And Tears No Bitterness

Description

Ralph Hultgren

From the composer:

“Bill Buchanan is one of the preeminent music teachers in Queensland; a nurturer and a developer of talent. When he left full time work to pursue other projects his students, past and present, put together a concert to celebrate his teaching career. My contribution to the celebrations was this work.

Bill would most often commence a concert, no matter where, with his band playing Abide With Me, the old hymn tune, Eventide. We talked about why and we talked about what the hymn might mean to him, outside of its musical construction, and we talked about its use in military situations, especially Anzac Day. I had concluded to compose a piece to honour Bill’s contributions to the development of young Queensland musicians and had written a simple melody to use – three versions of it, in fact. The work, “…and tears no bitterness” (words taken from the fourth verse of the hymn) is a setting of my original melody, and its variants, interspersed with Bill’s favourite hymn, Abide With Me.”

Grade: 4