{"id":47,"date":"2007-05-15T14:47:40","date_gmt":"2007-05-15T19:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/projects\/2007\/a-good-understanding\/"},"modified":"2007-05-15T23:52:12","modified_gmt":"2007-05-16T04:52:12","slug":"a-good-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/projects\/2007\/a-good-understanding\/","title":{"rendered":"A Good Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A Good Understanding <\/em>was written for Tim Brown and the choir of Clare College, Cambridge with the generous cooperation of John Scott and the Boys of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue.  <em>A Good Understanding<\/em>, with texts culled from two psalms, <!--more-->was originally designed to share a program with Rutter&#8217;s expansive and expressive <em>Mass of the Children<\/em>.  The piece unfolds episodically &#8220;\u201c short choral phrases alternating with longer instrumental interludes.  The first half of the text is typical psaltry praise-making: outlining agreements, explaining the rules; the music is, accordingly, severe but practical.  The second half of the text begins, &#8220;The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom \/ a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.&#8221;  I find the idea of &#8220;a good understanding&#8221; to be an especially exciting reward for following the rules; the boys sing pulsed syllables and long descants to celebrate the covenant while the choir sings a lilting, repetitive refrain.  &#8211; Nico Muhly<\/p>\n<p>[audio:02 A Good Understanding.mp3]<br \/>\nLive Recording<br \/>\nThe Choir of Clare College, Cambridge &#038; the Trebles of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue<br \/>\nJames McVinnie, organ<br \/>\nTim Brown, conductor<\/p>\n<p><strong>Texts<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The LORD reigneth; let the people tremble: he sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth be moved. <\/p>\n<p>The LORD is great in Zion; and he is high above all the people. <\/p>\n<p>Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.<\/p>\n<p>He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar: they kept his testimonies, and the ordinance that he gave them.<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Psalm 99, 1-3, 7)<\/p>\n<p>The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Psalm 111, 10)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><em>A Good Understanding <\/em>was written for Tim Brown and the choir of Clare College, Cambridge with the generous cooperation of John Scott and the Boys of Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicomuhly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}