Faire is the Heaven Top Pick
For Unaccompanied SATB Choir - A stunning and beautiful anthem using the text of Edmund Spenser (1553-1559). Malcolm Archer knows how to write a tune, and so it is not as difficult as it looks. Your choir and congregation will love it! This would be a wonderful choice for funerals/memorials, St. Michael and All Angels, or any evening service.
The recording comes from the 2022 Sewanee Church Music Conference and was conducted by the composer. Learning tracks are available for this piece and accessible from the link at the end of the downloaded .pdf.
Faire is the heaven, where happy soules have place
In full enjoyment of felicitie,
Whence they doe still behold the glorious face
Of the Divine Eternall Majestie;
Yet farre more faire be those bright Cherubins,
Which all with golden wings are overdight,
And those eternall burning Seraphins,
Which from their faces dart out fiery light;
Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright,
Be th' Angels and Archangels, which attend
On God's owne Person, without rest or end.
These then in faire each other farre excelling,
As to the Highest they approach more neare,
Yet is the Highest farre beyond all telling,
Fairer than all the rest which there appear,
Though all their beauties joynd together were;
How then can mortall tongue hope to expresse
The image of such endlesse perfectnesse?