Wondrous Love

Appalachian Carols
Appalachian Carols was written in celebration of the Capitol Hill Chorale’s 25th anniversary. The work is a tribute to the musical legacy of Jean Ritchie (1922-2015), perhaps the best known and most respected singer of traditional ballads in the United States. The youngest daughter of one of the most famous American ballad-singing families—the Ritchie family of Perry County, Kentucky—Jean Ritchie is often referred to as the “Mother of Folk.” Music had come to her by tradition, and she maintained an impeccable but down-to-earth authenticity throughout her storied career.

The five movements of Appalachian Carols are drawn from Ritchie’s repertoire for the Christmas season. I began by transcribing the melodies from Ritchie’s recordings to capture her unique interpretations as closely as possible. Adding choral harmonies to the original melodies, I tried to stay true to the essence of the tunes as she performed them. Throughout the five movements of Appalachian Carols, echoes and reverberations of the Appalachian folk style abound: unison singing, the use of drones, open sonorities evoking the mountain dulcimer, and allusions to the three-part vocal harmony of 19th-century American tunebooks. The resulting work is a meditation on the interweaving themes of winter, Christmas, family, music, and nature.

Wondrous Love
This setting of Wondrous Love features an Appalachian variant of this well-known folk song. In her book Singing Family of the Cumberlands, Ritchie described a vivid memory from her childhood of singing Wondrous Love outside her grandpa’s window on Christmas morning:

“We stepped out into the shivery still morning. The snow was ankle deep and the world was shining like silver beneath the wispy circle of a moon and the big Christmas star. The old earth was like it was holding its breath and waiting for a holy thing to happen. We went around to Granny’s window, keeping very still so as not to waken her too soon, and we sang ‘Brightest and Best’ for her. Then for Mom and Dad came ‘Good Christian Men Rejoice,’ and then ‘Wondrous Love’ that Grandpa Hall loved so well. As we sang, it seemed that thousands of people and a thousand years sang with us the simple words that know no time, that never fail to make me chill and tremble to my heart.”

A timeless song of praise, Wondrous Love is appropriate for singing any time of year.

What wondrous love is this
O my soul! O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
O my soul!
What wondrous love is this
That caused the Lord of bliss
To send such perfect peace
To my soul?

To God and to the Lamb
I will sing, I will sing,
To God and to the Lamb
I will sing!
To God and to the Lamb
Who is the Great I Am,
And Christ the Son of Man
I will sing!

Ye winged seraphs fly,
Bear the news! Bear the news!
Ye winged seraphs fly,
Bear the news!
Ye winged seraphs fly
Like angels in the sky,
Fill vast eternity
With the news.

When we’re from sorrow free
We’ll sing on, we’ll sing on
When we’re from sorrow free
We’ll sing on;
When we’re from sorrow free
We’ll rise and joyous be,
And through eternity
We’ll sing on!