RUTH - Shape-Note Anthem & Demo Recording

One of my favorite shape-note pieces I wrote last year for the Western Harmony, an anthem to text from the Book of Ruth.

I had been procrastinating posting this anthem because I wanted to make a real good demonstration recording for it. I think my waiting has been in vain, but at least now you can get a rough idea how it might sound. (For some reason, using this one recording software with my digital mic, it has all these clicks.) And I promise you this piece can be a lot more intense & beautiful with a proper performance, but here's the demo:

That mp3 is HERE if you would like to download it. Here is the text as I used it, the King James version of the Bible, Ruth 1:10-12, 16-17. If you're unfamiliar with this short lovely book of the Old Testament, it's a tale of the women in a widowed family bonding & traveling.

Surely we will return with thee unto thy people.

And Naomi said, Turn [around], my daughters: why will ye go with me? are there yet any more sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands?
Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband.

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die.

After I wrote this, I was learned that another West Coast shape-note composer, Shelley Phillips, had used the text from Ruth in a different tune, a major-key fuging tune. That would make my Ruth technically Ruth (Second). There's a pdf file of her piece here.

It's now on Scribd too:
RUTH - Shape-Note Anthem from the Western Harmony