Duration: 10’
Instrumentation: cello and piano
Performance Note:
My friend Julie Tehan asked me for some settings of hymn tunes for cello and piano in the fall of 2016 and the present piece is the result. After initially adapting four tunes, I settled on the final collection of three: the great spiritual “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” “We’re Marching to Zion,” and “In the Sweet By and By,” all of which play to Julie’s considerable strengths as a cellist. It’s always a treat to write for friend (I’ve known Julie since the late 1990s) and, coming as it did at the end of an unfathomably difficult and unsettling year, this project provided a welcome—providential, even—balm.