Tag: Randall Thompson

There was a memorial concert for the founder of Albany Pro Musica, David Griggs-Janower on January 25, 2014, at the Cathedral of All Saints. He was a tremendous musical treasure in the area and continues to be missed.

Several of the groups he initiated were among the performers. The first piece, by Orchestra Pro Musica, was a Tchaikovsky composition. Here’s an ensemble performing Elegy for strings.

The penultimate piece before the intermission, sung by Albany Pro Musica Masterworks, was a Randall Thompson work, one I have sung once or twice myself. Listen to the Soldiers’ Chorus sing Last Words of David.

BTW, the last piece before the intermission that night was a new work by Carson Cooman based on a George Eliot poem, The Choir Invisible. The whole poem is here, but the part used was this:

Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man’s search to vaster issues.
So to live is heaven,
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order
That controls with growing sway the growing life of man.
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.