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Christopher Brown

 

composer

conductor

editor

music typesetter

“One of Britain’s most accomplished composers of the post
Leighton-Howells-Britten generation”  (Musical Opinion)

© Christopher Brown 2011

music for solo voices

“...the taste and gift for setting words gratefully, naturally, fluently and beautifully. Evocative and haunting.” (Gillian Widdicombe on “Point of Departure” in The Financial Times.)

Venetian masks

First performance:

Sandra Wilkes, Neil Jenkins and Anne Smillie
Publisher:  Musography
4.5.73: Dean Close School, Cheltenham
10 mins.
A-courting we will go       
1: Blow ye winds  2:  O no, John  3: Strawberry Fair  4: I will give my love an apple  5: A-roving (Traditional English)
Soprano, Tenor and Piano

First performance:

Neil Jenkins and Anthea Gifford
Publisher:  Chester Music
24.11.76: Wigmore Hall, London
10 mins.
All year round   op. 46    Four seasonal songs from East Anglia
1: Suffolk Mist (Cloudesley Brereton)  2: Winter: East Anglia (Edmund Blunden)  3: A fine day (Adrian Bell)  4: Suffolk Harvest Song (Alice Cochrane)
Tenor and Guitar

First performance:

Sandra Wilkes, Neil Jenkins, Anne Smillie and Christopher Brown
Publisher:  Musography
4.5.73: Dean Close School, Cheltenham
2 mins.
A-roving       
Traditional English
Soprano, Tenor and Piano Duet

First performance:

Neil Jenkins and Christopher Brown
Publisher:  Musography
27.6.82: Huntingdon
3 mins.
Gan to the kye       
Traditional
Tenor and Piano

First performance:

Philippa Hyde and Richard Tanner
Publisher:  Musography
24.6.95: Easton Church, Cambridgeshire
5 mins.
Lullaby       
Richard Rowlands
Soprano and Piano

First performance:

James Bowman, Galina Solochin, Christopher van Kampen, Simon Carrington and Julian Smith
Publisher:  Musography
14.7.70: Nottingham Festival, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham
15 mins.
Nocturnal   op. 26    
John Donne
Countertenor (or contralto), violin, cello, double bass and harpsichord

First performance:

Neil Jenkins and Roger Vignoles
Publisher:  Musography
10.10.69: Cheltenham
13 mins.
Point of Departure   op. 22    Five Love Poems
1: Point of Departure  2: Now upon this shore  3: Silence and Water  4: Winter Tears  5: Your love is my light (Leonard Clark)
Tenor and Piano

First performance:

Alfred and Mark Deller, Jane Ryan and Harold Lester
Publisher:  Musography
3.7.77: Stour Festival
15 mins.
The Harper of Chao   op. 44    
Chinese poems translated by Arthur Waley
Two Countertenors, cello, (or viola da gamba) and harpsichord (or piano)

First performance:

Purcell Consort of Voices, Nash Ensemble, cond. Chirstopher Brown
Publisher:  Musography
18.11.71: Goldsmith's Hall, London
35 mins.
The Snows of Winter   op. 32    
Emily Brontë, Ben Jonson, Thomas Beddoes, Kuno Meyer, Walter de la Mare, Thomas Campion, Anon, William Blake, Ursula Vaughan Williams
SSATBarB soli, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello and piano

First performance:

Christopher Brown
Publisher:  Musography
1993
2 mins.
This little piggy       
Traditional English
Voice and Piano

First performance:

Publisher:  Musography
8 mins.
Three Elizabethan Songs   op. 57a    
1: My mistress is as fair as fine (Anon)  2: Sleep on, my love (Henry King)  3: A New Year's Carol (Anon)
Baritone and Piano

First performance:

George Smerdon and Matthew Smerdon
Publisher:  Musography
June 2008: St. Ives, Cambridgeshire
3 mins.
Variation on a theme by Rilke       
Denise Levertov
Tenor and Piano

First performance:

Vivien Townley and Christine Reynolds
Publisher:  Musography
17.4.69: Purcell Room, London
23 mins.
Wordsworth Songs   op. 19    
1: If thou indeed derive thy light from Heav'n  2:Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze  3:And in the frosty season  4: I wandered lonely as a cloud  5: I was a trav'ller then  6:There was
Soprano and Piano