Hi Lyndon,
Great work! I love the mood of this piece, and the moment on the downbeat of m. 10 just kind of melts my heart.
I dont have much to say, but the first line took me a little bit to get used to. something about the rhythm on “the glorious names” felt a little strange to me. as I got more familiar with it, it kept feeling better. I wonder if will be fixed when it is sung, because I get a little confused about where the strong beat is. with the half note followed by the dotted-half, my ear has some trouble knowing what to do with the three quarter notes. when i conducted it and sang it in my head it felt a lot better though. one thing that you could consider here is to change the first downbeat to a half-note as well as the first quarter note. this could help to even out the rhythm and establish a sense of the meter more smoothly, but could also make it more boring. another thing that I thought of was the jump from four parts to unison feels just a bit of a let-down to me. I don’t know how it would sound if you would start the song in unison to avoid that… the second time did not bother me as much. I did not try any of these ideas out myself, so take them or leave them. I think this is a really great hymn. Good work, Lyndon!
