60. In the Beginning. Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland is best-known for works like Billy the Kid and Appalachian Spring, and a great arrangement of Shall We Gather By the River. I love all of those, but I thought I'd share something you may never have heard before, In the Beginning, which is Genesis, chapters 1 and 2:1-7. Our choir sang the first bit of this piece one January when the lectionary was on Genesis. We sang only the first bit because the piece (at least this recording of it) is almost 16 minutes long (don't worry - I'm only giving you the first two days here!). I think our choir director said we'd never be able to do it because we'd surely go flat in a piece that long (since it's a capella, or acapulco, as he likes to say). I notice that in this recording, the mezzo-soprano soloist (not named in the liner notes, but on the CD itself, Catherine Denley is listed as a soloist) goes flat pretty quickly but somehow the choir manages to maintain their pitch. It's kind of neat word-painting, etc. with those cool Copland harmonies. At the end of each day the choir sings very quietly: "And the evening and the morning were the first (second, etc.) day." Here are the words for the bit you're listening to:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven.
And the evening and the morning were the second day.



Not the kind of thing you listen to on your ipod on your way to work, but worth a listen sometime.