Music for May 20, 2018 + The Day of Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Soon ah Will Be Done – William Dawson (1899-1990)
• Listen, Sweet Dove – Grayston Ives (b. 1948)

Instrumental Music

• Nun Bitten Wir den Heiligen Geist, BuxWV 208 - Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
• There is a Spirit that delights to do no evil – Ned Rorem (b. 1923)
• Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BuxWV 199 - Dietrich Buxtehude

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn R283 - Creating Spirit, holy Lord (PUER NOBIS)
• Hymn 225 - Hail thee, festival day (SALVE FESTA DIES)
• Hymn 513 - Like the murmur of the dove’s song (BRIDEGROOM)
• Hymn 511 - Holy Spirit, ever living (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Hymn R248 - Oh, let the Son of God enfold you (SPIRIT SONG)
• Hymn R90 - Spirit of the Living God (Daniel Iverson)
• Hymn R168 - If you believe and I believe (Traditional, Zimbabwe)
• Hymn R305 - Lord, you give the Great Commission (ABBOT’S LEIGH)
• Psalm 104:25-26, 28-32, 35 – refrain by Rawn Harbor

The Good Shepherd Choir is singing two anthems for Pentecost Sunday. One is based on a text with direct mention of the Holy Spirit, Listen Sweet Dove by Grayston Ives.

Ives is an English composer whose whole professional life has been centered on choral music. As a child, he was a chorister at Ely Cathedral, then he studied music at Cambridge University under Richard Rodney Bennett.  After university, "Bil" Ives sang as a tenor with the Kings Singers between 1975-1985. He then became Organist, Informator Choristarum (Choir Director), Fellow and Tutor in Music at Magdalen College, Oxford until 2009.


Listen Sweet Dove was published in 2005. The lyrics are taken from a longer poem called Whitsunday by George Herbert (1593–1633). More than ninety of Herbert's poems have been set to music over the centuries, some of them multiple times.  In our hymnal alone there are five hymns written by him.

Listen sweet dove unto my song,
and spread thy golden wings in me;
hatching my tender heart so long,
till it get wing and flie away with thee.

Such glorious gifts thou didst bestow
the earth did like a heav’n appeare,
the starres were coming down to know
if they might mend their wages and serve here.

The sunne which once did shine alone,
hung down his head and wisht for night,
when he beheld twelve sunnes for one
going about the world and giving light.

Lord though we change thou art the same,
the same sweet God of love and light:
restore this day for thy great name,
unto his ancient and miraculous right.

The other anthem is an arrangement of the Spiritual Soon Ah Will Be Done by William L. Dawson. Dawson was the Alabama native who helped popularize the spirituals of the African-American slaves with 'stylized' arrangements through creative and attractive 'packaging' that has an appeal far beyond the original music. He was the Head of the Music Department at the Tuskegee Institute from 1931–1956, where he developed the Tuskegee Institute Choir into an internationally renowned ensemble; they were invited to sing at New York City's Radio City Music Hall in 1932 for a week of six daily performances.

This arrangement of Soon Ah Will Be Done (Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world) belies the original intent of the slave song. Here the themes of dissatisfaction with "the troubles of the world" and the desire to go "home to live with God" (and to see "my mother") are sugar-coated with insistent rhythms and a driving tempo. Still, it is fun to sing. I will admit it has nothing  to do with Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, but we had been working on it to sing on May 13 when one of the choir suggested that it would be better sung on a day other than Mother's Day. I agreed.

The opening and closing voluntaries are organ chorales by the German Composer Dietrich Buxtehude on two classic German-Lutheran chorale-tunes for Pentecost.  The tune for the closing voluntary can be found in our hymnal at hymn 501.