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Damien Geter’s Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow

speaker looks forward to a future time of unity and legato eighth-note passages, providing harmonic sup-
clarity. In the context of this work, the line “when the port. The cello writing in this movement is notably the
morning comes” symbolizes optimism and new begin- most lyrical in the cantata so far, marking a significant
nings. Geter comments that the text in “By and By” shift toward a more hopeful tone.
does not shy away from “the fact that we went through In the first refrain, the altos sing the melody, while
[the events of 2020], but also…[recognizes] that we the other choral parts harmonize with the full text or
did get through this and understand the reasons why text fragments in contrapuntally enlivened homopho-
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this happened later.” ny. For the second refrain, the soloist joins the altos on
In this movement, Geter allows the spiritual and the melody and has a sixteenth-note embellishment on
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hymn to speak for themselves, presenting each sep- the word “balm.” The third refrain is closely related
arately before returning to the peace of “There is a to the first two but has more variation. The fourth re-
Balm in Gilead” in the coda. While he incorporates frain is different from the first three in several ways: the
modern harmonic language, the composer remains melody returns to the soloist while the chamber singers
faithful to the mode, melody, phrase lengths, rhythm, replace the choir and harmonize polyphonically at a
and texts of the source materials. One exception to the mezzo piano; the harmonization is more dissonant for
authentic treatment is his inclusion of cello in a tradi- the chamber singers, with reverse pedal tones in the
tionally unaccompanied genre. The cello plays contin- soprano line. In addition, the lamento basso returns in
uously throughout the refrains and verses, often with the tenor line. Geter also acknowledges the structure

Table 5. Musical overview of “The Resolve”

Intro A B A’ B’ A’’ A’’’ C C’ Coda

Source There is There is There is There is There is There is By and By Refrain There is
Materials a Balm a Balm a Balm a Balm a Balm a Balm a Balm
in Gilead in Gilead in Gilead in Gilead in Gilead in Gilead in Gilead
Refrain Verse 1 Refrain Verse 2 Refrain Refrain Refrain
fragment

Measures 1-4 5-12 13-20 5-12 13-20 21-28 29-35 36-51 36-55 56-62
repeat repeat

Forces SATB choir, cello SATB choir, solo, cello Chamber SATB choir, SATB SATB choir,
singers, cello choir, CS (SA),
cello CS, cello
cello

Meter 3/4 4/4 2/2 2/2, 4/4 4/4

Tempo Q=72 Q=65 Joyously, with light Q=55
swing; No swing
(same tempo)

76 CHORAL JOURNAL November/December 2025 Volume 66 Number 4