works
This arrangement of for the beauty of the earth is an attempt to capture the living dynamic that undergirds the first creation story in the Book of Genesis. It begins with the gentle pulsing of the animating spirit of God, spoken and sent over the primordial waters to color creation with beauty, with life, with song. As the singing-into-existence spins on, these colorations become increasingly more ornate . . .
This arrangement of it is well with my soul attempts to embrace the reality of suffering in all its dissonances and suspended moments. The stilled rhythmic motion ebbs and flows like the persistence of time, and the hanging harmonies taste the ever-present bitterness that can be found in each and every moment. But, perhaps more importantly . . .
This arrangement of be thou my vision is an invitation to dance. It’s a joyful spinning of a song accompanied by the inherently percussive nature of the piano. The left hand sets the rhythm into motion like the laughing of an acoustic guitar, whose constancy invites the right hand’s melody to sing and spin and dance like a rolling banjo overbrimming with glee . . .
This arrangement of silent night approaches this self-emptied fragility with hushed intimacy and on bended knee. The crystalline harmonies leave the melody utterly exposed, like the faintest chorus of gloria in excelsis Deo, sung to lowly shepherds keeping watch over an otherwise ordinary and mundane night. The stillness is the stillness of an exhausted mother staring into the face of God and . . .
This arrangement of how can i keep from singing is a hymn to this hope. It begins with the most gentle, eyes-closed, singing-to-yourself verse of a folk song that gets wrapped up in the warmest embrace of a hug. But then something happens. A quiet heartbeat animates the song from the highest heavens, and time begins to stretch and expand and . . .