Product Description
Comments by the composer:
Festive Overture: The Joy of Christmas aims to capture the joyful anticipation and excitement of the coming festive season, whilst also highlighting its real significance. As well as using familiar carols and Christmas tunes, the composer has incorporated some slightly lesser known songs, such as the American version of ‘O little town of Bethlehem’, the French carol ‘Il est né le Divin Enfant’, the old English ‘Wassail Song’ and, towards the end, a 17th Century German carol ‘All my heart this night rejoices’. To add to the feeling of anticipation, snatches of the children’s song ‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat’ are heard from time to time, and observant listeners will spot the inclusion of a number of other well-known seasonal songs throughout the piece. This is the second band transcription Paul Noble has made of my orchestral music, the first having been “A Child’s Christmas”. Both pieces have been transcribed skilfully and with astonishing accuracy. As originally conceived, this piece was purely instrumental up to rehearsal letter P, when choral forces joined in with the Christmas hymn, “All my heart this night rejoices”, as a rousing finale. However, the overture works equally well as a purely instrumental piece – or may alternatively be performed with the optional SATB choral parts included throughout.
About the Composer
Gordon Thornett (b. 1942) read Music at Manchester University, and has had a long career as a teacher and a music therapist in the UK. As a keen choral singer, he has written a number of new settings of Christmas texts, which have been performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus, of which he is a long-standing member, and other symphony choruses and smaller choirs in the UK, USA and elsewhere. Some of these have been published by Oxford University Press, Shawnee Press and Norsk Musikforlag, but many others are self published, and available through his website: www.newcarols.com. The ‘Joy of Christmas’ (described above) was originally commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as an orchestral overture with a choral finale, and was premiered in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall by the CBSO and Chorus, conducted by Simon Halsey. It was published by Faber in the UK, and recorded by the RTE Concert Orchestra and released on the Heritage label [HTGCD 299]. ‘A Child’s Christmas’ has also been issued as a CD in its original orchestral version, performed by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Gavin Sutherland [HTGCD 139]. Choirs in the UK who have performed his music include the CBSO Chorus, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Northern Sinfonia Chorus and the London Symphony Chorus. He has formed a close association with the Nidaros Cathedral Boys’ Choir in Trondheim, Norway, and has written a number of settings and arrangements for them. His extended setting of the Gloria, also obtainable through Swirly Music, for soprano soloist, mixed choir, brass, timpani and organ was premiered by in 2014 by the Bel Canto Chorus in Milwaukee, and has subsequently received several performances in the USA.