Hymn to the Night (Part II)

My Hymn to the Night is a composition for mixed chorus, composed in 1984 based on the Longfellow poem of the same title.  In a post to this blog on February 11, 2020, I recounted the story behind this work as of that time.  I originally wrote it for an amateur chorus I was directing in Atlanta, GA.  We prepared it for performance, only to have the concert cancelled at the last minute because of a power outage brought on by a storm.  Afterward, Hymn to the Night remained unperformed for decades, and by the time of the 2020 blog post, I feared it would eventually be forgotten.

I do not give up easily, though, and in June 2022 I optimistically transcribed the original handwritten manuscript, which I had copyrighted in 1985, into a modern Finale score.

The work is for SATB chorus with piano accompaniment.  Since the parts split later in the work, at least eight singers (2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors, and 2 basses) are required.  According to a notation I put in the old score, its duration was about four minutes.  After completing the new score, I drew upon some of my musician contacts over the next few years to connect with and share it with several directors of choirs and choruses.  Some of them expressed strong interest and on a couple of occasions it appeared that the work would soon be performed, but in each case the performance plans fell through.

Then in September 2024, I was invited to perform a piano solo recital at the Vineville United Methodist Church in Macon, GA, as part of their 2025-2026 Music and the Arts season, which would begin about a year later.  I took the opportunity to suggest that their church choir might be interested in performing Hymn to the Night. After I sent a copy of the score to choir director Cannon McClain, he was enthusiastic about the idea.  We eventually scheduled the concert for the afternoon of Sunday, September 28, 2025.  I also wanted to obtain a high-quality recording of the work.  Cannon suggested that in order to get a “clean” recording, we could record it in a separate session just before the concert, after which the choir would perform the work again within the concert. I would play the piano part myself in both the recording session and the concert.

I loaded the music onto my tablet and prepared it during the summer of 2025, and toward the end of the summer Cannon began rehearsing the work with the choir.  I flew to Georgia on Sunday, September 21, and rehearsed with the choir on Tuesday evening.  The choir sounded beautiful, and more powerful than I expected, so I made some minor modifications to the ending in order to take full advantage of that.  Because the rehearsal was so successful, we decided that a second rehearsal would not be necessary (although the recording session would serve as a good warm-up for the concert).

So we held the recording session in the church’s sanctuary at 3:00PM on September 28.  It was filmed by two video cameras we had brought with us from Arizona and set up in the balcony.  We were also recording the sound through my Zoom audio recorder, but I eventually decided instead to use the outputs from the church’s own miking facilities, which included two mikes located on tall poles and a mike under the piano, as well as four other mikes further out in the large room.  The choir had prepared their parts very well, and Director McClain is a highly gifted professional.  We were therefore able to obtain a fine video of the composition, which I uploaded to my channel on November 25.

 

The public concert followed the recording session at 4:00PM.  I will discuss the concert in more detail in a future post to this blog, but Hymn to the Night was the final work on the program.  Cannon gave an excellent introduction for the audience, describing the work and its background and explaining that they were about to hear a long-awaited world premiere performance of this composition.  And he and the choir (as I accompanied on the piano) rose to the occasion, bringing the concert to a rousing conclusion.

The soundtrack from the recording session appeared on my SoundCloud site (“lateromantic”) on January 11, 2026.

I also made another video using the same soundtrack and displaying the score, which I uploaded on February 25.

 

Finally, having obtained excellent supporting links to audio and video recordings of this work, I was able to share its sheet music with chorus directors, choir directors, and others across the world through Sheet Music Plus  and Sheet Music Direct.  The Hymn to the Night had at last traveled from darkness into light.