Intermediate Sheet Music from Oxford University Press

The patron saint of music is honoured in Cecilia McDowall's exuberant setting of Kate Wakeling's lyrics based on 'The Life of Saint Cecilia' in Jacobus de Voragine's 1275 The Golden Legend or Lives Of...

Higgins's arrangements of three North-American traditional songs are sophisticated and beautiful, supported by well-crafted piano accompaniments. The first, 'Bright morning stars', is illuminated by a...

For upper voices, SATB, and piano or orchestra The Seeds of Stars is a resplendent setting of a philosophical text by Charles Bennett. The rippling piano part provides a shimmering accompaniment to ra...

Joining the Dots offers pianists lots of material to help build confidence and skill in sight-reading. The series brings together a range of activities to help students improve their sense of keyboard...

Setting a Native American text, The Song of the Stars is a bright and rhythmic piece scored for double upper-voice choir. Featuring rhythmic ostinatos, imitative effects, and rich harmonies, this is a...

Displaying Chydenius's unique style, I am the great sun is a driven and focused setting of Charles Causley's poem. This is textured choral writing: you'll find imitative passages, melodic and rhythmic...

Setting a text by Walter de la Mare, this tuneful, rhythmic choral work is infused with Scandinavian style. The poem is accompanied by extensive use of scat, giving a modern twist to the forlorn senti...

Setting the well-known text by Joseph Addison, The spacious firmament is a mysterious and powerful concert work. Bullard uses a variety of textures throughout the piece, from spacious, layered chords...

SSAATB unaccompanied Rogier's Laboravi in gemitu meo is a deeply expressive setting of Psalm 6, verse 6. Featuring imitative entries, word-painting, undulating parallel phrases, and oscillating harmon...

This five-movement suite takes a light-hearted journey through different themes of love: Rejection, Parting, Falsehood, Contentment, Fulfilment. With contrasting vocal textures and a range of texts, t...

This beautiful anthem was a winner of the London A Cappella Festival Composition Competition 2012. A sensitive setting of a text by Thomas Campion, it features word-painting, a rich use of harmony, fl...

Setting a heart-breaking wartime text by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Pott has created a beautifully poignant piece befitting any Remembrance occasion. Written in memory of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, a bom...

Like as the hart sets reflective yet fervent words from Psalm 42. The vocal writing is emotive and expressive, and the fluctuating metres perfectly complement the rhythm adopted by the psalmist when p...

Here Helvey has created a beautiful musical landscape for George Herbert's tender poem 'Virtue'. Each verse begins with a modal-sounding unison figure which flowers into expressive harmonies built on...

This setting of A spotless Rose reflects the wintry starkness of the fifteenth-century text through its minor key and bare upper-voice opening, while the warmth of the full voicing on the words 'light...

In Grown about by fragrant bushes, Skempton sets a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson using gentle, lilting melodies. The theme of loss is sensitively conveyed in a tonal language that is made more expres...

Commissioned by Sonoro for the second instalment of their Choral Inspirations project, McDowall has composed Crucifixus Reimagined as a response to Lotti's Crucifixus from Credo in F. Use of suspensio...

Bob Chilcott has composed O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen, a reflection on the 16th-century piece of the same title by William Byrd, for the occasion of Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum J...

Characteristically sung on Christmas Day, this Catholic chant depicts mystery and wonder at the birth of Jesus, as witnessed by the animals. The second half of the text relates to words spoken by Eliz...

The O nata lux text is taken from a 10th-century anonymous hymn that uses the concept of light to symbolise hope, a particularly pertinent theme for Advent. Throughout this setting the sopranos intert...

A reflection on the plainchant antiphon 'Pulchra es et decora', this hauntingly beautiful piece was commissioned by ORA100 for Suzi Digby and ORA Singers. The original antiphon has been transcribed an...

On the Air (Dear Vaccine) discusses the optimism for a post-COVID world and, particularly, the desire to sing together again. For the text, poet Seán Street drew inspiration from 'Dear Vaccine', which...

This short Missa brevis setting is perfect for choirs looking to bring a fresh soundworld to their worship. Each movement is distinct in character, but with an overall cohesiveness of harmonic languag...

A Gaelic Blessing was commissioned by the University of Edinburgh, McDowall's alma mater, for performance by the Edinburgh University Singers conducted by Calum Robertson. This meditative, folk-style...

A powerfully emotive setting that contrasts moments of reflection with declamatory exultation, Psalm 57 uses passages from the eponymous psalm in the King James translation. Written in 1972, it is ded...