Saints Bound for Heaven

Folk Hymn
arr. Mack Wilberg (b. 1955)

Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, the singing of folk music, a term taken from the German expressionVolk, meaning “people as a whole,” was as common among rural whites as among African Americans.  Although folk music is considered “the music of the people,” ethnomusicologists find a precise definition to be elusive, with some not even agreeing that the term folk music should be used.  Nevertheless, what we call folk music tends to have some specific characteristics.  Folk music consists of a single melody, often with repeated sections.  It is the creation of mostly unknown artists, who are self-taught and improvise, not compose, their music. Its transmission is done through oral tradition from generation to generation by ordinary people who are musically illiterate and learn songs by memory.  Among the many types of folk songs are folk hymns, which can be simply defined as folk songs with a sacred text.  One of the most popular folk hymns, Saints Bound for Heaven was originally published in Southern Harmony (1835), a collection of 335 songs compiled by William “Singing Billy” Walker.  A Baptist song leader from South Carolina, Walker intended to provide instruction in choral singing for religious services, especially in southern Baptists churches.  Possibly dating from colonial America, Saints Bound for Heaven expresses the joy of moving from bondage in Egypt to freedom in Canaan, a common topic in folk hymns where freedom from bondage represents heaven and the joy of eternity. Mack Wilberg uses stanzas one, two, and five (of seven) in a strophic setting, and allows the folk flavor to shine through.

Zion’s Walls

Revivalist Hymn
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
arr. SATB Glenn Koponen (1943–2021)

Aaron Copland’s interest in folk music began in earnest in 1948, when the composer Benjamin Britten asked him to arrange a set of American folk melodies for his Festival of Music and the Arts in his hometown of Aldeburgh, England.  Copland’s research yielded ten songs, which he originally arranged for solo voice and piano, and published under the title Old American Songs in two sets of five, the first in 1950 and the second in 1952, which included Zion’s Walls. Copland found Zion’s Walls in Down-East Spirituals (1939 1st ed. and 1943 2nd ed.), a compilation by George Pullen Jackson, a professor of German at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a pioneer in the field of Southern hymnody.  Zion’s Walls, however, had first appeared in an earlier publication, The Social Harp (1844), 222 folk songs compiled by John G. McCurry (1821–1886), a Georgia farmer who grew up as a Presbyterian but became a Baptist.  Zion’s Walls originated during the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant revival movement between 1790 and 1840, that led to increased church membership and social reform.  This revival movement held multi-day, outdoor gatherings focusing on encouraging conversions and strengthening faith.  Since singing was an important activity during these meetings, many of the works published in The Social Harp (1844), among them Zion’s Walls, were often sung at these camp meetings.  Zion’s Walls expresses desire for community and reunification, which for rural Christians in the South meant to gather and be united at the symbolic city of Zion.  Copland, who also used this song in his opera The Tender Land(1954), underscores this sense of community and hope by repeating the words “sisters and brothers,” “fathers and mothers,” who expect to reunify within Zion’s walls.

Let Us Break Bread Together

African American Spiritual
arr. Moses Hogan (1957-2003)

African American Spirituals, one of the largest and most significant genres of American folk song, are a type of sacred song created by and for African Americans that originated in oral tradition as a survival tool for enslaved Africans to express the religious experience of a community in bondage, where music and religion from Africa interacted with music and religion of European origin.Let us Break Bread Together became widely known after its publication in The Second Book of Negro Spirituals (1926), where it appears under the title, When I Fall on My Knees.  Compiled by James Weldon Johnson, a civil rights activist who was active in the Harlem Renaissance as a writer, The Second Book of Negro Spirituals consisted of 120 songs of African American spirituals arranged for voice and piano.  Let us Break Bread Together, which may have originated in coastal South Carolina, exhibits traits common to all African American spirituals.  It was mostly improvised by enslaved Africans who had no training in western music and who moved from plantation to plantation, surviving with textual variants. “Breaking bread,” mentioned 21 times in the Bible, is a gesture of community and friendship, where “bread” represents spiritual food. Emphasizing the sense of community, the song ends with the words “Let us praise God together on our knees.”

At the River

Folk Hymn
Robert Lowry (1826–1899)
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
arr. SATB Raymond Wilding-White (1922–2001)

Unlike folk hymns, hymns are of known authorship. The composer ofAt the River was Robert Lowry, a Baptist pastor who served in churches in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.  A composer of more than 500 hymns, Shall We Gather at the River is his best-known work.  Written in 1864 at Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, Lowry was stirred by a heatwave during an epidemic that claimed many lives.  Overcome by the heat, Lowry recalled one of the visions of the Book of Revelation, also known as the Book of the Apocalypse, the final book of the New Testament and therefore of the Christian Bible, traditionally ascribed to John the Apostle and written about 95 CE.  John’s vision found in 22:1-2 reads “And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”  Copland included it in his second set of Old American Songs, but only used the first and last stanzas (of four) to emphasize the river as a gathering place where “our pilgrimage will end…by the throne of God.”

My Shepherd Will Supply My Need

Folk Hymn
arr. Mack Wilberg (b. 1955)

The words toMy Shepherd Will Supply My Need were written by Isaac Watts (1674–1748), an English Congregational minister who rewrote the Book of Psalms by changing the stylized language of the King James Version into a simpler language, more accessible and relevant to congregations in the 1700s.  This hymn is a reworking of Psalm 23, and it is usually sung to the Appalachian folk melody Resignation, which appeared in Southern Harmony(1835).  Before the widespread adoption of hymnals that paired specific hymns with specific melodies, congregations often sang hymns to a variety of melodies, if the music and words shared a similar structure, with music leaders announcing the hymn and melody during services.  Wilberg has the two lower voices singing the first stanza, answered by the two upper voices for the second, both mostly in unison.  The full chorus sings stanza three with some of the voices subdivided to achieve the full sound that he so liked in his arrangements.

Simple Gifts

Folk Hymn
Joseph Brackett (1797–1882)
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
arr. SATB David Brunner (b. 1953)

One of the best-known Shaker hymns,Simple Gifts was composed by Joseph Brackett, who spent his life at the Poland Hill Shaker Village in Maine.  Because religious services held on Sundays at the community meeting-house consisted of singing, testimonials, a short homily, and silence, the Shakers composed thousands of songs.  Seeking separation from the world, Shakers avoided all harmony and instrumental accompaniment in their music, so their hymns consist of single melodic lines, many of extraordinary grace and beauty.  Simple Gifts was popularized by Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring(1944), and was later included in his second set of songs.  Motivated by respect for the original song, Copland maintained its simplicity and directness.

Long Time Ago

Ballad
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

Copland foundLong Time Ago in the Sheet Music Collection of the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays in the John Hay Library at Brown University, and included it in the first set of his Old American Songs.  Also known as Shinbone Alley, Long Time Ago was published in Baltimore in 1833, one of the few pieces of published music dating from before the Civil War that is believed to be a genuine African American melody.  The publication features an illustration of blackface artist Thomas “Daddy” Rice (1808-1860), the creator of the Jim Crow theater character which he popularized through his minstrel shows, where he sang Shinbone Alley.  Rice based the character on a folk trickster named Jim Crow that had long been popular among enslaved African Americans.  Long Time Ago was republished in 1939 with a different text, Near the Lake Where Droop’d the Willow, used by Copland in his arrangement, where he highlights the reflective melody to convey the sadness at the death of a “maid beloved and cherished.”

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal

Folk Hymn
arr. Alice Parker (1925–2023)

Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal was first published in the Southern Harmony (1835), where it went by the title Invitation, but became better known after it was arranged by Alice Parker, a Boston native who became the chief arranger for the Robert Shaw Chorale (1948–1965), considered one of the best choirs in the country at the time.  Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternalis believed to have originated in the 1800s in Appalachia.  In the text, the poet is approaching death, symbolized by a river, an idea common since ancient Greece, where the Underworld was reached by crossing the River Styx, as well as in Christianity where crossing the River Jordan led into the promised land, denoting heaven.  The poet associates entering heaven with the sound of “harps eternal,” as in the Bible, harps relate to praise, joy, and even healing. Parker’s arrangement repeats the word “Hallelujah” many times to emphasize the joy of reaching the “land of perfect rest.”

The Golden Willow Tree

Ballad
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

The Golden Willow Tree is an English folk song or sea shanty, also known as The Golden Vanity, The Sweet Trinity or The Turkish Revelry and in the first surviving version, dated 1635, as Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing In The Lowland.  Published by Copland in his second set of Old American Songs, his version is based on a 1937 recording issued by the Library of Congress Music Division from its collection of the Archive of American Folk Songs.  The lengthy text, eight stanzas long, narrates the story of a ship, “The Golden Willow Tree,” in danger from an enemy vessel of unknown origin.  The ship’s young carpenter offers to sink the enemy ship, and as a reward the captain promises the boy that he may marry his beautiful daughter.  The boy swims to the enemy ship, drills holes in its hull and sinks it.  He swims back to his ship, but the captain reneges on his promise and the boy drowns.  Some sources have connected the story to Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618), who sailed to South America in 1594 in his ship “The Sweet Trinity” in search of “El Dorado,” a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America, explaining the references to “South Amerikeee” in the text.  However, the question about the location of the “Lowland Sea,” in which the song is set, remains, as there never was a “Lowland Sea” in the area.  Although Copland modified the outline of the original melody, he clearly shows the differences in rank between the captain and the carpenter.  The captain sings in forceful and emphatic melodies, while the boy’s melodies are playful and lively.

The Little Horses

Folk Song
arr. Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Copland’s version ofThe Little Horses comes from American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934), a compilation of over 200 songs by John Lomax (1867–1945), a pioneering ethnomusicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music, and his son Alan (1915–2002), who continued his father’s work.  A lullaby, the song is commonly thought to be of African American origin sung by enslaved black women to the white children in their care.  As with most folk songs, it survives with variants in the text but the melody is practically the same.  In Copland’s arrangement, published in the second set of Old American Songs, the song uses a tender melody as the nanny gently lulls the baby into sleep, but becomes animated at the mention of “blacks and bays, dapples and grays, coach and six-a little horses.”

I Bought Me a Cat

Folk Song
arr. Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
arr. Solos & SATB Michael Driscoll

Intended for children,I Bought Me a Cat is a farmyard song originating in the British Isles and brought to North America at an unknown date.  Copland got to know it through his friend, the playwright Lynn Riggs, who learned it during his childhood in Oklahoma, and decided to include it in his first set of Old American Songs.  I Bought Me a Catis a cumulative song about farm animals, beginning with a cat, a duck, a goose, a hen, a pig, a cow, and a horse, all the while imitating the sounds of these animals, but ending with “buying a wife” who says “honey, honey.”  Copland turned the song into a call-and-response piece, where the soloist  simulates the sounds of the animals, and the chorus responds with “my cat says fiddle eye fee.”

Shenandoah

Folk Song
arr. Jari Villanueva (b. 1955)

Shenandoah may have originated with American and Canadian voyageurs or fur traders who were great singers, as singing was an important part of their culture.  These boatmen traveled through rivers and canals, used for trade; and ventured into the lands of indigenous peoples as far west as the Missouri River.  Most of them travelled alone and became friendly with, and sometimes married, Native Americans.  Some variants of the text tell the story of a trader who fell in love with the daughter of the Oneida Iroquois chief Shenandoah (1710–1816) who lived in Oneida Castle, New York.  Sailors heading down the Mississippi River learned it and used it as a work song while hauling in the anchor.  From the Mississippi, the song went to American merchant boats and became a popular sea shanty known around the world.

Poor Wayfaring Stranger

Folk song
arr. Steven Mark Kohn (b. 1957)

During and for several years after the American Civil War, the text ofPoor Wayfaring Stranger was known as the Libby Prison Hymn, as the words had been inscribed by a dying Union soldier incarcerated in Libby Prison, a warehouse converted to a notorious Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia.  As with other folk songs and hymns in this program, the River Jordan is seen as a place of deliverance, a “bright world” with no “sickness, toil, or danger,” where “sons and daughters” will be reunited with “fathers and mothers.”  Steven Mark Kohn keeps the piano accompaniment to a minimum so that the beauty of the plaintive melody can shine through.

My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord

African American Spiritual
arr. Florence Price (1887–1953)

My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord was included in American Negro Songs and Spirituals (1940) compiled by John Wesley Work, a choral director and one of the first African American collectors of African American songs and spirituals.  Of the several arrangements of My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord, the most celebrated is Florence Price’s, which became widely known after Marian Anderson chose the song to close her famous performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on Easter Sunday, 1939.  Further showing her respect for Price, Anderson printed Price’s full name on the program, while the other composers merely had their first initial and last name.  Price repeatedly states the words “My soul has been anchored in the Lord,” to underscore how the singer’s existence is rooted in her strong faith.  To further emphasize the singer’s commitment, Price ends the song on a high note, as the singer expresses having “reached the mountain top.”

On the Other Shore

African American Spiritual
arr. Steven Mark Kohn (b. 1957)

InOn the Other Shore, also known as Over Yonder, the “over yonder” represents heaven, symbolizing a promised land that offered the hope of reunion with loved ones, who may have been separated by the slave trade.  The concept of a “promised land” is recurrent in African American Spirituals, as a metaphor for both heaven and the hope for freedom and liberation from slavery, as these pieces were not just religious songs, but powerful instruments of hope, resistance, and the yearning for a future free from oppression.  Kohn used the version in John and Alan Lomax’s anthology, American Ballads and Folk Songs, setting the song for piano and voice, but highlighting the beauty and simplicity of the original melody.

When the Saints Go Marching In

Folk Hymn
arr. John Rutter (b. 1945)
arr. instrumental ensemble Michael Driscoll

Several sources provide different origins toWhen the Saints Go Marching In.  Some consider it a traditional Christian hymn, likely originating in the late 1800s or early 1900s, possibly in Protestant revival meetings in the South where spirituals were passed down through generations.  Others define it as a traditional African American Spiritual, taking much of its imagery from the Book of Revelation describing what will happen when the saints, believers in and followers of Christ, enter heaven, which for African Americans symbolized a place of freedom and liberation from slavery.  As with many folk songs, there are many versions of the text, but the melody has become a jazz standard, recorded by many artists.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

African American Spiritual
arr. Alice Parker (1925–2023)
and Robert Shaw (1916–1999)

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, one of the best-known African American Spirituals, was probably created in the late 1860s by Wallace Willis (c. 1820–c. 1880) and his daughter Minerva Willis, who lived in what is now Choctaw County, near the city of Hugo, Oklahoma.  Before the Civil War, Willis and his daughter were sent by their owner, Britt Willis, to work at the Spencer Academy, a Choctaw Nation boarding school for boys, where the superintendent, Reverend Alexander Reid, heard them singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.  Reid notated the words and melody and sent the music to the Jubilee Singers, established in 1871 and consisting of students at Fisk University, a private historically Black liberal arts college in Nashville, who brought it to a wider, even international audience, during a tour of the United States and Europe.  As is typical of folk songs, there is no standardized set of text, but all the variants highlight the Prophet Elijah's ascent into heaven.  This event is described in the Second Book of Kings 2:11-12, where Elijah, while crossing the River Jordan, was taken to heaven in a “chariot of fire” and “horses of fire.” The “sweet chariot” reflects the use of the “promised land” theme evoking the imagery of a heavenly chariot carrying an enslaved community to a promised place of freedom and liberation.  Although Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was traditionally performed as a call-and-response song, Parker and Shaw’s arrangement uses the full chorus for the entirety of the song, but keeps the use of repetition, typical of folk songs, emphasizing a speaker who “looks over Jordan” to see a chariot that takes him to his final home.

The Chariot Jubilee

Oratorio
Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943)

A native of Ontario, Canada, Dett became a naturalized citizen after he moved with his family to the United States in 1893.  He was the first African American to complete an undergraduate degree in composition and piano at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, as well as the first African American director of the Music Department at Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, a private, historically Black research university in Hampton, Virginia.  He composedThe Chariot Jubilee in 1919 after a commission from Howard Lyman and the Syracuse University Chorus, which Lyman had founded.  In the piece, Dett combined the style dominant in the early 1900s, that of European Romantic composers, with its emphasis on emotion, expressiveness, rich harmonies, and dramatic contrasts with the singable melodies, use of call-and-response and syncopated rhythms of the African American spirituals he had learned from his grandmother, particularly Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, one of the best-known African American Spirituals.  For the text, written by Dett himself, he dwells on the theme of salvation of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, represented by the idea of Elijah’s ascent into heaven in a “chariot of fire.”  The piece, which frequently quotes the main theme of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,  feels like a journey, as Dett divided it into several sections, bringing richness and interest to the work. In a constant interplay between the soloist and the chorus, The Chariot Jubileegoes from descriptions of a “golden chariot” coming down from the heavens to fulfill God’s promise of salvation, to focus on a “sweet covenant” in danceable rhythms, to the final section when the “chariot is coming to carry me home.”  The piece closes with joyful reiterations of the word “Hallelujah.”

John Saw duh Numbuh

African American Spiritual
arr. Alice Parker (1925–2023)
and Robert Shaw (1916–1999)

Although many slaves were illiterate, they memorized biblical stories and transformed them into songs, often using the themes of salvation, liberation, and hope to cope with their challenging lives.  The text ofJohn Saw Duh Numbuhrefers to the Book of Revelation, where in 7:4-8, John mentions the number 144,000, described as 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.  Although the meaning of 144,000 has been subject to much interpretation, some theologians view it as symbolic of the entirety of God's redeemed people, encompassing both Jews and Gentiles, who are sealed by God and protected throughout history. In the text, the singer wants to be included in the number: “Tell John not to call duh roll till I git dere.”  The arrangement by Parker and Shaw begins with the tenors alone, but builds up excitement by having the other voices gradually join to increase the fullness of the chorus for repeated statements of “John saw duh numbuh.”  The excitement continues to build as the voices increase in number to eight at the closing, representing the crowd the speaker wants to join.  The piece ends with an ascending melody in imitation for “comin’ up,” the goal of reaching heaven.

Songs for the People
from Miss Wheatley’s Garden

Art Song
Rosephanye Powell (b. 1962)

Considered an authority on William Grant Still, dean of African American composers, as well as on African American spirituals, Powell, born in Lanett, Alabama, has devoted herself to music since she was a child.  She has an undergraduate degree from Alabama State University, a graduate degree from Westminster Choir College, and a doctorate from Florida State University.  Powell composedMiss Wheatley’s Garden in 2011, a cycle of three songs honoring the legacy of Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784), the first female African American poet, who was born in either Gambia or Senegal, and sold into slavery at the age of seven to the Wheatley family of Boston.  For the last song of the cycle, Powell chose Songs for the People, a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911), an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer who spent her life in pursuit of equal rights, job opportunities, and education for African American women.  Songs for the Peopleis a poem of seven stanzas where Watkins Harper expresses her wish of writing songs for everybody, young and old, little children, the weary, and the poor and aged, to “girdle the world with peace.”  Powell sets this hopeful poem to a lively song using her musical style characterized by heartfelt melodies, emphatic rhythm, and rich harmonies.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Folk Revival Song
Bob Dylan (b. 1941)
arr. SATB Adam Podd (b. 1986)

The Times They Are A-Changin’ exemplifies contemporary folk or folk revival, a new form of popular folk music that evolved from traditional folk music and reached its peak in the 1960s.  Written by Bob Dylan in 1963 and released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name, The Times They Are A-Changin’ became an anthem of change and was viewed as a protest song reflecting on the generational gap between “mothers and fathers” and “sons and daughters,” and the political divide marking American culture.  In Dylan’s words, “This was definitely a song with a purpose.  It was influenced, of course, by the Irish and Scottish ballads: Come All Ye Bold Highway Men and Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens.  I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way.  The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time.”  While his old friends in Minneapolis were advising him to “steer clear” of protest music, Dylan argued that the message was more important than the music.