A River Out Of Eden is Howard Goodall’s vibrant choral anthem for SATB voices and piano, composed to celebrate the service of Sid and Cindy Davis at St Luke’s United Methodist Church, Houston. The music sets two distinct accounts of creation: William Tyndale’s translation from The Book of Genesis and an excerpt from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Intertwined through Goodall’s contemporary musical style, the disorder underlying Dillard’s text erupts into Tyndale’s joyous refrain: ‘And there spronge a rever out of Eden’, the music a reflection upon our dependence on the natural world.
An optional organ part is also available to download from fabermusic.com.