The universal impulse for spiritual seekers of all walks of life is to find ways to transcend and include individual differences for the sake of our greater commonalities. With its lovely writing and sensitive voice leading and your choir will love this calm, sonorous music that sounds more difficult than it is to teach and sing.
The text of Psalm 133 captures the essence of this impulse. The piece features a straightforward declamation of the text with close harmonies with an optional soprano solo on the second verse. The chorus features an more expansive melody in the soprano section. A brief contrasting section in the relative minor is reserved for the delivery of the text “From one is made every nation.” The piece closes with a reiteration of the central message in the home key.
About this work
This setting of Psalm 133 was sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religious Freedom at Virginia Wesleyan College for a concert commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was written for performance by the combined choirs of Virginia Wesleyan College, the Chamber Choir of the University of Alabama Birmingham, and the Birmingham High School Honor Choir. The concert series started in Birmingham on Martin Luther King Day and finished in Virginia Beach on Emancipation Day.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.