Description
Book SynopsisThe title Sing Joyfully was actually suggested to me by one of its commissioners from the Saffron Walden Choral Society, as a working title for a piece of music that would eventually explore the pleasure to be derived from singing. The title immediately brought to mind the anthem by William Byrd, with which I then chose to begin this new piece, divesting the work of its religious nature by omitting parts of the text.
I decided, inspired by the nature of the commission, to collect some texts that specifically describe singing communally and what benefits this holds for the individual and for society as a whole. A passage from Thomas Morley's Plaine and Easy Introduction to Practical Music describes the narrator's discomfort at being unable to join his fellow guests in some convivial communal singing. This then leads into words from a research paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science by Eiluned Pearce, Jacques Launay and Robin Dunbar that detail
