Sing A New Song Unto The Lord
A Festive Cantata
for Soprano Solo, SATB Voices, and Organ
(16 pages of music)
Original Text and Music by
Ennis  Fruhauf

I.    Introduction
II.   Prayer  1
III.  Trio
IV.  Prayer  2
V.   Fugue
VI.  Finale

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Click on the link below to download a PDF booklet
available 01/2024
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  FestiveCantataChoir&Organ2024 

Notes

    “Sing a new song unto the Lord” is an abbreviated English cantata in six movements. It encompasses multiple stylistic traits and combines a blend of traditional and innovative structural formats into its design.
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    The Introduction presents the opening text, a familiar paraphrase drawn from The Psalms of David, in bold dotted rhythms. In contrast, Prayer I offers a hymn-like orison, scored for slow moving SATB voices and featuring a free soprano solo descant floating above the choir. The Trio, a brief aria for soprano, introduces the text, “Alleluia,” in combination with a motivic theme that reappears in the fugal fifth movement, and again briefly in the penultimate coda of the Finale. The intervening Prayer II is similar to Prayer I, with the addition of an accompanimental solo voice, woven in soaring contrapuntal duet with the soprano soloist.
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    The fifth movement, Fugue, transforms the motivic theme of the aria  from  minor to major modality and provides a contrapuntally imitative chase before giving way to the Introduction’s bold dotted rhythms, presented anew as a recapitulatory Finale. A quietly contrasting  penultimate coda recalls the motivic ‘Alleluia’ and fugue theme in stretto, then is capped by a brief return of the introduction's declamatory éclat.
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   With the exception of the fugue's contrapuntal rigors, where the polyphonic textures are only occasionally doubled by the organ, A Festive Cantata is melodically and tonally conservative in its overall approach, and varied  in structure, style and format. The organ plays an integral role in knitting the ensemble together with its accompaniment and support.

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Addendum
For suggestions regarding additional accompanimental instrumentation,
i.e., Strings, Woodwinds, and Brass:
please consult the 1-page PDF file linked below for suggestions

  FMPFestiveCantata2024InstrumentalAddendum 

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