Music
You can find out more about our music here:
Ask!
In the 1960s, two Salvation Army Officers (ministers / pastors) were asked to try and emulate the success of West End musicals. John Gowans and John Larsson had not collaborated together before, but they set about their orders with vigour, producing a number of popular musicals. The Gowans/Larsson partnership became responsible for a number of significant contributions to Salvation Army hymnology. The song Ask! Ask! Ask! based on Matthew 7:7 in the Bible:
Ask! Ask! Ask! and it shall be given;
Seek! Seek! Seek! and you’re sure to find;
Knock! Knock! Knock! and the door will open,
For God! God! God! is so good and kind, o yes,
So ask! Ask! Ask! and it shall be given;
Seek! Seek! Seek! and you’re sure to find;
Knock! Knock! Knock! and the door will open,
For God! God! God! is so good and kind.
This song comes from their musical, Spirit. This version is in a style which is a varient of the mambo and models itself (with apologies from the composer, Dr Peter Graham!) on the Louis Vega song Mambo No 5!
- Breathe
Meditation – Breathe
Dorothy Gates
Breathe is a sensitive meditation on the contemporary praise song of the same name, written by Marie Barnett. It reminds us that our very breath is a gift from God. Our every heartbeat is a gift of God. We are constantly being blessed by the One who loves us. This music gives the listener the opportunity to stop and meditate alone with God. God is waiting for us. As you listen to this music the peace you feel will amaze you.
This is the air I breathe
This is the air I breathe
Your Holy presence living in me
This is my daily bread
This is my daily bread
Your very word spoken to me
And I, I’m desperate for you
And I, I’m lost without you
Dorothy Gates couples this amazing song with the hymn tune of Carlisle, to which we sing:
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Till I am wholly thine.
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with thy fire divine.
The essence of this music is that God’s holy presence is the very air we breathe and long for.
March: Exeter Temple
Leslie Condon
Salvation Army composers often write music for special occasions and for particular Salvation Army centres. This march was written for the 100th church anniversary of The Salvation Army centre at Exeter, known as Exeter Temple. Leslie Condon was a Salvation Army Officer (Minister) and a prolific composer of Salvation Army brass and choral music. For seventeen years he was a member of The Salvation Army’s International Staff Band, serving as Deputy Bandmaster for seven of those years. Sadly, he was Promoted to Glory (died) whilst carol playing with Croydon Citadel Salvation Army Band on Christmas Eve 1983. This march includes the hymn, Who is on the Lord’s Side? and Leslie’s own chorus, Good News.
Chorus Arrangement: Faithful God
Chris Bowater arranged by Dean Jones
Chris Bowater’s melody is associated with powerful words and they lend themselves to this meditative and flowing arrangement by Salvationist composer, Dean Jones.
Faithful God, faithful God,
all-sufficient one,
I worship you.
Shalom, my peace,
my strong deliverer,
I lift you up,
Faithful God.
Farandole
Georges Bizet arranged by Richard Phillips
Georges Bizet wrote incidental music to a play, L’Arlesienne, by Daudet in 1872. He used the music to make an orchestral suite and another which was published after his death. Farandole is a movement from the second of the suites. Farandole is a dance from Provence in France which is usually danced at great feasts such as Corpus Christi. The melody is a Provencale Noel, sometimes known as the Three Kings March, which comes in at the beginning before continuing in canon. The music then moves into the dance at a rapid rate culminating in a full-blooded fortissimo and climactic frenzy!
March: He keeps me singing
Robert Snelsdon
This march is based on the words of Luther B Bridgers who wrote:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing,
Keeps me singing as I go.
These joyous words were penned by the author after a great personal tragedy. He was a Methodist minister and evangelist, and received word that his wife and children were killed in a fire, whilst he was away conducting revival meetings. Despite this terrible loss he wrote the uplifting song of which the above words formed the chorus, and the song has been an inspiration to many in the following years.
The energetic style of the march reflects the energy in the words of the song.
Hymn Tune Arrangement: How Sweet the Name (“French”)
Ronald Tremain arranged by Donald Osgood
This arrangement is of the melody, French, written by Salvationist composer Ronald Tremain, firstly for songsters and then arranged by Donald Osgood for bands. The words we use to are:
How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear;
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
Dear name, the rock on which I build,
My shield and hiding place,
My never-failing treasury, filled
With boundless stores of grace.
Weak is the effort of my heart,
And cold my warmest thought,
But when I see thee as thou art,
I’ll praise thee as I ought.
Till then I will thy love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of thy name
Refresh my soul in death.
March: Marching Onward
Ivor Bosanko
This foot-tapping, modern march features the well-known hymn Onward, Christian Soldiers coupled with Ivor Bosanko’s own song, I’ll Go in the Strength of the Lord, which has become popular in recent years in churches outside of The Salvation Army.
Meditation: My Comfort and Strength
Brian Bowen
This is a longer and more developed work of a meditative nature. The theme is that of the well-known 23rd Psalm as paraphrased by George Herbert (1539-1632) to the tune which Salvationists at least call “University”:
The God of love my Shepherd is,
And He that doth me feed;
While He is mine and I am His,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grass,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, He doth convert,
And bring my mind in frame,
And all this not for my desert,
But for His holy Name.
Yea, in death’s shady black abode
Well may I walk, not fear;
For Thou art with me, and Thy rod
To guard, Thy staff to bear.
Surely Thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;
And as it never shall remove
So neither shall my praise.
The settings – linked by music derived mainly from fragments of the hymn melody – reflect the moods of the psalm imagery. The opening is a pastorale with references to the tune, before the theme is presented in full. After a delicate link, the euphonium takes over the melody before the music acquires more movement and we hear fragments of the melody drawn together in changing tonalities. This leads into a more free-flowing quicker setting of the hymn tune, with a smooth ascending scale from the bottom of the band to the top, an important thread in the contrapuntal texture of the music. A tranquil introduction leads into building tension as we reach the climactic slow and broad setting of the final verse.
Composer Brian Bowen was Bandmaster of The Salvation Army’s New York Staff Band from 1986 – 1992.
- The Red Shield
March: The Red Shield
Henry Goffin
The March: The Red Shield by Henry Goffin is one of the classic marches of The Salvation Army. In common with most Salvation Army marches which feature a hymn tune or chorus, this march includes the chorus Thou Art a Mighty Saviour:
Thou art a mighty Saviour,
Thy love doth never waver,
Thou shalt be mine forever,
And thine alone I’ll be.
The title refers to the Salvation Army symbol of the red shield which is at the forefront of our support for UK service personnel.
Righteousness, Peace and Joy
Paul Sharman
The title for this up-tempo, Latin American-style piece of music comes direct from the Bible: Romans 14:17 which says, “For the kingdom of God is … a matter of … righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”. From this Helena Barrington wrote the following chorus:
Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost
Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost
That’s the Kingdom of God
Don’t you want to be a part of the Kingdom?
Don’t you want to be a part of the Kingdom?
Don’t you want to be a part of the Kingdom?
Come on everybody
There’s love in the Kingdom
So much love in the Kingdom
There’s love in the Kingdom
Come on everybody
There’s peace in the Kingdom
So much peace in the Kingdom
There’s peace in the Kingdom
Come on everybody
There’s joy in the Kingdom
So much joy in the kingdom
There’s joy in the Kingdom
Come on everybody
I’m an heir of the Kingdom
So glad I’m an heir of the Kingdom
I’m an heir of the Kingdom
Come on everybody
Flugel Horn Solo: They Shall be Mine
David Catherwood
David Catherwood is a Salvation Army composer from Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he currently serves in the band and songsters at Belfast Temple. The band were first introduced to this solo when it accompanied guest cornet soloist Jonathan Corry (now Bandmaster of the famous Enfield Citadel Salvation Army Band) at the West Midlands Musicians’ Councils in the Adrian Boult Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire in February 2007. It features the hymn, When He Cometh, which reminds us that Jesus will return for us:
When he cometh, when he cometh
To make up his jewels,
All his jewels, precious jewels,
His loved and his own;
Like the stars of the morning,
His bright crown adorning,
They shall shine in their beauty
Bright gems for his crown.
The solo is played on flugel horn by our Deputy Bandmaster and principal cornet, John Shepherd.
More details of our music will be added here shortly.
