Click above to listen to Across the Skies (featuring Canon in D) from the album A Thousand Years as you read. If you enjoy, consider ordering the CD or MP3 Album, or Sheet Music (the song is also on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, and more).
What is your favorite classical or hymn melody?
This question was my challenge in creating my 7th album A Thousand Years, which features original composing interwoven with six world renown classical melodies and seven great hymn melodies. One of these is Johann Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D. Since this is so often included in wedding ceremonies, it an interesting that when Pachelbel wrote this in 1694 it may have been for Johann Christoph Bach’s wedding, who was Johann Sebastian Bach’s oldest brother.
Since I was a little boy I have marveled at the skies. Maybe this is why I loved climbing trees so much in my childhood. Maybe this is why Psalm 19 is one of my favorites. Across the Skies opens with two phrases of my simple arrangement of Canon in D, then here is what happens…
An original melody appears for a new variation. The piano is “singing” word for word, “In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun” (verse 4). Then the Pachelbel arrangement expands with new variations, answered by some new variations on the original melody. This “meeting” of classical and original continues to build, then concludes with the simplest Pachelbel to take us off into the sunset after these moments of musical “sky gazing.”
What is your favorite memory of a beautiful sky?
Psalm 19 (NIV) for Meditation while Listening…
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
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