Fand IncWessex Press

Fand Music Press has three new releases for July, all of them involving the voice. Gary Higginson’s setting of Two Czech Carols bring together a pair of Christmas carol arrangements, both for three voices, that he wrote for different purposes quite some years ago. One is entirely a cappella; the other also has keyboard accompaniment.

Philip Mead’s atmospheric setting of words from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Nightingale is most unusual for being a four-part (with divisi) choral work accompanied by solo flute. This evocative and joyous piece was Philip’s first tonal composition after previous ventures into the avant garde, and it presents the audience with a mystical yet accessible representation of its poetic inspiration.

Finally, John Mitchell adds to his growing portfolio of short song cycles to verse by English writers with Bright Clouds, a setting of four poems by Edward Thomas. This writer had only just embarked on his poetic career when his life was cut tragically short in the First World War. The four poems presented here all allude, perhaps nostalgically, to nature in rural England, the first one mentioning locations in Essex where Thomas was posted after enlisting.

Gary Higginson
Two Czech Carols

for three-part choir
£2.95

Philip Mead
The Nightingale

for mixed choir (SATB) and flute
£11.95

John Mitchell
Bright Clouds

Four Edward Thomas Songs

for voice and piano
£9.95