Contents:
Introduction
Composers and Arrangers
A Note on Dialect
The Spirituals, arranged chronologically by date of publication:
Listen to the lambs (Dett, 1914)
Swing low, sweet chariot (Diton/Schenck, 1920)
My Lord, what a mornin (Burleigh, 1924)
Jesus is a rock in a weary lari (Work, 1937)
Ezekiel saw de wheel (Cain, 1938)
Here's one (Still, 1941)
Let us break bread together (Lawrence, 1947)
If I got my ticket, can I ride? (Shaw, 1949)
Little innocent lamb (Bartholomew, 1950)
Great day (Martin, 1950)
Any how (Pittman, 1952)
Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord (Moore, 1953)
Fix me, Jesus (Johnson, 1955)
Amen (Hairston, 1957)
A city called Heaven (de Paur, 1959)
Were you there? (Luboff, 1969)
I want God's heaven to be mine (King, 1973)
The lily of the valley (Whalum, 1981)
Keep your lamps! (Thomas, 1982)
Witness (Halloran, 1986)
My good Lord's done been here (Cloud, 1987)
Go, tell it on the mountain (Carter, 1988)
Don't you let nobody turn you 'round (McLin, 1988)
Glory to the newborn King (Morris, 1989)
By an' by (Parker, 1991)
Look what dey doin' to Jesus (Jackson, 1995)
The Battle of Jericho (Hogan, 1996)
Lord, how come me here? (Simpson-Curenton, 2001)
Introductions
African-American spirituals comprise one of the world's greatest and best-loved bodies of music, appealing to performers and audiences across all boundaries.
The Oxford Book of Spirituals is the first anthology to present a comprehensive survey of the genre's repertoire — its principal composers, themes, and forms — in a way that is at once stylistically authentic, historically meaningful, and intended for practical use both in worship and in concert.
The Oxford Book of Spirituals includes a rich array of songs, both familiar and less familiar, arranged by twenty-eight of the most significant composers and presented in chronological order from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present.
The selections illustrate the history of the spiritual as an art form — from the first serious attempts at notation in ways that approximated actual performance styles, through an arrangement by one of today's most exciting composer-arrangers, published here for the first time.
Moses Hogan
Internationally renowned as a pianist, conductor, and arranger, Moses Hogan is recognized as a leading force in promoting and preserving the African-American musical experience. Since 1980, he has focused his musical energy in the area of arranging spirituals, forming The New World Ensemble and the acclaimed Moses Hogan Chorale to preserve and extend the spiritual tradition. His contemporary settings of spirituals, original compositions, and other works have become staples in the repertoires of high school, college, church, community, and professional choirs worldwide.
Through hjs subsequent work with the Moses Hogan Singers — including concerts and recordings — as well as his participation in festivals and workshops as both clinician and guest conductor, Hogan has been responsible for a growing interest in the spiritual as a choral art form.