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Richard Wayne Dirksen Centenary

Richard Wayne Dirksen Centenary

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Christmas

The Christ Child lay on Mary’s lap

A sweet a capella carol with Dirksen’s added verse bringing it up to date.

A Christmas Gloria

Gifts for the Holy Child – Saint petit enfant

Carol of the Angels

Song of Mary at the Manger

Audio & Video. Running out of TOP FIVE slots, but this Auden setting is profoundly moving: Why was I chosen to teach his Son to weep?  The ending of the organ version makes it preferable.

I sing the birth

Nowell sing we, now all and some

Alleluia, A Newe Work is Come

From the 1961 York Cycle Play music.  Also available as a movement in the 1965 Suite for Organ, Trumpet and Handbells (D. 513).

The Nativity

Audio & Video. Another one of my TOP FIVE works.  The flute obbligato positively sparkles.

Welcome all wonders

Audio & Video. Written in 1957, the same year as Daniel Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata, the two pieces share vivid brass writing and intense rhythmic energy alternating with lyric beauty.  This exists in many forms: Organ and brass, full orchestra, winds only…there’s even an arrangement for SSAA choir.

A Christmas Lullaby

Run, Shepherds, run

Hodie, Christus natus est

Chanticleer

Audio & Video. Dirksen’s notated half-note=96 is unplayable – he’s merely saying NOT TOO SLOW.  But the circumstances of its composition actually dictate the tempo: the performance should be exactly 2′ 30″!  Also – don’t miss the Choral Arts Society’s orchestral version here as well.

A Child, My Choice

His most well-known and well-beloved carol. SATB a capella, simplicity itself.

Psalm for Christmas Day

Audio & Video. One of the editor’s TOP FIVE works.  How DID those troops of angels come down??

Magnificat (York Cycle)

Balulalow

Hail, O Sun, O blessed

Shepherd’s Music

About the fields

Tyrley, Tyrlow / Three Kings

O radix Jesse

From heaven high

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