
 
(Beethoven's sonata is subtitled 'sonata quasi una fantasia' so...)

Little Fantasia (Fantasia quasi una sonata) I.

words by Kate Greenaway: https://archive.org/details/b1625339/page/n35/mode/2up

I did a whole bunch of quick ukulele songs last month when I was learning ukulele!

The Boats Sail Away

https://sonatina-3.bandcamp.com/album/infinity-crystal-awakening-ost

Forest of Memory

Walls are Watching

Tooth and Nail (Battle)

Coasting

Piano impromptu!  From back in... 09 I think?  One of mine I actually do know by heart.

Impromptu

WELL I have no space left on here -- here are some clips from some song/hymns by Catherine Winkworth that I have made settings of.

You can listen to the full songs and more ones over here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpTK8tDcxD2evYwPZEbDF33Gp9eyGinN
or even more in various stages of disrepair on me website/blog:
https://sara-garrard.com/catherine-winkworth-songbook/

Winkworth songs -- excerpts

So I found out about THIS wonderful thing: https://2hac.abstractionmusic.com 2-hour album challenge!  Not as I initially thought having to write an album in 2 hours (altho….) but &collectively* make an album by various people each writing one piece each in two hours.

The theme was technology and there's a possible tie-in with an itch.io game jam (which is how I found out about it) … so I had various ideas involving vocoders, and poems, and Ace Combat-type epic music, and then spent an hour attempting something kinda full-orchestral but half-hearted in terms of &composition*, which I wasn't really loving.

SO THEN I shelved that and spent the second hour on this instead.  Just a little piano piece that is impossible for a human to play, a player-piano piece.  But I wanted it to start off quite plausible and then get more absurd.  And for it being like…. a cute computer learning to play piano, hence all the scales.  I worry it's a bit "year 9 Minimalism unit" in terms of sounding like just plopping ideas on top of each other hehe but I also do like especially the bit at 1.45.  It might make an okay game soundtrack for the right game too?  

bring on next month tho, I'm excited!

also HI anyone reading this(???) I haven't been around here on soundcloud much lately because 1) it's totally inhabited by bots and 2) I've basically run out of space, but you can find me on youtube, my website and for some reason also this other soundcloud I started oops https://soundcloud.com/sona-ti/  It contains some awesome 90s roland sounds lately.

piano player player piano

I have basically run out of room here
Piano / Choir / female voices / echoes of the medieval
Game + Film Soundtracks

sara-garrard

Popular tracks