rd
“It is no exaggeration to say that Mosaic now sits on a par with almost any of this country’s leading professional choirs …”

2

3

George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn,
New York, on 26 September 1898, and began his musical training at thirteen. At fifteen he left high school to work as a pianist and 'song plugger' for a music publisher, and soon he was writing songs.
Swanee , introduced by Al Jolson, brought Gershwin his first real fame, and he and his older brother Ira became the dominant Broadway songwriters to emerge during the 1920s, creating a ceaseless flow of brisk, infectious rhythms and affectingly poignant ballads.
Working together, they created the words to fit the melodies with a 'glovelike fidelity'.
musical comedies.
This extraordinary collaboration led to a succession of 22
"I Got Rhythm" was published in 1930, and became a widely known jazz standard. Its chord progression, known as the "Rhythm changes", is the foundation for many other popular jazz tunes. The song was later expanded and used as the theme in Gershwin's last concert piece Variations on "I Got
Rhythm" in 1934. The song has become iconic of the Gershwins, of swing, and of the 1920s.
Days can be sunny with never a sigh;
Don't need what money can buy.
Birds in the tree sing their dayful of song,
Why shouldn't we sing along?
I'm chipper all the day,
Happy with my lot.
How do I get that way?
Look at what I've got:
I got rhythm
I got music
I got my man/girl
Who could ask for anything more?
I got daisies
In green pastures,
I got my man/girl
Who could ask for anything more?
Ol' Man Trouble,
I don't mind him.
You won't find him
'Round my door.
I got starlight,
I got sweet dreams,
I got my man/girl,
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?
I RA G ERSHWIN , 1930
Howells was always a versatile composer, but as his career progressed shifting emphases could be discerned. His output up to the early 1920s included outstanding examples of chamber music and songs. During the 1920s and 1930s a series of major orchestral works emerged, particularly concertos for piano, cello and string orchestra. Only with the onset of World War II was there a consistent shift towards liturgical music, perhaps his most lasting legacy.
This early madrigal by Howells is a brilliant example of the genre.
In Youth
Is Pleasure was written the day after his twenty-third birthday and is dedicated to
Sir Frederick Bridge and the members of the Madrigal Society.
In a harbour Grene aslepe whereas I lay,
The byrdes sang swete in the middes of the day,
I dreamed fast of mirth and play:
In youth is pleasure.
Me thought I walked still to and fro,
And from her company I could not go;
But when I waked it was not so:
In youth is pleasure.
Therefore my heart is surely pyght,
Of her alone to have a sight which is my joy,
Of her alone which is my joy and heartes delight:
In youth is pleasure.
R OBERT W EVER ( C .1550)
4

Of the many influences which informed the developing musical language of the young E. J. Moeran, one of the most potent was that of Elizabethan music, in particular the madrigal and solo lute song. Equally significant in stylistic impact were the traditional melodies of
East Anglian and, later, Irish folksong, and the music of such older contemporaries as Delius, Ravel,
Vaughan Williams and John Ireland.
After studying with Stanford for two years at the Royal College of Music,
Moeran spent the years of the First
World War on active duty in France, where in 1917 he suffered a grievous head wound, treatment of which entailed the fitting of a metal plate which adversely affected his life for the rest of his days. Invalided out of the army in
1919, he resumed composition studies in
London, this time with John Ireland, with whom he continued to work until about
1923. …
In 1933 came the work which first attracted a leading article on Moeran’s music in a major English journal, the
Musical Times (November 1933). This was Songs of Springtime , a group of seven part-songs for unaccompanied
SATB chorus employing Elizabethan texts, first broadcast by the BBC Singers under
Leslie Woodgate on 5 December 1933, and premiered in concert on 13 March
1934 by the Oriana Madrigal Choir under
Charles Kennedy Scott, author of the
Musical Times article.
Songs of Springtime , dedicated to the poet Robert Nichols and his wife Norah, established Moeran’s name with a wider concert-going public, and has remained a favoured item with English choral societies and their audiences ever since.
The work is memorable for its successful fusion of contemporary harmonic language with modally inflected, quasi-
Elizabethan melodic lines. As a Times reviewer put it in 1934, discussing the first concert performance:
Moeran’s new Songs of Springtime are in the true part-song tradition; they have the freshness of the madrigals and the folksongs on which the composer has nourished himself; but they definitely belong to the other line of choralism, the four-part song whose interest is harmonic.
The harmony abounds in the soft dissonance which no one would have dreamed of writing a generation ago, but its function, unlike most dissonant harmony, is the old- fashioned one of giving movement to the melody, and not masquerading as consonance. Hence these
Elizabethan lyrics trip along with the carefree lightness required by the poems.
But not entirely. Spring – for Moeran as for his Elizabethan poets – is an ambiguous season, its virginal freshness and joy informed almost from the beginning with a melancholy knowledge of its brief duration. For the Romantic artist, this is a season akin to the sadness of life itself. As he penned the final setting of Songs of Springtime , while staying with his parents in their country house in Acle, near Norwich,
Moeran observed the daffodils outside his study window, already in full bloom.
© J OHN T ALBOT
Under the greenwood tree
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat –
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i’ the sun,
Seeking the food he eats
And pleased with what he gets –
Come hither, come hither, come hither!…
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE (1564–1616),
FROM A S Y OU L IKE I T
Spring, the sweet spring
Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
please turn the page quietly
5

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring! the sweet Spring!
T HOMAS N ASHE ( 1567–1601)
Sigh no more, ladies
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny; nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy:
Then sigh not so, but let them go…
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , F ROM M UCH A DO
ABOUT N OTHING
In 1875 Tchaikovsky accepted a commission to write 12 short piano pieces, one for each month of the year, from N. M. Bernard, editor of the St
Petersburg music magazine Nouvellist .
The December 1875 edition of the magazine promised readers a new
Tchaikovsky piece each month throughout 1876. The January and
February pieces were written in late
1875, followed by March, April and May; the remaining seven pieces were all composed at the same time and written in the same copybook, probably between
22 April and 27 May.
The pieces have remained enormously popular since they first appeared, and are sometimes heard in orchestral and other arrangements by other hands.
In The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams
(1964) Michael Kennedy estimates that these three part-songs were written between 1896 and 1902, although elements may have been composed as early as 1890–92 during Vaughan
Williams’ first stint at the Royal College of Music studying with Parry. Vaughan
Williams, in his Musical Autobiography says ‘Parry’s criticism was constructive.
He was not merely content to point out faults, but would prescribe the remedy.
The last two bars of my early song ‘The
Willow Song’ were almost certainly composed by Parry.’ The three songs follow in the tradition of Dowland and
Campion. They have grace and charm and, in the case of ‘The Willow Song’, a sweet sadness in keeping with
Shakespeare’s gentle lyric.
Sweet Day
Sweet day! So cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
Sweet spring! Full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
G EORGE H ERBERT (1593–1633)
The Willow Song
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow.
The fresh streams ran by her and murmur’d her moans;
Sing willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her and soften’d the stones;
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , F ROM O THELLO
6

O mistress mine
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure;
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , FROM T WELFTH N IGHT
Birthday Madrigals was written at the invitation of Brian Kay, conductor of the
Cheltenham Bach Choir, to celebrate the
75th birthday of the great jazz pianist
George Shearing. The first performance was given, in his presence, in
Cheltenham Town Hall on 3 June 1995 by the Cheltenham Bach Choir with Neil
Swainson (double bass), John Rutter conducting. The seed of the composition was ‘It was a lover and his lass’, written in 1975. The other four movements, their texts also drawn from the madrigal era (hence the work’s title), were added in 1995 to make the present choral suite.
1. It was a lover and his lass
It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o’er the green cornfield did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.
Between the acres of the rye,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
These pretty country folks would lie,
In the spring time…
And, therefore, take the present time
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crownèd with the prime
In the spring time…
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , FROM A S Y OU L IKE I T 10-MINUTE INTERVAL
3. Come live with me
1. Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
And all the craggy mountains yields.
2. If all the world and love were young,
And truth in ev’ry shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
3. And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
4. Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
5. And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.
6. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
7. A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
8. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
9. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
10. If youth could last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date,nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
O DD NUMBERED VERSES ARE BY C HRISTOPHER
M ARLOWE ; THE EVEN NUMBERED VERSES ARE
ATTRIBUTED TO S IR W ALTER R ALEIGH
7

The music for ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’ was written for the film The Goldwyn
Follies (1938). The song was George
Gershwin’s last completed composition.
Ira Gershwin wrote the words after his brother's death, giving the song a special poignancy.
Our Love is Here to Stay
It's very clear
Our love is here to stay;
Not for a year
But ever and a day.
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies,
And in time may go!
But, oh my dear,
Our love is here to stay.
Together we're
Going a long, long way
In time the Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble,
They’re only made of clay,
But our love is here to stay.
I RA G ERSHWIN
Robert Pearsall was born in Clifton, near
Bristol of an old Staffordshire family. He practised as a barrister in Bristol from
1821 to 1825 but after a stroke in 1825 on medical advice he went to live abroad.
He lived first in Mainz, where he wrote
Latin motets influenced by the Cecilian movement for musical reform in the
Roman Catholic church, a movement which brought about a revival of interest in sixteenth-century a cappella music and Gregorian chant.
From 1830 to 1842 Pearsall lived in
Karlsruhe, but travelled widely in Europe in pursuit of his antiquarian interests.
He spent 1836–7 in England and during his stay began to compose
‘madrigals’ in the style of Morley. In
January 1837 the Bristol Madrigal
Society was formed, with Pearsall as a founding member, so he had the opportunity to have these pieces performed. They were so successful that he continued to write more madrigals and part songs and made frequent visits to the Society in later years, becoming its first honorary member in 1845.
Around 1843 Pearsall bought the
Schloss Wartensee, on Lake Constance, where he was able to build a relationship with the monks of St Gallen, composing music for the Roman Catholic church and helping to edit the St Gallen Gesangbuch.
He was received into the Roman Catholic church three days before his death.
Today, Pearsall is chiefly remembered for the justly well loved ‘Lay a Garland’ and his familiar arrangement of the
Christmas carol ‘In Dulci Jubilo’. Of the former (and another eight-part piece
Great God of Love ), Fuller Maitland said:
‘[they are] real masterpieces in a form that has seldom been successfully employed in modern times.’
Lay a garland on her hearse,
Of dismal yew,
Maidens, willow branches wear,
Say she died true.
Her love was false, but she was firm.
Upon her buried body lie
Lightly, thou gentle earth.
A DAPTED FROM B EAUMONT AND F LETCHER ’ S T HE
M AID ’ S T RAGEDY , 1610
Ralph Vaughan Williams composed his
Three Shakespeare Songs for the
National Competitive Festival of the
British Federation of Music Festivals in
June 1951, held barely a month after the death of his first wife. The words for the first two songs are taken from The
Tempest , and for the final one from A
Midsummer Night’s Dream . The ethereal, rather eerie ‘Full fathom five’ conveys the effect of underwater voices and bells.
This is followed by the serene and stately
‘Cloud capp’d towers’ which contrasts beautifully with the blithe and brisk ‘Over hill, over dale’.
8

Full fathom five
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them, ding dong, bell.
T HE T EMPEST , A CT I, S C . 2
The cloud-capp’d towers
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
And our little life is rounded with a sleep.
T HE T EMPEST , A CT IV, S C . 1
Over hill, over dale
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
A M IDSUMMER N IGHT ’ S DREAM , A CT II, S C . 1
The Swedish jazz pianist and composer
Nils Lindberg has developed a unique crossover idiom by combining elements of folk music and jazz with the formal structures of classical music. Lindberg’s setting of this text, in block chords throughout like a hymn, is emotionally straightforward — yet the emotion is always contained, in characteristically
Nordic manner. The piece begins in the spare, open key of A minor and moves through several key areas, with dense minor seventh chords predominating.
The feeling is never fully expressed until the penultimate line, where Lindberg moves in full force to the bright, shimmering key of F sharp major.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of
May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owe’st,
Nor shall Death brag thou wanders’t in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
W ILLIAM S HAKESPEARE , S ONNET 18
9

4. My true love hath my heart
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven.
His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
His heart his wound receivèd from my sight,
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
For as from me, on him his hurt did light,
So still methought in me his hurt did smart.
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss:
My true love hath my heart,and I have his.
S IR P HILIP S IDNEY (1554–1586)
5. When daisies pied
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
Whenas the rye reach to the chin,
And chop-cherry, chop-cherry ripe within,
And strawberries swimming in the cream,
And schoolboys playing in the stream;
Then oh, then oh, my true love said,
Until that time should come again
She could not live a maid.
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
T HE FIRST TWO VERSES ARE BY W ILLIAM
S HAKESPEARE , FROM L OVE ’ S L ABOUR ’ S L OST ;
THE THIRD VERSE IS BY G EORGE P EELE (1556?–
1596), FROM T HE O LD W IVES ’ T ALE
10

Sopranos: Juliet Hall, Janet Head, Heather Hurford, Hilary Knight,
Claire Stephenson
Altos:
Tenors:
Basses:
Tony De Rivaz, Alex Hall, Kristine Jenkins, Ellie White
Steve Jones, Keith Parker, Graham Rees
Will Houghton, Chris Head, Stephen Lloyd, Ed White
“ mosaic : a design... composed by the piecing together of different things”
( Chambers English Dictionary ) – an appropriate name for a group who, in a few short years, have built an enviable reputation for virtuosity, versatility and verve.
They not only perform to the highest professional standards in live performances but also in cathedral services, corporate events and in the recording studio. Mosaic is a group of singers, based in and around St Albans, each of whom has a wealth of experience in a wide range of choirs both in the UK and abroad. Their repertoire covers pretty much everything from renaissance polyphony to contemporary classics and they are now much in demand throughout the country. 2010 promises to be an interesting year for Mosaic as in addition to their concerts throughout the year they will be visiting Christchurch, Oxford, to sing a weekend of services and also the
Chapel Royal, Windsor. In November 2010 they will be performing the world premier of a new work written for them by the very exciting and talented composer, Michael
Oliva.
In just four years, Mosaic have made two CDs: the first, Ain’t Misbehavin’ , a collection of close harmony pieces by, amongst others, Gershwin, Rutter, ‘Fats’
Waller and Irving Berlin; and their very popular Noel! – Carols for Advent and
Christmas , both traditional and contemporary, with organ and piano accompaniment by William Mathias, John Rutter and Bob Chilcott to name but a few. They have just completed their third CD, of anthems, due for release in 2010.
Mosaic are greatly honoured to have as their Patrons the distinguished and internationally renowned musicians Peter Hurford , Andrew Lucas and
Christopher Robinson, and they are especially delighted that Julian Lloyd
Webber has become the choir’s President.
Nicholas Robinson began his musical education as a chorister at St George’s Chapel,
Windsor Castle, and continued it as a pupil at Harrow School. At Harrow, he was a top Music Scholar, studying the organ, piano and ‘cello as well as singing bass in the various choirs. After leaving school he won a scholarship to study the organ at The
Royal Academy of Music under John Scott and David Titterington. During his first year at the Academy, he was Organ Scholar at St Alban’s Cathedral and a year later, in 1989, was appointed Assistant Director of Music at nearby St Peter’s Church. In
2000 he took over the role as Director of Music at St Peter’s, a position in which he is responsible for the provision of all the music at the church. He currently combines this post with a career as a choral conductor, an accompanist and as a Music Master at Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire.
Nick has appeared regularly over recent years on the music scene in Hertfordshire, both as a conductor and as an accompanist. He has accompanied most of the local choirs, including the Brocket Consort whom he has also directed, and he has worked regularly as Guest Conductor for the chamber choir Carillon since 1998. He took on the role of directing Mosaic at the time of their formation in 2006.
11

What the critics have said
“It is no exaggeration to say that Mosaic, the St Albans-based chamber choir, now sits on a par with almost any of this country’s leading professional choirs. … This concert was feast of fine and beautiful music exquisitely sung by a group of musicians who regularly produce great music, no matter what form it takes.
Their phrasing, dynamics and overall sound quality were exquisite and Mosaic really did justice to an extremely challenging programme.” HERTS ADVERTISER
“I had expected a lot of this choir – previous hearings have been deeply impressive – but even my expectations were exceeded. The intonation was faultless, the dynamic range was astonishing, and the sound produced by these
20 singers was truly beautiful. This is a choir to look out for.” MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL
“Mosaic presented a meticulously well-balanced programme of choral music.
Their infectious enjoyment of their performance delighted the audience and such was the quality of the singing one could forgive oneself for imagining one was sitting in King’s College Chapel.” BUCKDEN PRESS
“Mosaic’s concert in St Albans Cathedral truly revealed the choir’s commitment and professionalism. It was a significant concert in every way – an absolute delight. The quality demonstrated by this choir is more than remarkable.”
WATFORD OBSERVER’S CONCERT HIGHLIGHT OF 2007 – J WESTCOMBE
“A full church were treated to a superb concert by vocal group Mosaic, very much the new rising stars in Hertfordshire’s musical firmament. The blend and balance of the singers and faultless intonation, seemingly effortlessly achieved, was evident throughout.” JULIAN CABLE
“Mosaic, one of the most recently-formed choirs in Hertfordshire, is pushing standards to a new high … The evening was an example of the very highest level of music and Nicholas Robinson’s direction of the choir was a complete joy.”
HERTS ADVERTISER
12