God’s Light Shines Forth, Choir for SATB Choir and Keyboard

I was walking through Julia Davis Park in downtown Boise, Idaho, in the summer of 2018 listening to Lyric Pieces by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. One of these piano pieces, The Watchman’s Song (Book 1, Op. 12, No.3, pub. 1867), was particularly beautiful with a hymn-like quality (see the link at the very bottom of this page for a nice live performance video). I searched, but found no hymn based on this music. I determined to write lyrics to give it new life. The music is both stately and simple, elegant yet unadorned. As I listened, it occurred to me that God sends mankind knowledge in a similar way. He blesses both wise statesmen and small children, educated and un-. This wisdom may improve one person’s simple life (like mine) or may be life-changing for whole populations (think of Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Di Vinci, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther or Martin Luther King). I sketched out a piece with lyrics to match that vision and wrote it in hymn form, also available on this site.  More recently, I re-arranged it for SATB Choir. Choir can be accompanied either by Piano or Organ.  I hope this piece inspires both the mighty and simple among us to seek God’s wisdom, affords motivation to overcome challenges and provides encouragement to spread light and life to all.

Artificial Intelligence Vocal MP3 (AI sings the actual lyrics):

Computer Generated MP3 file (higher quality, but lyrics sung as ‘Ah’):

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PDF of the Music for SATB Choir (which can be downloaded w/ link above):

 

Here is a link to the original piece upon which this hymn is built, The Watchman’s Song by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, Lyric Pieces, Book 1, Op. 12, No.3, published in 1867.

Composer: Edvard Grieg / WT Stephenson
Arranger: WT Stephenson
Created: Jul 2023
Lyrics:

(found below)

Duration: 4:00