Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

More Heaps of Praise on Willan

This morning, first Sunday of Advent, we once again pulled out Willan with great results. It was a glorious entrance. I’m coming to the point with this book of just trusting that whatever is in here is great music and works time and again.

As the conductor, I had tempo issues with this at first, but if you go through it enough times and let the text dictate the results, it ends up right. Obviously, ignoring the silly time signature, such as it is, is a must.

5 Replies to “More Heaps of Praise on Willan”

  2. As one of your older readers, may I call the attention of you "youngsters" to some of the wonderful work Healy Willan did for the Basilian Fathers when they issued their New Saint Basil Hymnal in the late 1950s. He contributed a lovely little Missa Brevis in the back of the hymnal and, if I'm not mistaken, helped with the accompaniments to many of the hymns. And there are a good many hymn tunes in there (LM and so forth) that are more than usable today.

  3. Anonymous, It is known as the Mass of St. Theresa ans was originally written for the Carmel in Niagara Falls. It is a lovely unison Mass. He also wrote two others that are similar, Mass of St. Peter for St. Peter's Catholic Church in Toronto and Mass of St. Mary Magdalene all unison Masses with beautiful accompaniments which can be sung by any choir and congregation. For most of his career he was Director of Music at St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church in Toronto which still presents a high calibre music program in a High Church setting (liturgically speaking of course, it is still Anglican and not part of the TAC).

    Listen here to his Three Kings which I had the pleasure of singing a few years ago when I sang with The Victoria Scholars:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEFApQ8o6Es

    Much more of Willan's work is on Youtube:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Healy+willan&aq=f

    Friends, a contemporary of Willan was Msgr. John Edward Ronan the founder of St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto. He has been almost totally forgotten except at the Choir School where his music is still sung in St. Michael's Cathedral.

    Here is an example of Ronan's music from his Tenebrae Responses–Velum templi.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivvjmz7DvQU

    http://www.smcs.on.ca/history.htm

    http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003024

  4. Amen to all of the above! Willan was also commissioned by Concordia Publishing in the 50's-60's to write a number of works. Many of them are out of print now, but they – like many of the pieces listed above – were all well crafted jewels on the various texts of the Anglican liturgy. Most of them are well within the capabilities of the average parish choir. Anytime you can find something of his, it's worth a second look.

  5. Additional seasonal introits by Willan were original published by Western Music in Canada. They are now available from the Leslie Music Company. Title is simply "Introits". Catlogue number is 4069. Link to Leslie's catalogue is this:www.lesliemusicsupply.com/catalogue.pdf

    Myron Patterson

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