John Thomas Higgins

January 21, 2023

Dear Musical Friends,

My aim in writing music in the last forty five years has been to present the history, principles and teachings of the Bahá'í Faith in song. Most of my music uses text from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, the Báb or 'Abdu'l-Bahá as lyrics. If you as a reader are unfamiliar with this Faith and are interested to learn more I recommend viewing www.bahai.org on the internet.

All of my scores have been reviewed and approved by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Canada and by that can be used anywhere in the world. Each score cites the sources of its lyrics.

In the summer of 2022 I edited and reformatted most of my music into nine volumes and had them printed. These volumes can be seen in my Score Catalogue, below. The volumes are:

1. Foundations I - songs that explain fundamentals of Bahá'í belief and practice, intended for children's classes; songs 1 to 14.

2. Foundations II - songs for teens, who by their nature struggle with the insistent self, as do we all; songs 15 to 23.

3. Hidden Words - settings of some Hidden Words of Bahá'u'lláh; songs 25 to 43. (There is no song 24). Two un-numbered songs follow #43. These have their text in the Icelandic language and are not in the printed volume. The Icelandic titles in the score catalogue, below, are not printing correctly. The "?" following "Or.." should be a symbol for a "th" sound as heard in "the".

4. O Holy Lord - SATB settings of parts of a long prayer by 'Abdu'l-Bahá; songs 46 and 47.

5. Songs of Heaven - songs 48 to 50 set much of Bahá'u'lláh's Tablet of the Immortal Youth into music, while 50 sets a selection of the Writings of the Báb in a piece composed for the Bicentenary of His birth. These are long pieces.

6. A Compendium of Choral Music, featuring Writings by the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdul-Bahá; songs 51 to 72.

7. Songs of Seven Valleys - revised settings of music with text from a book of mystic prose by Bahá'u'lláh; songs 73 to 84.

8. Songs on Bahá'í Themes - songs that largely use my own lyrics; songs 85 to 91a.

9. Certitude - songs written for a musical play, "CERTITUDE"; songs 91b to 97. The play's script is available by email as a PDF.

10. Secular - some pieces that are not related to the Bahá'í Faith. Three songs set poems in French by Jocelyn Verret-Chaisson to music. Another song is a SATB arrangement of a song in the Compendium folder, "In Prayer I Kiss Your Eyes". "Vocalise" is a companion song to "The Camphor Fountain" in Songs of Seven Valleys.

Some songs are duplicated but have different page numbers, so that they are in sequence with other songs in that volume.

The first song in nine of the folders has a Title page, Table of Contents and sometimes a Forward or Performance Notes at the beginning. Songs of Seven Valleys has three songs with inserted text: at the beginning of song 91 and at the end of songs 92 and 97. I did this in case someone wants to download a whole book of songs - ie the songs in Foundations I are intended to be used as a set, as are Songs of Seven Valleys.

It is better NOT to print the songs double sided at first. When a printed book is open, the even page numbers are always on the left, odd numbers on the right. Double sided copies made directly from a download may not print the left/right pagination properly. Sibelius has a feature that shifts the staves on a page right or left in order to make more room for the binding in a print copy. If the odd/even pagination isn't printed correctly, the bound edge of the pages will have even less room than normal for binding the score .

I welcome any comments that you may have. John Thomas Higgins