Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is the Charles Ives composition, “General William Booth Enters into Heaven”:

A couple of weeks ago I went to a concert given (in part) by London choir Eclectic Voices, mostly because they were performing this song by Charles Ives, and I really like the music of Charles Ives.  As is usual with this kind of American music, my introduction to Ives came through Richard Crawford’s masterpiece, America’s Musical Life. Ives is a really interesting composer, who never seems afraid to try out something a little bit off the wall (recreate the sound of two marching bands moving towards one another? Why not? Emulate the arrival of the circus into town? Sure! Simulate a cowboy’s death by stampede? Yep!). William Booth was the the founder of the Salvation Army, and what I particularly like about this song is the use of the refrain, “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” which I’m pretty sure Ives lifted from a 19th Century hymn, and which takes on shifting connotations as the song progresses, because Ives keeps assigning it to different tones.  The song also has a really pleasing kind-of-symmetry, with its quiet, creeping opening, and its quiet, peaceful ending.

This particular version is the only recording of “General William Booth Enters into Heaven” I own; the baritone is Michael Tilson Thomas, and he’s singing with the San Fransisco Symphony.