Showing posts with label #Dyson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Dyson. Show all posts

Thursday, 16 April 2020

Singing at Home opportunities

My inbox has been flooded with opportunities to sing at home during the lockdown. Granted, it's absolutely not the same singing alone in front of your computer, and my heart yearns to sing with my choir here in church again, but in the current situation I have found them a reasonably good alternative!

Most of these options are linked from the home page of this blog, but to update you all on some exciting new opportunities I have included the following update:-

Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Dyson in D - Magnificat

Those of you who know me are well aware of my love of Howells' wonderful music, and will be unsurprised to learn of my support on Twitter for Howell's in G over Dyson in D in the "World Cup of Evensong Canticles! Sadly my "team" were knocked out of the second round, but I graciously concede we lost to an equally impressive canticle setting!!


(If you want to follow the "World Cup" of evensong canticles, follow @TheEvensongCup on Twitter! You can even vote for the equally wonderful Howell's Gloucester service later today...)

The wonderful Rodolfus foundation under the baton of Ralph Allwood, is launching a Virtual Choir to create a Choral Evensong, inviting everyone to take part. This will be a wonderful chance to unite in musical harmony at a time when we will be missing our usual singing.

There is an introductory video (below) publicly available on YouTube. Instructions to download material are here  if you want to get involved!

 

Biography
George Dyson (1883-1964) began his musical career in the world of Church and organ music. By way of several scholarships, Dyson received formal musical training on the organ and in composition at the Royal College of Music. In 1904 he won the Mendelssohn travelling scholarship which enabled him to study in Italy and Germany for four years. It was during his stay in Dresden in 1907 that Dyson composed the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in D major. After the War, Dyson became head of music at Wellington College and joined the staff of the Royal College of Music. From 1924 to 1937 he was director of music at Winchester College.

In his Evening Service in D Dyson uses broad, expansive phrases and imaginative, descriptive writing like his predecessors Parry and Stanford, and he also understood the power of unison writing. The overall feeling in this setting is one of exaltation.

One of my favourite nuggets of information on Dyson is that in addition to composing and writing books on music he also authored a Manual of Grenade Fighting, which was adopted by the War Office in the First World War!

Music
You can sing along with the Kings' College, Cambridge recording on Youtube below, and you can currently download the score from the Rodolfus links above. If you are ready to sing with only an organ accompaniment, download the Rodolfus .mp3 file and have a go!