Cantate Deo!

- Walker Williams

PDF Sample

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

Here we have a tremendous festival setting with text from Psalm 68 for the adult choir (and congregation) to enjoy! 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 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!" repetitions appear throughout, bringing a crisp, exuberant sense of unity. A softer middle section ("Domine nomen illi") is surrounded by festive opening and closing music. A large portion of the choral sections are unison or 2-part texture and the SATB sections are melodic and easily singable. The range for all voice parts is surprisingly comfortable — 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 to swell reeds and mixtures.

The Williams' Cantate Deo! is ideal for any festive occasion: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Christ the King, parish feast day, combined choir festival, diocesan events. A version for two-part treble voices, written for the 2018 Cantate Deo Youth Choir Festival at Saint James Catholic Church in Charles Town WV, is available: CNP Catalog #5067.