Cantate Deo!

- Walker Williams

PDF Sample

Use: General
Required Resources: SA choir, 2 trumpets, organ
Language: Latin

Here we have a tremendous festival setting with text from Psalm 68 for an accomplished, 2-part children's choir … or, for the women of your adult choir (for some variety in the SATB texture). Young composer Walker Williams has given us a setting that will require some work, but that is manageable for a good choir and trumpeters.

The piece was written for the 2018 Cantate Deo Youth Choir Festival at Saint James Catholic Church in Charles Town WV, as a kind of "theme song." Hence, the text was drawn from Psalm 68:

Cantate Deo!
Psalmum dicite nomini ejus:
Iter facite ei, qui ascendit super ocassum:
Dominus nomen illi,
Exsultate in conspectu ejus.

Sing to God,
chant praise to his name,
extol him who rides upon the clouds,
Whose name is the Lord;
Exult before him.

Rhythmic vitality drives the work, facile in its alternation among 6/8, 3/4 and 9/8 time signatures. Short passages of multiple, angular "Cantate Deo!" repetions appear throughout, bringing a crisp, exuberant sense of unity. A softer middle section ("Domine nomen illi") is surrounded by festive opening and closing music. Almost half of the choral sections are unison voices and the SA sections are melodic and easily singable. The range for both voice parts is surprisingly spare: middle C to top space E-flat — so no tessitura issues!

The brass parts bring a flashy bravado to the work and are certainly playable by talented high school musicians. The organ part adds sixteenth-note motion on interludes, is supportive of the voice parts and utilizes a variety of sounds, from flutes 8' and 4' through principals and swell reeds and mixtures.

Williams' Cantate Deo! is ideal for any festive occasion: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Christ the King, parish feast day, combined choir festival, diocesan events.