Based on Melvyn Bragg's stirring novel of rural and industrial working life early in the twentieth century, The Hired Man tells of one family's - Bragg's grandparents' - journey from land laborers to colliers and back to the land. The superb score is a marvelous succession of chorales, operatic duets and vigorous foot stomping rhythms.5 women, 14 men

No hace tanto tiempo, la música era un murmullo ocasional y apenas perceptible en un entorno hecho de silencio. Ahora es tan ubicua como el aire que respiramos. ¿Cómo diablos ocurrió ese milagro?Una historia de la música es el relato de nuestra necesidad de inventar, conectar, rebelarnos y entretenernos. El texto de Goodall, bello, claro y persuasivo, es tanto un himno al esfuerzo humano como un mapa revolucionario de nuestro viaje musical.Una historia de la música es también una mini serie de gran éxito de la BBC.

The Lord is my Shepherd is best known as the theme tune to the award-winning BBC TV series The Vicar of Dibley. Goodall's setting of Psalm 23 is warm and melodious and has been, and will continue to be, popular with choirs everywhere. Alternative accompaniments for strings are also available.
Faber New Choral Works introduces a wealth of new or recently written choral music to choirs in search of fresh repertoire. The series draws in a rich diversity of living composers and includes both lighter and more challenging contemporary works, offering a thrilling array of varied styles.

*** Accompanies BBC2's major new TV series and The Story of Music in 50 Pieces on Radio 3 *** In his dynamic tour through 40,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation - harmony, notation, sung theatre, the orchestra, dance music, recording, broadcasting - strikes us with its original force. He focuses on what changed when and why, picking out the discoveries that revolutionised man-made sound and bringing to life musical visionaries from the little-known Perotin to the colossus of Wagner. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant and what all post-war pop songs have in common.

A River Out Of Eden is Howard Goodall's vibrant choral anthem for SATB voices and piano, composed to celebrate the service of Sid and Cindy Davis at St Luke's United Methodist Church, Houston. The music sets two distinct accounts of creation: William Tyndale's translation from The Book of Genesis and an excerpt from Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Intertwined through Goodall's contemporary musical style, the disorder underlying Dillard's text erupts into Tyndale's joyous refrain: 'And there spronge a rever out of Eden', the music a reflection upon our dependence on the natural world. An optional organ part is also available to download from fabermusic.com.

The writing of a requiem is a special challenge for any composer. The great requiems of the past by composers such as Mozart, Verdi and Berlioz interpret the sacred requiem text literally, offering prayers of salvation for the departed, whose souls are assumed to be in purgatory facing a terrible judgment.
Eternal Light: A Requiem, by the Emmy Award winning British composer and internationally acclaimed broadcaster Howard Goodall is a stunning new requiem for the modern day. In contrast it is intended to provide solace to the grieving, reflecting on the words of the Latin Mass by juxtaposing them with poems in English. Speaking about the work, Howard Goodall said, "For me, a modern requiem is one that acknowledges the unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife. This, like Brahms', is a requiem for the living, addressing their suffering and endurance, a requiem focusing on the consequences of interrupted lives."
Also available in single octavo format, is Lead, Kindly Light (057153323X).
Buy digital tracks from iTunes.
Complete CD also available from Amazon.com.

Composing Music for Worship is a unique, challenging and timely book that asks vital questions about the future of music for Christian worship. The increasing presence of background music in public places, the unlimited choice of recorded music cheaply available, the ease with which we can control our musical environment and ready access to musical perfection in the comfort of our own homes all have profound implications for churches and their music. While the availability of musical choice has exploded, organized religion has declined. Traditional institutions, including the churches, are increasingly avoided. What does this mean for music as a medium for conveying spiritual truths? What is the way forward for composers of Christian music? What music will speak deeply to worshippers and build churches into embodiments of Christian theology? What music will intrigue new people and attract them to the Christian good news? An impressive line-up of eminent musicians, representing a wide variety of music styles, consider these questions and explore the future for church music in all its expressions. The result is a cutting-edge examination of the challenges facing the churches in the modern age and a dynamic range of responses to those challenges. STEPHEN DARLINGTON is Organist and Tutor in Music at Christ Church, Oxford and director of music at Christ Church Cathedral. ALAN KREIDER was previously director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, Regent's Park College, Oxford.He is presently teaching at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Indiana.

Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the history of Western music. His 'big bangs' may not be the ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious that we overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact. Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of the players to the pens of composers; moves on to the first opera; then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the first recording made in history. Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical advances both clear and utterly fascinating.

Racy and vivid in a narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or 19th-century America, in which all progress takes place. Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach to The Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.