I composed this setting of a verse from Psalm 30 for Greg Wait, to mark his thirtieth anniversary as Choir Director at Stanford Memorial Church. I engineered it to contain exactly thirty measures of music for thirty years of service, and used G major for Greg’s initial.

The women first present a simple melody, which the men join in harmony. Imitative figures at gaudium (“joy”) depict ebullience. At concidisti saccum meum (“you have taken away my sackcloth”), the harmony temporarily darkens to E minor, and the choir exchanges roles. This time the men present the melody, which is answered in harmony as the women join. Imitation again happens at circumdedisti, which by the way, is the longest Latin word I have ever set to music. (The translation is mine; I chose “robed” here, a deliberate choir reference, where a psalter might say “girded.”) Multiple repetitions brightly expand the music through laetitia (“gladness”), which arrives back in the home key.

The final ut cantet gloria mea, (“so that my glory might sing”) acts as a short, mostly homophonic coda that lands on an eight-part fortissimo G-major chord spanning from the bottom of the bass clef to the top of the treble clef. This work is a warm and grateful anthem for an a cappella SATB choir, and dedicated to a masterful musician, consummate professional, and dear friend.

The audio sample begins at measure 1. Here are the Latin and English texts: