This is Psalm 98, “O Sing a New Song to the Lord.” It is another fuguing tune — one of the first that we learned here at Christ Church. It is found on pp. 134-135 of the Cantus. Let me take a minute to explain the set up here. The Christ Church choir is on the stage, along with our instrumentalists, and our music minister David Erb. For a psalm sing, the congregation usually sits in different sections according to parts, unlike Sunday morning. We do this so that the basses, for example, can learn their part singing with the other basses, and so on. Here, families that need to stay together because of the age of the kids (for example) sit along the back. From where you are looking, the basses are in the back left, tenors back right, altos front right and sopranos front left. With a fuguing tune like this one, the different parts come in at different times — on this one basses are first, sopranos second, altos third, and tenors fourth. If your congregation is unaccustomed to singing in parts, this kind of tune is actually the easiest way to learn how to do it, and a lot of fun to boot. From time to time I will try to post different kinds of hymns or psalms, and try to explain exactly what it is we think we are trying to do.
O Sing a New Song to the Lord from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.