Church Music

I am working through the Shirley Erena Murray texts in Alleluia Aotearoa.

This is a song for Palm Sunday. I have never found a Palm Sunday song that I like and is fairly singable. The setting here sounds like a nursery rhyme, which jars as the lyrics get darker in the last two verses, and makes me fear I still haven’t found one. The setting is SEE SAW SACCARA DOWN .

The text and sheet music are at Hope Publications.

Getting a rapid 6/8 in BIAB that wasn’t out of kilter took some doing.

The tune doesn’t seem exactly the same as the nursery rhyme versions I’ve heard but this harp performance is nice.

This is another fiery text from Shirley Erena Murray from Alleluia Aotearoa.

If you can cope with, “old gear, old concepts have no place,” it would serve for gathering or dismissing the assembly.

Read the full text at Hope Publishing. They set it to DIVERSITY by Jack Schrader. The tune goes interesting places including up to Eb. I made up chords for a backing.

Hope also suggest the tune LITTLE CORNARD by Martin Shaw. I found the melody and chords in Together In Song (469). I wound up the BIAB fake organ for this one.

AA, while also recommending LITTLE CORNARD, actually set the text to RESURRECTION by Jillian Wray. With some more made up chords I made a BIAB backing for this interesting tune.

This is a song for Eucharist by Shirley Murray from Alleluia Aotearoa. This one is set by a frequent collaborator Colin Gibson (WROSLYN ROAD).

The text and sheet music are at Hope Publishing, where, unlike AA, they provide the chords. Thanks be to God.

3/2 time usually means organ and is difficult to get right on BIAB, which has all of four, count ’em, church organ styles. I overlaid the notes from the sheet music to the chords from BIAB to make things less jarring.

My latest antipodean project is the songs of Shirley Erina Murray in Alleluia Aotearoa. You can buy the collection here as a downloadable pdf or in what may be one of the last 50 physical copies. Because everyone wanted to set her texts I am doing more backings than usual.

The text of this gentle yet firm song is at Hope Publishing, where they provide two settings. The first is by Nancy Raabe (PEACE). It is simple and singable but written in Db – so bring it down to C and everyone is happy.

My backing leaves it in Db and I made up chords based on the sheet music.

The second setting is by Prof. I-to Loh called SAM-KIAP. It’s range is B to a high D so may need a key change depending in where your singers’ strengths are.

Chords were provided (yay) but BIAB has a limited range of world music options and they tend to caricature. Mea culpa.

AA, however, chose to set it to SUANTRAI, a traditional Irish melody, which is fair enough as neither of the other two tunes above were written when AA was published. This is the pick of the tunes, except it has an similar range (Bb to Eb) to SAM-KIAP. Even though it is public domain, I had trouble finding the sheet music, but it is in Together in Song 641. It seems to be a different “Suantrai” to the Irish lullabies on YouTube.

Shirley Murray’s text takes us to Easter and the joy of the resurrection. I love lines like, “You are the pulse of the new creation’s energy”.

Both Hope and Alleluia Aotearoa set this to Jillian Bray‘s emphatic tune. Hope Publishing have the full text and sheet music.

I cranked up the BIAB fake organ with chords sort of guessed from the sheet music.

This is a Christmas song with a text by Shirley Murray that she called the “Hunger Carol”. This is a a great lyric but is, let us say, astringent.

For example:

cold and raw, you know our hunger,

weep out tears and cry our anger,

…

by our greed we crucify you

on a Christmas tree,

Son of poverty.

The full text and sheet music are at Hope Publishing Company. They use the setting (UTRECHT) by Doug Mews. I made up some chords for this BIAB backing.

Alleluia Aotearoa has that backing and also a lovely one by Ian Render (JENNIFER’S GIFT) who I believe was the Dean of Waiapu. My backing has chords I based on the sheet music.

There is also a setting by Carol Brown available at GIA.

This clip fails to acknowledge Shirley Murray as the composer of the text.

This setting is by David Haas, so it will never be used. The clip has the gall to say the lyricist is anonymous!

Shirley Murray wrote quite a few Christmas songs, “Star Child” being the most famous, but here is another.

Being Shirley Murray though, even this sweet text has some burrs in it to tweak our conscience. She called it the “Small Carol”.

The sheet music and text are at Hope Publications, set by Nigel Eastgate who I believe was a GP.

I made up some chords for this backing:

AA uses a different setting by Richard Madden.

I made two backings – one with too many chords using the fake organ in BIAB and one with simplified chords.

You can purchase Alleluia Aotearoa here.

Shirley Erena Murray wrote many of the texts in Alleluia Aotearoa and I have started a survey of these hymns.

When she wasn’t convicting us of our failures of charity, she was writing useful songs for specific liturgies. This is a baptism song, searching for the “bud of hope”.

The text is at Hope, where they have the setting by Allen Pote (GENERATION).

I did two backings for this, a BIAB church organ version mostly using the harmonies in the sheet music and one with simplified chords I made up. Parts of it sound like “One Tin Soldier”.

Alleluia Aotearoa chose a NZ musician, David Dell, to set this text (BUD OF HOPE). I can’t find this as an individual sheet on the internet but I just found out you can buy physical copies, or more practically the pdf version for download, of Alleluia Aotearoa here. The chords were provided this time, which is always a relief. Is is supposed to sound like “Did You Ever See A Lassie”?

This is a lovely Christmas song from Alleluia Aotearoa with words by Shirley Murray and nicely set by her frequent collaborator Colin Gibson (REVERSI). It is a wonderful corrective to eurocentric, northern hemisphere Christmas offerings, in which we dutifully sing about cold and snow despite dripping in sweat and humidity.

The sheet music and text are at Hope Publishing. Two of the choirs in the Youtube clips below lazily claim copyright for the text and music and fail to correctly credit Shirley Murray.

My efforts to avoid music from GIA or OCP wherever possible has led to a fruitful look at Australian hymn music. I think I can stretch my search to New Zealand, since we Australians have a terrible habit of claiming the best of NZ culture as own own.

I found a copy of Alleluia Aotearoa some years ago at a Lifeline Booksale in Brisbane. While well known across the dutch it was unknown to me. It was released in 1993, a year after As One Voice and was meant for all churches in New Zealand. It was published by the New Zealand Hymnbook Trust which comprised the Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and the Associated Churches of Christ. There was Catholic involvement on the editorial board.

Within in its pages is a treasure trove of Shirley Erena Murray texts that I hadn’t seen before, and I plan to go through the volume and cherry pick her texts. She only died in early 2020, and we lost the poet laureate of social justice and the most expert writer of uncomfortable texts this side of John Bell. She has been set by many tunesmiths over the years and there is a tendency away from NZ to forget her contribution – I have seen her words unacknowledged, or worse attributed to anonymous, on the internet.

She is published by the marvellous Hope Publishing Company and her lyrics are all there.

This is an Easter song full of “resurrection power”. I love the metaphor of the caged bird of the Spirit being freed in the second verse. She also successfully rhymes “flying” with “self-denying”, a bit of a poetic trapeze act.

The text and sheet music are at Hope, where it is set to VRUECHTEN, known for another Easter hymn, “This Joyful Eastertide”.

Whenever we are told that secular music must never pollute out liturgies, it is worth reminding ourselves that venerable tunes such as these were once secular love songs. In other words all the things the Church says are immutable, are in fact completely relative. This is good corrective to the idolatry of unconsidered tradition.

VRUECHTEN has a fearful range and is best for a rollicking choir. In AA it is set to CRAWSHAW by Roy Tankersley, which, while it hits a held E, would stand being dropped a few semitones without straining the lower range. I had to make up chords to make my backing. I can’t find the sheet music on the web, nor can I find copies of Alleluia Aotearoa, but I suspect they inhabit the back cupboards of many churches in New Zealand if you get a chance to look. You may be able to access it through this site.

*STOP PRESS – Alleluia Aotearoa can be purchased here.

Youtube only has the VRUECHTEN setting.