Balulalow

Four Treble Voices & String Quartet
(c8 minutes)

Balulalow recently was selected by the BBC Music Magazine and Henschal String Quartet to be recorded for international release in 2010 (see press release below).

Published by Hayo Music

A version for SATB and Organ can be found by clicking here.

The text was taken from a poem by James, John, & Robert Wedderburn (c1567). The word Balulalow is in fact old Scottish for lullaby:

Oh my dear heart young Jesus sweet,
Prepare thy cradle in my spirit,
And I shall rock thee to my heart
And never more from thee depart.

And I shall praise thee ever more
With songs sweet unto thy glory;
The knees of my heart shall I bow,
And sing that right Balulalow!

[press release]

Derek Smith wins The Henschel Quartet/ BBC Music Magazine’s Composing Competition

The winner of a composing competition held by the Henschel Quartet and hosted by BBC Music Magazine to find the best new Christmas piece by an amateur composer for string quartet and four soprano voices, lasting between 8 and 12 minutes, is Derek Smith (Malvern, UK) with Carolingua.

On 19 December, the jury – Oliver Condy (Editor of BBC Music magazine), violist Monika Henschel-Schwind, composer Roxanna Panufnik, Philip Tagney (Senior Producer for BBC Radio 3) and Wulf Weinmann (owner of NEOS Music GmbH) – met up at the Royal College of Music in London and listened through all the entries with the help of composer-pianist David Earl, who played through all the scores. Out of an outstanding field of entries, Carolingua was chosen for indelibly encapsulating the traditional spirit of Christmas.

Composer Derek Smith explains: ‘Carolingua is a made-up word intended to combine thoughts both about Christmas music and tongues. Since language has its own music, I chose four carols in different languages which I felt best epitomise their sentiments. Each, in its different way, invokes the stillness and beauty of a star-lit winter night.’

Such was the high standard of all the entries that no fewer than 5 runners-up were also chosen:

Guy Bunce (Old Windsor):  Balulalow
Andy Evans (Nottingham, UK):  And Mary Said
Graham Lack (Munich, Germany):  The Legend of Saint Wite – A Carol
Roland Fudge (Lancaster, UK):  The Incarnation
Earl J Reisdorff (Michigan, USA): The Christ-Child Carol

All six pieces will appear on a specially recorded Christmas album by the Henschel Quartet on the NEOS label in 2009 (www.neos-music.com), the proceeds from which will go to SOS Children Villages, the world’s largest charity dedicated to aiding orphaned and abandoned children, for whom the Henschel Quartet are official Ambassadors. Other pieces on the CD will include the original version of one of Germany’s best loved Christmas Carols Oh Du Fröhliche, and works by J.S. Bach, Britten, Mozart, Rutter and Warlock.