Yet More on That Thin, Erasable Line:Song of Exile (1988)

In my post from August 27, I said that arranging work has led me to wonder, at times: if a piece prominently quotes or utilizes something preëxisting, is that piece an arrangement or an original composition that happens to use pre-existing material?

I wrote previously about my Rhapsody on Anglo-American Ballad Tunes falling into this category. Here, I offer another piece that poses the same question:

Song of Exile (1988) uses the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” as its focal point, each of whose three verses prompt different reactions from the choir. The first two are drawn from Psalm 137 (“By the waters of Babylon…” and “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”); the third is drawn from Isaiah 32 (coupled with a half-verse from Psalm 31), designed to be a verse of consolation—except that the first verse of the spiritual returns over it, unchanged from the beginning. The piece ends with a Phrygian half-cadence, leaving things unresolved.

Song of Exile was originally written for the choir of Central Baptist Church, Wayne, PA, but has been performed since then thanks to the late Peter Hopkins, former director of music at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, VA. My first encounter with the Isaiah text dates all the way back to high school and the music of Emma Lou Diemer—specifically, her For Ye Shall Go Out With Joy, a work from the 1960s which contained sounds and a cappella writing that was a watershed experience in terms of my musical thinking.

Back when Peter was in Philadelphia at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (3rd & Pine Streets, Old City), he once asked me about repertoire around Psalm 137. I suggested Salamone Rossi’s Al naharot bavel (in Hebrew; and, thus far, the only complete setting of Psalm 137 as far as I know, which pulls no punches at the end!), William Billings’ Lamentation over Boston, (a paraphrase of Psalm 137; likely by Billings himself), and Song of Exile.

He chose Song of Exile, presenting it not only in Philadelphia, but also in Reading, PA with the Reading Choral Society, and again during a week-long residency by the St. Peter’s choir at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, UK, in August, 2010 (I was privileged to have been there for that residency). The recording comes from the Evensong sung there on August 27, 2010, where it was sung as the anthem for that service.

Song of Exile is now published by MusicSpoke.com.