Bernie Leadon: Journey of the Sorcerer

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 

Genesis 1:1 (NIV)

"In the beginning the Universe was created. 

"This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." 

Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Sometime in the mid-1970's, a twenty-something Douglas Adams was lying down, drunk, in a field in Innsbruck, Austria.  Up to this point, and a good deal beyond it, he had struggled with his chosen career path of being a writer.  He had desperately wanted to invent Monty Python, however it had already been accomplished as was going quite well.  Adams did manage to get a few writing credits and appearances with the show, however nothing remained concrete and he sort of drifted about from gig to gig and took several odd jobs in order to keep afloat. So, according to legend, he found himself lying on his back, three sheets to the wind.

To use the parlance of our time.

He had in his possession a book entitled, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe" and as he looked at the vast openess of the sky it occurred to him that someone ought to write such a guide for the Galaxy.  He eventually worked that concept into a draft which was presented to BBC Radio 4 in 1977.  What followed was a veritable landslide of a long standing radio series, a trilogy in six books, a stage play, a few video games, a television series, a motion picture, and a comic book. 

Tragically, Douglas died in 2001 following a morning workout. Despite being an author, he was also a highly vocal supporter of environmental conservation and worked with multiple groups to increase awareness of endangered animals throughout the world.

In the original radio series, each episode (called fits) would begin and end with the dulcet tones of a banjo, segueing into an orchestral and effects laden chorus.  It fit the need of being both a folksy narrative expressing the sense one might journey across vast interstellar distances while still being "spacey" enough to merit a journey to a hyperspace port near Orion Beta.  The piece is known as "Journey of the Sorcerer".

It was written by Bernie Leadon (b. 1947), founding member of the Eagles, as well as a incredibly competent musician, performing on numerous stringed instruments with great faculty.  Leadon left the Eagles in 1975 on bad terms and retreated to Nashville where he presently resides and is well-established as a session musician for recording primarily blue-grass albums.

"Journey of the Sorcerer" has been rewritten and adapted a few different times by different bluegrass groups.  It was adapted in use for all released recordings of the radio series, including the series that were released posthumously to Adams' death.  These versions utilized a different recording of the work, as performed by the "Illegal Eagles" cover band so as to avoid negotiating new (and expensive) rights with the Eagles over the work.

The track was also given a title treatment in the 2005 Disney movie, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".  Following the destruction of Earth, the camera pans away in the blackness of space to reveal the guide floating through the cosmos as the familiar tune drifts by.  Joby Talbot (b. 1971) gave it an updated treatment, incorporating the ubiquitous banjo with some added synthesized effects accompanying the orchestra.  It was a genuinely happy moment to experience seeing it the first time, feeling that they got it right.

I read somewhere (for the life of me I cannot recall, nor find it) that there were copyright issues in using the track in the movie.  Douglas was still alive at the start of the planning stages of the film and it was said that one phone call secured it for their use.  I don't know if it was retained as the film bounced out of development hell into Disney's hands, but I always found that interesting.  Douglas had a definite connection and affinity with the music industry of his day, taking special interest in the large and over-the-top performances of bands like Pink Floyd and Procol Harum, citing the excesses with which such performed as influences into certain aspects of his writing.  

He did in fact perform with both Pink Floyd and Procol Harum, the latter of which bearing the distinction of earning Douglas the honor of being the only fan ever to perform with that group.  Adams was an accomplished guitarist, owning as many as 35 left-handed guitars of various types and construction.  It is then a fitting tribute to Mr. Adams, to remember him in the music that he would want remembered.  

It is an odd feeling indeed to miss someone dearly whom you've never met.

See you next Friday.

-ED

Sources:

youtube.com

wikipedia.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/plain/A32873899

http://www.douglasadams.eu/en_adams_guitare.php

Sammy Nestico: Disney Salute

I always say, never begin anything with a qualifier.  I used to hate it while in school when some kid would step up to do some boring presentation in front of the class would preface it by saying something like, "Well, this is going to royally suck, so get ready."  Fantastic. And here I am thinking that your presentation on "The Crucible" was going to show a comparative analysis of John Proctor and that bald guy from the old Who's Line is it Anyways show.  So, be warned- this entry is not as exhaustive as my usual standard of writing goes.  I must go back on my hatred of qualifying my work because as of today I've worked about 55 hours this week and with any luck we'll push that well into the 70's by the end of the weekend.  So really, if you wanted a quality Listening Friday this week...

This week's offerings puts out a belated 'Happy Birthday' to one of my favorite composers, Mr. Sammy Nestico (b. 1924).  He has the distinction of being one of the few composers featured on LF that is still living as it seems we tend to focus on old, dead white guys pretty frequently.  Euro-centric views aside, Nestico is truly one of the greats, boasting 600+ published compositions over his still-continuing career  of a whopping 73 years!

Meanwhile the rest of the nanogenarians are doing landscaping.

Besides being the premier arranger for the Count Basie Orchestra for over two decades, Nestico also grew his fame pounding the pavement in LA writing commercial jingles and anything else that would pay. Eventually he managed to break enough away from the pack and started publishing albums that while not commercially viable certainly allowed him to create something he could be significantly proud of.  

Nestico has a knack for tackling these tunes we've heard millions of times and making us listen to them for the 1,000,001st time as if it's completely new.  His piano writing was (and remains) to have a hint of that Count Basie magic that just blends in so tightly with the wall of brass behind it.  He pulls easily from the American songbook to create unique interpretations of familiar pieces as well as original compositions.  He has such a distinct command of the big band architecture you just kinda sit back as you're listening and think:

So, it begs the question- if Sammy Nestico's written 600+ pieces of music, where the hell do we actually start?  Well, I've zeroed in on a piece that may not be as well known to the purveyors of the higher echelons of musical tranquility, but you bums in the cheap seats will probably get it.  

Written to mark the 25th anniversary of Walt Disney World, "Disney Salute" starts off with a poetic rendition of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme that eventually transforms into a standard version of Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah which eventually takes us to church with a down home gospel treatment following the soprano sax solo.  

One of my favorite things about Nestico is his dedication to write music that kids will not only want to play, but music that they can play.  One of his driving factors was to generate literature that fit into the junior and senior high school repertoire.  Before his influence, jazz music was either stupid hard or stupid bad.  There was not much entry-level stuff that was any good and Sammy did his best to rectify that.  A noble quest to be sure.

So sit back, relax and a rock out to some good, old fashioned Disney tunes like you've never heard them before.  

See you next Friday.

-ED

Go here.  There are recordings of this chart on YouTube, but they're all terrible.  This is the Army Field Band and they rock.  Go to the bottom and click on the triangle next to Disney Salute.  Listen to some of the other charts too.  I'd recommend "A Minor Affair" or "Queen Bee".  

Sources:
www.wikipedia.com
www.youtube.com
http://www.armyfieldband.com/pages/listening/albums/Nestico/Nestico.html

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 "Choral", Mvt. IV

It's not often I hit a stumbling block with regard to picking music to write about.  It's not exactly like there's a shortage of music.  Humans have been creating organized sounds in rhythm for essentially the past 8,000+ years.  Written music and the like came later, but the concept has existed almost as long as we have.  In the cosmic sense of things, it's really not even on the scale of the blink of an eye.  It's like half a blink.  But on the human scale, from the standpoint of interpreting it from the scope of a single lifetime.  It's enormous.  However, this week I feel compelled to choose just one, out of potentially billions.

Thankfully, not this one.

The composer we're examining today should not be unfamiliar to you.  I only hesitate in presenting the maestro to you in light of last week's piece exploring the life of Johannes Brahms, who spent at least a portion of his life wishing that he was Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). It seems a little abrasive to Brahms to jump right back to Beethoven, but in any event he would probably want to devote a blog to writing about Beethoven were he alive today, but I digress.

Let's examine what most of us know and understand about Beethoven, having been drilled from day one of public education that he was the greatest composer to ever walk the earth.

1.  He was deaf.
2.  He wrote Ode to Joy.
3.  He wrote "bum-bum-bum-baaaaaaaaa"

Here are some facts you might know about Beethoven.

1. He became deaf later in life, losing his hearing gradually as he aged.
2. He wrote a piece called Symphony No. 9 in which the 4th movement takes its text from a poem, "Ode to Joy"
3.  He wrote a piece called Symphony No. 5 in c minor, the first 4 notes of which are now infamous.

We all know history's Beethoven.  We know that he wrote important music and we also equate all things "Classical" with him on a societal level. The irony in this of course is that Beethoven wasn't really a Classical era composer.  He was a pivotal figure in ushering in a new era of musical composition and is almost universally regarded as the father of Romanticism.  He was born and raised into the Classical form, but took liberties with it as a young man and adult, shaping it and molding it to suit his needs, rebelling against the classic instruction he received from greats such as Haydn.

There is much about the man that is conjecture and mythological in nature.  For example: that his father, himself a musician, made him practice at the piano as a small child until the young Beethoven would break down in tears, or that when on his deathbed his final gesture was to reach toward the ceiling in agony as a tremendous clap of thunder shook the building to its foundation.  While it is plausible that Beethoven's father was overzealous in his pursuit to sire the next Mozart, it is equally plausible that such a tale was invented to bolster the already mighty composers identity.  There are also some reports that the day Beethoven died was sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

So wind.  Much tree.

Who are we to know?

What we do know about Beethoven is more interesting to me in any event.  We know that when he was 32 he was already experiencing significant difficulty in hearing.  It was 1824 when he finally completed the 9th symphony, essentially deaf as a stump.  In 1802, he wrote a letter (known as the Heiligenstadt Testament) addressed to his brothers, Johann and Carl in which he pours out his heart and expresses the gloomy darkness that occupied his soul.  Beethoven never married, though not for a lack of trying. He had little respect for the authority of his time, mostly tied up in Austrian aristocracy and unfortunately most of the women he fell for happened to be of this higher slice of society and couldn't be seen cavorting with a commoner musician, despite Beethoven's admirations being often reciprocated.

I'm sure Beethoven felt very alone.  In his nephew, Karl, it seems he placed a great burden as his only heir. Tragically, Karl's father died in 1815.  Complicating this, Beethoven pretty much hated his sister-in-law, viewing her as an unfit wife to his brother and publicly declared her an unfit mother for his nephew.  He spent a great deal of his resources in battling to procure custody rights of Karl to avoid him being raised with his mother's influence.  This had a not altogether desired effect with Beethoven being the 19th century equivalent of a helicopter parent and forcing Karl to study music (even though he wasn't interested and also pretty much sucked at it).  

Karl attempted to kill himself in 1826, went to live with his mother to recover and last saw the elder Beethoven in 1827, shortly before Karl left to join the army and Beethoven left to join the dead.

In his Heiligenstadt Testament, Beethoven expressed a desire to end his life 25 years before he did eventually die.  Before he even had a chance to compose the bulk of his symphonic works.  One bit he wrote sticks out to me:

...with joy I hasten towards death - if it comes before I shall have had an opportunity to show all my artistic capacities it will still come too early for me despite my hard fate and I shall probably wish it had come later - but even then I am satisfied, will it not free me from my state of endless suffering? Come when thou will I shall meet thee bravely.

For Beethoven, this letter was a last will and testament from a tormented composer who did not fully know if he'd be around much longer.  In this letter he touches on his hearing loss as being a contributing factor to his unhappiness, contrasting it with the fact that as a composer hearing ought to be his best attribute.  This was to be an inevitability however, and something that we remember Beethoven for, maybe even more than his symphonies.

In the end, I'm not sure if it's strength of character, stubbornness, or sheer determination that forced Beethoven to sally forth, back to the wind, into the heart of the gale.  Perhaps a deep love for his nephew and eventual heir to his small fortune? Or maybe he knew that he would be remembered for his contributions to our musical identity as a species?

I don't know.

What I do know is this. Each and every one of you reading this must listen to Beethoven's 9th in its entirety at some point in your life.  And I don't mean now.  And I don't mean on a computer.

I want you to seek out and find an orchestra performing it. Now, if it's the Vienna Phil, then all the better, but keep in mind the premier of this work wasn't its best rendition either. Under-rehearsed and dealing with a totally deaf Beethoven trying to give musical critique gave a certain "flavor" to be sure. But, quality and skill-set aside, you need to find an orchestra performing it live.

And you need to sit through it.  If for no other reason than to say you've done it, because I guarantee that you will not regret it.

Because when you listen to it, if you listen closely, you will hear the Romantic Era being born.



See you next Friday.

-ED

Watch 1st.  

Watch 2nd.

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.wikipedia.com


Epilogue: 

One last bit before we go for this week.  When I was 7 or 8 I was riding the bus from school to my house. I was staring out the window as one often does on buses and observing the blur of the scenery roaring by my young face.  I got the idea that it may look interesting if I were to turn my head 90 degrees so that instead of moving left to right, it would appear to be moving top to bottom, like I was flying or rushing up really quickly.  So, get that image in your head of a small child tilting his head at a strange angle staring blankly out the window.  The bus attendant became concerned.

"What are you doing?!"

I panicked.  I had done strange things like this before, but had never been noticed and I didn't know how to respond any way other than being honest.

"I'm looking at the world from a different viewpoint."

"What?!"

I was mortified.  I had been discovered.  I was different and it would be impossible to explain to someone who was probably just concerned that a good solid bump in the road might be enough to pop a vertebrae out of my neck, bent at such an angle.  I mumbled something incoherent and turned forward, head down.

Beethoven looked out his bus window at weird angles too.  And so does this guy, Leif Inge.  He took Beethoven's 9th and stretched it out digitally to a length of 24 hours (it's normally 90 minutes or so) and calls it "9 Beet Stretch".  Purists will probably turn their noses up at it, citing Beethoven's tempo markings while thumping their chests proudly.  And that's fine.  But to listen to it so slowly, so exposed really seems to me like taking a microscope to the master.  It has a certain trance-like, ethereal quality to it.  After listening to it, for any length of time, your ears and brain begin to invent these sort of artifacts inside the lengthened chords that just come in and out of nowhere.

It's quite surreal.

You can find a live stream of it here: http://www.expandedfield.net/  (Since it's so long, presumably the size of the audio file precludes it from being uploaded to YouTube or the like).  You might like it, I don't know.

Lastly, I want to leave you with a link to a hilariously funny webcomic that puts Beethoven into a unique light, particularly with regards to his relationships with Haydn, his brother and his nephew.

Johannes Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem, Mvt. I: Selig sind, die da Leid tragen

We've talked about Brahms before.  In discussing his 1st symphony in which he paid homage to the father of the Romantic Era, Ludwig van Beethoven, we talked a bit about why I've adopted him as the patron saint of Listening Friday. Brahms means a lot to me as a musician.

Brahms means a lot to me as a human.

In February of 1865, Brahm's lost his mother.  Prior to that, in 1856, he lost his dear friend and fellow composer Robert Schumann.  Schumann was an important figure in the life of Brahms as he was instrumental in elevating the young Johannes to the stature of renowned composer.  Much of Brahms' early life was spent playing in dive bars or giving lessons in order to keep food on the table for his family or himself.  There's some evidence that his youthful appearance encouraged patrons of the taverns to abuse and harass him, frequently to the point of causing emotional trauma.

Brahms was introduced to Robert and his wife, Clara, by way of his close friend and violinist, Joseph Joachim, who held a common interest in the preservation of German musical ideology developed in the Baroque and Classical eras.  You have to understand that at this point in history music was evolving fairly quickly, and it had somewhat established itself into two camps.  The so-called "new school" was supported by the likes of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner (among others) and promoted a liberation from the form-laden structure of the previous centuries of Classical and Baroque architecture.  Both schools espoused the importance of melodic content that defines the Romantic era, but composers like Brahms and the Schumann's rejected the...well, rejection of the structure and form that was perfected by the likes of Bach and Beethoven.  It was a bit of a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" moment for them.

The interesting thing to me is that despite their philosophical grievances, Brahms would manage to maintain a relationship of mutual respect with Liszt and Wagner, with reciprocal feelings of appreciation towards each other's music.  

Sometimes...

Prior to his death (from what we presume is syphilis) Robert had struggled in his later years with a tremendous amount of mental instability, much of which is now attributed to a "meningioma" at the bottom of his brain.  He did unsuccessfully attempt suicide by jumping into the Rhine in 1854 after expressing fear that he might harm his wife while he was out of his mind. Brahms stepped in at this point to help Clara raise their seven children and keep Robert from becoming a public spectacle, lest he tarnish his well-respected reputation.

Here's the thing. Brahms had it bad for Clara. Like, Romeo and Juliet, forbidden love, "Jesse's Girl" bad.  Clara had identical feelings, but also loved her husband dearly.  Brahms also deeply cared for his friend, Robert, whose life was pretty much going belly up at this point. Neither of them wanted this, but neither could ignore it either. Brahms was often described as both gruffly abrupt and congenially warm, but most will agree he was nothing if not loyal to friends.  While it's not conjecture that Brahms cared deeply for Clara, historians are divided over how far their relationship went. Some believed them to have consummated it in Switzerland following Robert's death, others say that Brahms respected the boundaries of his friendship up Schumann to the end. It's quite obvious that both were "down with getting down" to use the vernacular. Brahms was notoriously popular in brothels and Clara, as I mentioned before, had seven kids. 

So.  You know.

They burned their letters to each other, so if nothing else the destruction of evidence points toward a potential guilt factor. They also destroyed much of Robert's last works, feeling that the madness he experienced tainted his otherwise astute style of composition.

What we do know is that after Switzerland Brahms took off to Hamburg and left Clara to her devices, which we know from her journal entry on the day of his departure, she was feeling "as if [she] were returning from a funeral". He would again play the dating game with other prominent women in musical circles, breaking them off right when the rubber met the road, in a manner of speaking. However, he may have had a particularly seething and disparaging view of the fairer sex in general. Many attribute this to Brahms' upbringing, pointing out that much of the abuse he suffered at the hands of bar flies and ne'er-do-well's in the taverns he played in during his childhood was deviously sexual in nature.  To Brahms it was a shameful affair, but one that refined his personality and forced him to maturity faster than he might have developed left untouched.  However, he maintained his close relationship with Clara to the end and remained a vocal supporter of her own compositional endeavors. 

Brahms had a sense of perfection that was almost unequaled in his peers, so much so that he would destroy revision after revision of his works until what he had was acceptable.  In fact, the German Requiem itself wasn't completed until 1868 with its first complete premier in February of 1869. It was performed partially as early as 1867.  Brahms had conceived of the work early in his career and took the title of "German Requiem" to imply a requiem in the German language. He was said to have meant it as a "Human Requiem" in a sense and was quite moved when after Schumann's death, he discovered that Robert had also conceived such a work.

The work is for chorus and orchestra and is just absolutely enormous.  It's final form boasts seven movements that borrow scriptural text, befitting a piece of the name, however unlike the traditional Latin requiems of Brahms' forebears his is non-liturgical.  He cherry-picked scripture to speak to his message of comfort and love in the face of overwhelming grief.

A requiem is essentially a celebration of the deceased, incorporated into a church mass. It does not necessarily have to be about a particular person, but in its earliest forms it followed a pretty standard order and protocol.  An important difference between the traditional Catholic requiems and Brahm's more German Luther version is in who it actually addresses.  Most of the Catholic mass has to do with the dead and granting them all sorts of things like peace and rest.  Brahms chose to focus on those who are still living. I've always found this particularly useful since it's always so challenging to talk to dead people.  

They're always so busy dancing.

The text from the first movement is as follows:

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:5-6

I'll go ahead and put English translations of the full text down at the bottom (below the video) if you'd like to read the entire work. Brahms isolated scripture that embodied a fairly central and unified theme: Everyone dies. That's part of life, but in God we have life forever.  He begins and ends the work with similar thematic material and answers "Blessed are they that mourn..." with "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord..."

His editorializing did have its critics, particularly during the 2nd premier in 1868 at the Bremen Cathedral in Germany.  This performance would feature 6 movements of the work, the final version adding what is now considered movement 5 in 1869.  The musical director at the cathedral was an organist named Karl Reinthaler.  In the months preceding the performance, Mr. Reinthaler expressed his concerns that the text Brahms had included in his work did not reflect any scripture regarding the redeeming death of Jesus in a letter, excerpted here:

In the work you come close to the perimeter not only of the religious, but even to the thoroughly Christian. Already the second movement touches the prophecy of the Second Coming of the Lord, and in the next to last the mystery of the resurrection of the dead, . . . But from a Christian perspective it lacks the point around which everything rotates, namely the redeeming death of the Lord. . . . 

You show yourself so knowledgeable about the Bible in the way you put the texts together, that you certainly will find the correct words should you find any other alteration advisable . . .

Brahms responds thusly:

... I do have the need to tell you what a great pleasure you gave me by the sincere interest with which you read my work.  I appreciate it twice as much since I saw the work again with some horror and did some energetic housekeeping with my pen.  Concerning the music, I have answered so much more than you, indulgently enough, had asked and said. 

As far as the text is concerned, I will confess that I would very gladly omit the 'German' as well, and simply put 'of Mankind', also quite deliberately and consciously do without passages such as John Ch. 3 Verse 16.  On the other hand, however, I did accept many a thing because I am [a] musician, because I was making use of it, and because I cannot challenge or strike out the text of my revered bards, not even a 'from henceforth'.

But - I'll stop without having said all I have to say...

Reinthaler was forced to add an excerpt from Handel's Messiah to appease his clergy of the performance.  Fortunately, it ended up being performed by Brahms' good friend Joseph Joachim and his wife Amalia.  Clara wrote very kindly of the performance in her diary, calling Frau Joachim's performance "more [beautiful] than I have ever heard her."

It's up for debate as to whether Brahms was truly religious, followed it as a cultural norm of his time, or was moved to turn to the scripture out of an abundance of grief at losing his dear friend and mother. Regardless, in my opinion he managed to hit on a fundamental point in the Christian doctrine. The concept that grace is a gift given to all mankind. Jesus' death on the cross enabled that and whether we accept it or not is determined of our own volition, courtesy of free will. Grace does not care if you're the most generous person in the world or an absolute twit. It's irrelevant to grace since to obtain it one must simply accept it. God loved the world and this was his plan to absolve sins to bring the world back to him.

Beyond this point exists another part of Christianity that many of us tend to forget or misunderstand. In this life we are given to do as we desire. There is no punishment from beyond if we falter, nor is heaven and hell built to act as a carrot proffered before us, encouraging behavior one way or the other. Jesus came to say that we should simply be good and civil to one another, caring and loving each other as a shepherd does for his sheep. It's really quite simple.  I really like to believe that Brahms understood that. That the big secret of Christianity was that the "Good News" that everybody was talking about was only page 1.  I don't know the man, so I can't speak as to the veracity of such a statement.  However, one of my favorite authors summed it up like this:

Congressman Nixon had asked me why, as the son of immigrants who had been treated so well by Americans, as a man who had been treated like a son and been sent to Harvard by an American capitalist, I had been so ungrateful to the American economic system. 

The answer I gave him was not original. Nothing about me has ever been original. I repeated what my one-time hero, Kenneth Whistler, had said in reply to the same general sort of question long, long ago. Whistler had been a witness at a trial of strikers accused of violence. The judge had become curious about him, had asked him why such a well-educated man from such a good family would so immerse himself in the working class. 

My stolen answer to Nixon was this: "Why? The Sermon on the Mount, sir."

~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
"Jailbird"

See you next Friday.

-ED

Note: this is the complete work.  It's worth listening to, but this entry specifically references the 1st movement.

Sources:
Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters by Johannes Brahms
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/arts/ar-azeb.htm
http://www.brandeis.edu/arts/office/state/archives/spring2007.pdf
http://www.arthurcolman.com/m_brahms.html
http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/german-requiem-johannes-brahms
www.wikipedia.com
www.youtube.com

------

What follows is the complete text of the German Requiem, translated to English in the King James Bible.

1st Movement
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Psalm 126:5-6

2nd Movement

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.

1 Peter 1:24

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandmen waiteh for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

James 5:7

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.

1 Peter 1:25

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah 35:10

3rd Movement

Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee.
Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.

Psalm 39:4-7

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.

Solomon 3:1

4th Movement

How amiable are they tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.  Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee.

Psalm 84:1, 2, & 4

Movement 5

And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

John 16:22

Ye see how for a little while I labor and toil, yet have I found much rest.

Ecclesiastes 51:27

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.

Isaiah 66:13

Movement 6

For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Hebrews 13:14

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.. . . then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 54, 55

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:11

Movement 7

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

Revelation 14:13