The Story Behind "It is Well with My Soul"

For our piece, David Holsinger created a new setting for the hymn "It is Well with My Soul". There is a powerful story with ties to Chicago behind this hymn. Read the two articles below and watch the YouTube video to understand the roles played by Horatio Spafford and Philip Bliss in this story.

Click here for the first article.

Click here for the second article.

Spafford's original manuscript

Click here to see Horatio Spafford's original manuscript of the text to "It is Well with My Soul".

"On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss" performed by the North Texas Wind Sympony

Here is an exemplary performance of our piece by the North Texas Wind Symphony. Listen at least twice, once following along with your individual part and a second time following along with the score. (This will only take 10 minutes!)

76 Trombones and Goodnight my Someone

Those of you who were in Wind Ensemble last year will remember Meredith Willson's most famous tune from "The Music Man", "76 Trombones". In this clip, we hear "76 Trombones" mixed in with "Goodnight My Someone", a second song that sounds very different. Or is it??? If you listen carefully, you will hear that while "76 Trombones" is in a brisk 6/8 meter, "Goodnight my Someone" takes the same notes and shifts into a much slower 3/4 meter and a lyrical style. Meter, tempo and character are all parameters that you can play with in your project and come up with something very different from your starting point.

Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Haydn

The musical genre of theme and variation provides a great example of molding the same starting material into very different finished products. In this orchestral work (one of my favorites), Brahms states Haydn's theme in the first movement. The title of the theme is the Saint Anthony Chorale and some music scholars are not completely sure that Hadyn was the true composer of this tune. Regardless, the melody is not Brahms'. Listen to how Brahms varies the original musical idea in each of his variations. Could one of these strategies work for developing the melody that you've chosen to work with for your project?

Amazing Grace by Frank Ticheli

You're likely to know this tune already. Hopefully you'll then be able to appreciate Ticheli's "musical daydreaming" in the middle of the work. This piece looks easy on paper but the musicians must be very accurate and sensitive to each other to make it sound beautiful. This performance is by the Central Connecticut State University Symphonic Band conducted by Brian Hutton.

Norman Dello Joio's Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn

Here is a classic of the band repertoire that I hope you'll have a chance to play someday. Dello Joio's inspiration was the main theme from the finale of Haydn's String Quartet in F Major, op. 74, number 2. Haydn also arranged this same piece for piano. First listen to this performance of the piano arrangement.



Now, here is the Dello Joio work performed by a high school group. As you listen, think about what Dello Joio himself says in his score notes: "This work for band is based on a theme from a composition for piano by Joseph Haydn. The subtly conceived theme, I concluded, offered an opportunity to fantasize in the musical language of today (1968). The three movements are a constantly varied examination of Haydn's basic idea. The bubbling humor of the first and third fantasies flank a second, which is intensely lyric."