Spring 2023 Practice Tracks - Souhegan Valley Chorus

Table of Contents

Spring 2023 Program

Ad Astra, by Jacob Narverude

Three Part Version

SATB Version

O Love, by Elaine Hagenberg

From Elaine Hagenberg’s website:

“O Love” was inspired by the words of Scottish minister, George Matheson in 1882. He began to go blind at the age of nineteen, and his fiancé called off their engagement. His sister cared for him as he endured new challenges. Years later, on the eve of his sister’s wedding, he faced the painful reminder of his own heartache and loss as he penned the words to this hymn. Given a fresh melody, this setting for SATB choir (and optional cello) uses hopeful ascending lines representing renewed faith. Though lingering dissonances remind us of past heartache, the beautiful promise remains: “morn shall tearless be.”

From Wikipedia:

One of his hymns, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” has passed into the popular hymnology of the Christian Church.
Matheson himself wrote of the composition:

“I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.”