Music Box
October 23, 2022
Jubal Joslyn, tenor
Cathryn Wilkinson, piano
Prelude
“The Water is Wide”……Scottish folksong, arr. Robin Spielberg
“Shall we gather at the river”……Robert Lowry, arr. Aaron Copland
“Down to the Sea”……Benny Andersson
“Deep River”……African American melody
“Wade in the Water”……Frederick J. and John Wesley Work, arr. Mark Hayes
Offertory
“Down to the River to Pray”……Jubal Joslyn, tenor
Postlude
Ellacombe……arr. Christine Sullivan Robbins
About the Music
The inspiration for this Sunday’s music comes from water. African-American songs such as “Deep River,” “Down to the River to Pray,” and “Wade in the Water,” present images of water as soothing, sustaining and cleansing. These songs gained attention through concerts and recordings by performers such as the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University in Nashville.
Pete Seeger recorded “The Water is Wide” as part of the 1960’s folk music movement. Bluegrass singer Alison Krauss revived “Down to the River to Pray” in the Coen brothers’ 2000 film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Robert Lowry, a New York preacher, wrote “Shall We Gather” in the 19th-century gospel style, supposedly during a warm summer in New York City. In more recent times, the Swedish rock band ABBA, popular in the U.S., encouraged reflections on water with “Down to the Sea:”
“Hurry down to the sea
Stopping for none
…
Take me there
Little stream
To the sea”
Bjoern K. Ulvaeus, Benny Goran Bror Andersson, Herbert Kretzmer. Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com
