These five anthems, covering 130 years, are all mainstays of the British church and cathedral choir canon. Attwood, a pupil of Mozart, avoids the overtly florid, quasi-operatic verse anthem solos that had become prevalent among his contemporaries, although the dialogue on ‘renew’ in Turn thy face from my sins (1834) suggests he did not resist entirely. Lead me, Lord is the final section of the anthem ‘Praise the Lord, my soul’ (1861). Wesley, too, offers an antidote to then current trends, with a simple and beautiful melody alternating with chorus. Henry Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn (1907), a turn-to Evensong classic that features one of the most celebrated alto leads in Anglican church music and a commanding, but not difficult, organ part, sets the Latin hymn Te lucis ante terminum. Harris’s Holy is the true light (1947), written in memory of a friend’s wife, is captivating in its atmospheric beauty – a fitting choice for the funeral of the Queen Mother in 2002. Britten’s Jubilate in C (1961), too, has a royal connection, written at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh and performed, as he requested, at his funeral in 2021. A lively, scalar organ part offsets the melodies of paired voices and then the sometimes sombre, deliberately counterintuitive text settings such as ‘be thankful unto him’.

The name SAM-Klang takes the three voice parts from the arrangements – Soprano, Alto and Men – and combines it with the Scandinavian and German words for ‘sound’ to create the portmanteau word ‘sound together’ or ‘harmony’. The SAM-Klang series offers basic and advanced choral repertoire arranged for soprano, alto and one male voice- part. In addition to new repertoire and new arrangements, you will also find essential parts of the classical German, Scandinavian, French and English SATB repertoire, carefully and considerately reworked for SAM. The arrangements retain the characteristic features of the original movements and have almost the same richness of timbre, resulting in works which sound nearly unchanged to an audience. Piano reductions of all choral movements facilitate rehearsal preparation. The arrangements offer development opportunities for all voice sections, bringing new life and new quality to SAM choir work. SAM-Klang enables youth choirs to gain access to classical choral literature and ensures that mixed choirs who face challenges in finding singers for all male voice parts continue to have access to well-loved repertoire.