How can I keep from singing
Karen P. Thomas
About this work:
HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING is a hymn tune by the Baptist minister Robert Lowry. This arrangement for women's choir was commissioned by the 2004 Alliance World Festival of Women’s Singing, and was premiered at the international festival in 2004 in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City by a massed choir of 450 singers from around the world. It is published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing. TEXT -- My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation, I hear the real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing, it sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing? What though the tempest loudly roars, I hear the truth, it liveth. What though the darkness round me close, songs in the night it giveth. No storm can shake my in-most calm, while to that rock I’m clinging. Since love is lord of heav’n and earth, how can I keep from singing! When tyrants tremble as they hear the bells of freedom ringing, when friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing! To prison cell and dungeon vile our thoughts to them are winging, when friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing!
Version: SSAA
Year composed: 2003
Duration: 00:05:00
Ensemble type: Chorus, with or without Solo Voices:Chorus, Unaccompanied
Instrumentation: 2 S, 2 A
Instrumentation notes: SSAA