Description
A Wreath–Wedding Song (download)
Medium voice, organ or piano
3′ duration
1985
Text: George Herbert
Premiere—1985, by Kurt R. Hansen and Grigg Fountain, Evanston, IL.
Voice range:
Program Note
A wedding song for Christopher and Valerie Lorimer, George Herbert’s tender offering of simple praise for grace, understanding and forgiveness seems to read equally well addressed friend to friend, spouse to spouse, finite being to creator. Notice how the last word or phrase of each line becomes the beginning of the next line, a correspondence that is matched by the music. The song appears in Karen Leigh-Post‘s anthology American Art Song for the Sacred Service, published by Classical Vocal Reprints (CVR 3834). www.classicalvocalrep.com.
Text
A wreathed Garland of deserved praise,
Of praise deserved unto thee I give,
I give to thee, who knowest all my waies,
My crooked winding waies, wherein I live,
Wherein I dy, not live: for life is strait,
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,
To thee, who art more farre above deceit,
Then deceit seemes above simplicitie.
Give mee simplicitie, that I may live,
So live and like, that I may know thy waies,
And practice them then shall I give
For this poore wreath, give thee a crowne of praise.
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