Score and Recording
Program Note and Lyrics
Written in 2012 and dedicated to my sister Nicole and her husband Zach Staudt and premiered on their wedding, this setting uses a beautiful melody from Walker’s Southern Harmony and text by Isaac Watts based on Psalm 23. When the melody appears in the lowest bass register in the final verse, it is an assurance of God’s promises as a faithful husband to his bride. The duet that follows weaves together the melody in canon like hands intertwining. In my arrangement for wind ensemble of this hymn, those parts were assigned to clarinet and tuba, which my sister and brother-in-law played at Dordt where they met.
1. My Shepherd will supply my need:
The Lord God is his name.
In pastures fresh he makes me feed,
beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
when I forsake his ways,
and leads me for his mercy’s sake
in paths of truth and grace.
3. The sure provisions of my God
attend me all my days;
O may your house be my abode
and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
while others go and come--
no more a stranger or a guest,
but like a child at home.
1. My Shepherd will supply my need:
The Lord God is his name.
In pastures fresh he makes me feed,
beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
when I forsake his ways,
and leads me for his mercy’s sake
in paths of truth and grace.
3. The sure provisions of my God
attend me all my days;
O may your house be my abode
and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
while others go and come--
no more a stranger or a guest,
but like a child at home.