Descants for Familiar Carols
  • ProfKwasniewskiProfKwasniewski
    Posts: 247
    Would anyone happen to have available, in easily transmissible form, descants for any of the following carols:

    Once in Royal David’s City
    O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
    Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
    Gabriel’s Message
    Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
    On Jordan’s Bank
    Silent Night
    O Come, All Ye Faithful

    I was hoping to have our professional violinist play the descant melody during the last verse of at least some of these. And yes, I'm behind the curve: our Lessons & Carols service is tomorrow night. But even if you reply too late, I will keep the music for next year's Lessons & Carols.
  • nun_34nun_34
    Posts: 68
    Just the one, and it's a bit beat up, but hopefully still usable:
    Silent Night w descant.bmp
    1556 x 65535 - 3M
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Two of my settings with descants at CPDL:

    Hark! the Herald Angels Sing. Double (two) descants, either alone or combined. These descants were used in the 2012 CBS Christmas Eve Special from Reading, PA.

    Veni, Veni Emmanuel. Section B is a duet, melody plus a countermelody in the Tenor which works very well as a Soprano or instrumental obbligato part (in the score it's set to the "Veni, veni, Adonai"/"O come, O come, thou Lord of might" ... but it is effective on any stanza ... especially the final stanza, with everyone singing the melody (unaccompanied) and sopranos (or tenors) with violin or oboe on the tenor part (up an octave for sops, violin, oboe).

    I'm also attaching two unpublished settings with descants: "On Jordan's Bank" and "Once in Royal David's City" ... feel free to use them.
    F11-On Jordan's bank.pdf
    28K
    Once in Royal David's City.pdf
    39K
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • sergeantedward
    Posts: 196
    The Rutter/Wilcocks 100 carols has a wonderful ONCE IN ROYAL descant. I don't know about the others.

    It is not necessarily "easily transmissible" in form, but seems like every other church owns a copy.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • Reval
    Posts: 187
    I have had some luck finding things at this site:
    http://whitmill.net/descants/
    Thanked by 1Salieri
  • ProfKwasniewskiProfKwasniewski
    Posts: 247
    Thanks for the music everyone -- it's given me plenty to work with. I've got three descants already lined up. I love the forum!
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,486
    There is a nice volume of descants published by GIA as a companion to the worship hymnal ...it has descants to nearly all of the hymns in worship. Dont know if it is still published.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    I know of no descants that can hold a candle to the ones provided by a succession of King's College choirmasters. Most are available in Oxford carol collections. These take the idea of descant to heights not thought of on Parnassus. I would send you a few, but you seem already to have satisfied your needs for this year. You may want to invest in the Oxford carol series. They have also some marvelous ones for Easter hymns!
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Speaking of Oxford, The Oxford Book of Descants is also an invaluable resource for hymns throughout the liturgical year.
    Thanked by 2M. Jackson Osborn kenstb
  • Rachel
    Posts: 5
    Here's a couple I found for O come all ye faithful and O come O come Emmanuel:
    O_come_all_ye_faithful.pdf
    64K
    OComeOComeEmmanuel.pdf
    67K
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
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