Easter hymns (but not "Easter Hymn")

I know, we're in Lent.

But musically speaking, we should be looking at Easter Sunday and in to that season. It's only a month away, after all.

Ellacombe, a tune I know best as going with the hymn "The Day of Resurrection" (and the William Tarrant labour hymn "My Master Was a Worker," which is quite fun), is the subject of my latest fauxbourdon arrangement, as well as a 2008 fanfare prelude which I've used many times since then.

Without a whole lot of further ado, here is the music!

The prelude:

Download the PDF

Download the PDF

 It's fun to look back a few years and see what I had in mind. Sometimes I wonder.

Prelude for "Ellacombe" by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

And the aforementioned fauxbourdon, harmonically wandering a bit.

PDF link here!

Fauxbourdon on "Ellacombe" by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

It's a fantastic tune with a great many possibilities, and the more it's heard the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Spirituals are hymns too - Balm in Gilead

Or at least similar enough to be in the hymnal.

I wasn't satisfied with singing "Balm in Gilead" in unison this past Sunday. So we didn't. Here:

Available here

Balm in Gilead harmonization by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

So there's the harmony we sang. And here's the introduction I wrote but didn't play:

PDF link

It will tie fingers in knots. I simply didn't have time to practice it, because I was busy with a flute choir. No, I wasn't playing the flute... but more on that later, once I've had time to parse the recordings.

The introduction is actually entirely playable on a single manual (or on the piano, for that matter) if you don't mind a little voice-crossing, and if that's the case then the left hand can help the right with the lower notes and save some jumping around. Or you can play it as a full on, two-manual-and-pedal trio.

Back to the usual work, which hopefully means more writing and more posting - at least for now. Recitals approach in March, choir concert in April, and Easter happens sometime between the two.

Introduction on Balm in Gilead by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Hymn harmonization

Here's a fun little number. Quelle est cette odeur agréable is a French Christmas carol. I wrote today, for the choir at Crescent Fort Rouge United, three verse settings (we're singing it as an anthem next week) - a new four part harmonization; a three-part setting with the men having the melody and the women's parts having an offset rhythm, and a unsion/descant verse. I may at some point formally link them with (out-of-copyright) words and make a proper anthem.

Meanwhile, here they are!

The four-part setting is straightforward; nothing unusual here, really, except possibly the harmonies if you're not use to this sort of thing.

My theory teachers might have had small fits at it, but I think it flows nicely.

The three-part setting is a bit trickier. I'm a touch hesitant to put it here because the harmonies are incomplete - it can stand alone, but there should be some accompaniment filling in the harmonic structure, at least a little here and there. The descant even moreso, of course. On the other hand, neither are as chromatic as the above, so harmonizing them should be a bit simpler.

The three-part offset-rhythm setting:

And melody-with-descant.

All three are available in a single PDF here

Thanks, and keep watching for further updates, more hymns, and maybe something that's NOT organ- or church-related at some point.

Quelle est cette odeur agréable (arrangements) by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.