Les Fauristes – Essential Spiritual concert – lundi 23 mai 20h

Les Fauristes – Essential Spiritual Concert

 

Programme

Wade in the Water
Traditional Spiritual

Shenandoah
American Folksong (Arr. James ERB)

Go Down Moses
Traditional Spiritual (Arr. Ruth Morris GRAY)

Amazing Grace
Christian Hymn. Tune ‘New Britain’ (Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON)

Deep River
Traditional Spiritual (Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON)

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Traditional Spiritual (Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON)

Nigra Sum
Song of Solomon (Old Testament) – Pablo CASALS

The Road Home
Tune ‘Prospect’ from ‘Southern Harmony’ (1835) – Arr. Stephen PAULUS

Crossing the Bar
Hubert PARRY

The Long Day Closes
Arthur SULLIVAN

Will the circle be unbroken
Christian Traditional Appalachian Hymn (Arr. J. David MOORE)

Over the Rainbow
‘The Wizard of Oz’ (Arr. Joanna FORBES after Eva CASSIDY)

Down to the river to pray
Christian Traditional Appalachian Hymn (Arr. Sheldon CURRY)

 

 

Les Fauristes

Soprano
Alix Arnould, Vanessa Graveraud, Juliette Hannay, Eléonore de Pommereau, Marie-Stéphanie Prévot, Aude Saint-Paul, Solène Tomas, Corinne Tonelotto, Julie Vercoutter-Willot.

Alto
Philippine de Beauregard, Emeline Loukil, Marie Madelin, Bérengère Parmly, Aurélie Riant, Emily Wetherell.

Tenor
Jack Apperley, Nicolas Guenet, Nicholas Madelin, David Powton, Maxime Spay.

Bass
François Cézard, Boris Dosseh, Alexandre Ladmirault, Florent Tonelotto, Jean de Vannoise.

 

 

The French choir of London Les Fauristes was founded in 2010 by a group of music lovers keen to share their passion for singing. For more than ten years, they have performed several concerts per year in London or abroad.

The choir counts between 20 and 30 singers of various ages and nationalities, although mainly French, and is currently the only French speaking choir in London and the UK. Les Fauristes are eager to produce quality concerts, all while maintaining their friendly and informal feel. The choir is conducted by Blandine de Raulin and receives regular vocal coaching masterclasses from professional singer and vocal coach Doriane Chomiac de Sas, who also works with the BNP and Société Générale choirs in Paris.

Les Fauristes last programme with orchestra and soloist was Mozart Coronation Mass and Solemn Vespers of the Confessor at St Paul’s Knightsbridge in June 2018.

In 2019, the choir gave four performances of their French songs programme ‘500 hundred yerars of French Music’ at fundraising concerts for Notre Dame de France in Leicester Square and the French Protestant Church in Soho, and at the final event of the French Institute Literature Festival ‘Beyond Words’

Les Fauristes are regularly invited to perform the French and British National anthems at the French Ambassador’s residence on 14th July; they performed the national anthems at the France-England football match in Wembley in November 2015, and they also appeared on the BBC1 Sunday Morning Live Show with Naga Munchetty in July 2016. More recently in 2018 they took part in commemorations for WW1 Allied Forces Commander Marshall Foch, an event organised by the British government and French Diplomacy in London, which gave them the opportunity to sing with the Queen’s Band of the Irish Guards.

 

Contact : [email protected]
Facebook : Les Fauristes Chamber Choir
Website : www.lesfauristes.com
Soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/lesfauristes

 

 

Blandine de RAULIN – Conductor

Born in Paris, Blandine began her musical education at a young age learning the piano. She arrived in London in 2001 and rapidly developed an interest in choir conducting. She sang with the Ensemble Vocal Français for a few years which gave her the opportunity to perform a wide range of choral repertoires. She was a founding member of l’Ensemble Vocal de Notre Dame de France and became its conductor in 2002. In 2010, she founded Les Fauristes, whose first performance was Fauré’s Requiem at Notre Dame de France and St James Spanish Place. Since then she has conducted the choir with orchestra in London (Westminster Cathedral, St Patrick’s Church Soho, St Paul’s Knightsbridge, St Saviour’s Pimlico and the French Protestant Church), at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, and in France (Basilique Sainte Clotilde and Temple du St Esprit in Paris, Notre-Dame Church in Niort).

Besides her day job at Eurostar, she has been developing her conducting technique over the past years: she trained with conductor Alain Charron in 2012. She also attended extended conducting courses with the ABCD (Association of British Choral Directors) with some of Britain’s leading conductors such as Peter Broadbent, David Lawrence, Amy Bebbington, Sarah Tenant-Flowers, Neil Ferris and Patrick Russill. In 2013, she attended a conducting master class, with Therees Hibbard’s Nebraska-Lincoln University Chamber Choir at a choral convention in Oxford, tutored by Nicholas Cleobury. She validated her training with ABCD to Intermediate Level with Merit in 2014, and completed the final Advanced Level course in choral conducting in 2017. In 2015 she also attended an orchestra conducting master class led by Peter Broadbent with the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St Martin’s in the Fields. She is mentored by conductor and teacher Amy Bebbington.

 

Judith CHARRON – Soprano, Composer

Judith Charron is a French pianist, singer and composer residing in London. Both her parents being professional musicians, her musical training came naturally from a very young age. She studied piano and lyrical singing and completed her studies in the Conservatoire of Paris where she was also part of the Jeune Choeur de Paris conducted by Laurence Equilbey. She performed as a soloist across Europe in venues such as the Opera Comique and La Seine Musicale in Paris and her repertoire includes among others Mozart’s Requiem, Coronation Mass, Vespers, Bach’s Magnificat, Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. She has also sung roles in various operas such as Nozze di Figaro, Incoronazione di Poppea, Dido and Aeneas. Despite her classical background, Judith also works in a wide range of musical genres, working as an arranger and vocalist for the pop world (Robbie Williams…). As a composer, she co-wrote and produced the album “In heaven’s river” which has been performed at the Opera du Rhin in Strasbourg and recently at the Festival ‘Fil Bleu’ in the South of France.

During the pandemic when everyone found themselves suddenly at ‘home’, Judith took this opportunity to reflect on what it is TO REALLY BE HOME by revisiting well-known Spirituals. Songs that express the longing we all have inside of us to find our inner home (Deep River) and how sometimes we feel it is ‘over Jordan’, where we belong is over a river that we can’t quite yet cross. Songs that express what it truly feels to find ourselves ‘found’ when we were so lost before (Amazing Grace). Songs that express the hope and trust that we will all find our ‘Sweet chariot’ to bring us home (Swing low, Sweet chariot). Two years after the lockdown, she’s delighted and grateful to hear these songs that she arranged, sung for the first time by Les Fauristes.

 

Michael ROSSI – Piano

Michael was born in Scotland, not far from the banks of Loch Lomond and began studying piano at 9 years old. He moved to St. Andrews as a teenager, where he continued his piano studies, as well as taking up the organ with the University of St. Andrews organist and vocal studies at his school.

He moved south to London in 1998, to study music at Kings College London, where he was also an organ scholar.

Since 2006 he has worked for BBC Radio, where in between producing daily weekly music programmes he also makes documentaries as well regularly contributing on air to the BBC World Service radio with artist interviews (proudest moment to date – being able to interview the great Quincy Jones).

Michael has been associated with Notre Dame de France and Les Fauristes for many years now, as both a rehearsal pianist and occasionally helping to bolster the bass section. He’s ever grateful to the members for their patience in putting up with his assault on the language of Molière at rehearsals.

Michael continues to play the organ and piano regularly (any weddings needing an organist?! Ask after the concert!).

 

 

PROGRAMME NOTES

Wade in the Water
(Traditional Spiritual – 1901)

Wade in the Water is an African American jubilee song, a spiritual, in reference to a genre of music created and first sung by African Americans in slavery. The lyrics to Wade in the Water were first co-published in 1901 in New Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers (an African American a cappella ensemble of students from Fisk University).

While it has not been proven, it is believed that Wade in the Water was one of the songs associated with the Underground Railroad: a network of secret routes and safe houses used by slaves in the United States to find freedom. Harriet Tubman was the conductor of the Underground railroad and helped free more than 70 people; she used this song to warn slaves to get off the trail and into the water to hide their scent from the slavecatching dogs on their trail.

The chorus refers to healing. In the Christian Bible, John 5:4 says: ‘From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had.’

Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children,
Wade in the water
God’s gonna trouble the water.

See that host all dressed in white, …
The leader looks like the Israelite.

See that band all dressed in red, …
Looks like the band that Moses led.

Look over yonder, what do I see ?
The Holy Ghost a coming on me.

If you don’t believe I’ve been redeemed,
Just follow me down to Jordan’s stream.

Shenandoah
(American Folksong, Arr. James ERB – 1991)

Oh Shenandoah is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.

The song Shenandoah appears to have originated with American and Canadian voyageurs or fur traders traveling down the Missouri River in canoes and has developed several different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics refer to the Oneida chief Shenandoah and a canoe-going trader who wants to marry his daughter. By the mid-1800s versions of the song had become a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world.

Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you,
And hear, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Way, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri

I long to see your smiling valley
And hear your rolling river
I long to see your smiling valley
Way, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.

‘Tis seven long years since last I’ve seen you
And hear your rolling river
‘Tis seven long years since last I’ve seen you
way, we’re bound away
Across the wide Missouri.

 

Go Down Moses
(Traditional Spiritual, Arr. Ruth Morris GRAY – 2018)

Go Down Moses is a spiritual phrase that describes events in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 5:1: ‘And the LORD spoke unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus said the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me’, in which God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. This phrase is the title of the one of the most well-known African American spirituals of all time. The song discusses themes of freedom, a very common occurrence in spirituals. In fact, the song had multiple messages, discussing not only the metaphorical freedom of Moses and the liberation of the ancient Jewish people from Egyptian slavery but also the physical freedom of runaway slaves.

For enslaved African Americans, the story was very powerful because they could relate to the experiences of Moses and the Israelites who were enslaved by the pharaoh, representing the slave holders, and it holds the hopeful message that God will help those who are persecuted. The song also makes references to the Jordan River, which was often referred to in spirituals that described finally reaching freedom because such an act of running away often involved crossing one or more rivers

When Israel was in Egypt’s land
Let my people go
Oppress’d so hard they could not stand
Let my people go

Go down, Moses
Way down in Egypt’s land
Tell old Pharaoh
Let my people go

The Lord told Moses what to do,
Let my people go,
To lead the children of Israel through,
Let my people go.

Come on Moses, you won’t get lost
Stretch your rod and come across.
Israel stood by the river side,
And the waters did divide.
Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let my people go!

 

Amazing Grace
(Christian Hymn. Tune ‘New Britain’, Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON – 2021)

Amazing Grace is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725–1807). It is an immensely popular hymn, particularly in the United States, where it is used for both religious and secular purposes.

With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, Amazing Grace is one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world. Author Gilbert Chase writes that it is ‘without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns’. Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that the song is performed about 10 million times annually.

It has had particular influence in folk music, and has become an emblematic black spiritual. Its universal message has been a significant factor in its crossover into secular music. Amazing Grace became newly popular during a revival of folk music in the US during the 1960s, and it has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th century.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

Deep River
(Traditional Spiritual, Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON – 2021)

Deep River is an anonymous African-American spiritual. The song was first mentioned in print in 1867, when it was published in the first edition of The Story of the Jubilee Singers: With Their Songs.

By 1917, when Harry Burleigh completed the last of his several influential arrangements, the song had become very popular in recitals. It has been called ‘perhaps the best known and best-loved spiritual’.

Deep river, my home is over Jordan.
Deep river, I want to cross over into campground.

Oh, don’t you want to go to that Gospel-feast?
That Promised Land, where all is peace?

 

 

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
(Traditional Spiritual, Arr. Judith & Alain CHARRON – 2021)

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is one of the best-known Christian hymns. Originating in early oral and musical African-American traditions, it was composed in 1862 by Wallace Willis, a former choctaw Indian slave. He was inspired by the Red River (The Mississippi) which reminded him Jordan and the Prophet Elijah who would have reached heaven in a chariot. Performances by the Hampton Singers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought the song to the attention of wider audiences in the late 19th century.

The song uses the theme of death to remind the audience of the glory that awaits in Heaven, when Christians believe they will transcend the earthly world of suffering and come to rest in their final home. Specifically, the text refers to the Old Testament account of the Prophet Elijah‘s ascent into Heaven by chariot.

The stylistic elements and thematic content are highly typical to those of other spirituals. The song is characterized by its use of repetition as a key poetic element, powerful imagery, personal rhetoric, and potentially coded lyrics.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot has been sung by rugby players and fans for some decades. An article published in Tatler in 1966 described a ‘tradition’ at the West Park bar at Twickenham of patrons singing the song whilst swaying as one, shoulder-to-shoulder. It became associated with the English national side from 1988.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

 

Nigra Sum
(Song of Songs – Old Testament, Pablo CASALS – 1942)

Pablo Casals (1873 – 1973) the famous Castilian cellist is barely known as a composer today, but at least two of his works continue to be performed O vos omnes (ca. 1932), and Nigra sum, written in 1942.

Nigra sum sets a collection of biblical verses that are used in various combinations in medieval liturgical plainchant and polyphonic works (by Jean Lheritier, Tomas Luis de Victoria or William Billings amongst others).

It’s not clear what this text is doing in the Bible… Some believe that the Bible is the literal word of God; some consider it symbolic and allegorical; some see it as a guide to living; some view it as a historical record. The ‘Song of Solomon’ is one of the shortest books in the Bible, with a mere eight chapters. It is also, hands down, the raciest, for the text is frankly erotic. Christian tradition holds that the ‘Song of Solomon’ in the Old Testament is an allegorical representation of God’s relationship with Israel as compared to that of man and wife, or Christ’s love for his Church. Scholars free from needing a sacred explanation for its inclusion in the Bible have seen it differently, assuming that, for ancient compilers, its text was just too beautiful not to be preserved.

Casals’s work uses verses I:4–5 and II: 10–11 from the ‘Song of Solomon’ (also called the ‘Song of Songs’), with an added Alleluia.

Nigra sum sed formosa filiae Jerusalem
(I am black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem)

Ideo dilexit me Dominus et introduxit in cubiculum suum et dixit mihi:
(Therefore I have pleased the Lord and he has brought me into his chamber and said to me:)

Surge amica mea et veni.
(Arise my love and come).

Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit,
(For now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone,)

Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra, tempus putationis advenit.
(The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning has come.)

Alleluia

 

 

The Road Home
(Tune ‘Prospect’ from ‘Southern Harmony’ – 1835, Arr. Stephen PAULUS – 2001)

This beautiful folk song is an adaptation of a tune from ‘Southern Harmony’, an American hymns and songs book compiled in 1835 by William Walker, considered the most important and influential books of American music. The tune has been arranged by Stephen Paulus (1949 – 2014) to words by Michael Dennis Browne (b.1940) in the spring of 2001. The piece is an eloquent evocation about ‘returning’ and ‘coming home’ after being lost and wandering, and has become one of the most popular Paulus piece for choirs.

Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered,
Oh when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home?

After wind, after rain,
When the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away,
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home.

Rise up, follow me,
Come away, is the call,
With the love in your heart
As the only song;
There is no such beauty
As where you belong;
Rise up, follow me,
I will lead you home.

 

 

Crossing the Bar
(Hymn ‘Freshwater’, Hubert PARRY, 1893)

Crossing the Bar is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892) set to music as the hymn ‘Freshwater’ by Sir Hubert Parry (1848 – 1918). It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy: the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the ‘sandbar’ between the river of life, with its outgoing ‘flood’, and the ocean that lies beyond death, the ‘boundless deep’, to which we return.

The poem contains four stanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme. Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem.

The extended metaphor of ‘crossing the bar’ represents travelling serenely and securely from life through death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face. Tennyson explained, ‘The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him…[He is] that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us’.

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

 

 

The Long Day Closes
(Arthur SULLIVAN, 1868)

The Long Day Closes is a part song by Henry F. Chorley (1808-1872) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) published in 1868. This song is one of seven part songs that Sullivan published that year, and it became his best-known part song. He wrote most of his twenty part songs prior to the beginning of his long collaboration with W. S. Gilbert.

With the growth of choral societies during the Victorian era, part songs became popular in Britain (as they had earlier in Germany and elsewhere). The term ‘part song’ is used here to mean a song written for several vocal parts, usually with the highest part carrying the melody and the other voices supplying accompanying harmonies.

The plaintive harmonies of The Long Day Closes and the text’s touching meditation on death have made the song a frequent selection at events of remembrance, mourning or funerals.

No star is o’er the lake,
Its pale watch keeping,
The moon is half awake,
Through grey mist creeping,
The last red leaves fall round
The porch of roses,
The clock hath ceased to sound,
The long day closes.

Sit by the silent hearth
In calm endeavour,
To count the sounds of mirth,
Now dumb for ever.
Heed not how hope believes
And fate disposes:
Shadow is round the eaves,
The long day closes.

The lighted windows dim
Are fading slowly.
The fire that was so trim
Now quivers lowly.
Go to the dreamless bed
Where grief reposes;
Thy book of toil is read,
The long day closes.

 

 

Will the circle be unbroken
(Christian Traditional Appalachian Hymn. Arr. J. David MOORE – 2011)

Will the circle be unbroken is a popular gospel song written in 1907 by English Christian hymnist Ada R. Habershon (1861 – 1918). The song is often recorded unattributed and, because of its age, has lapsed into the public domain. The song is generally played to be uplifting to the congregation, and is a frequent standard in gospel revivals. Tonight we are singing by J. David Moore who has arranged this work for SATB, SSAA and TTBB (his arrangements are currently widely performed).

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by
There’s a better home a-waitin’
if we try, Lord, if we try.

I was singing with my sisters, (brothers)
I was singing with my friends,
And we all can sing together,
’cause the circle never ends.
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by
There’s a better home a-waitin’
if we try, Lord, if we try.

I was born down in the valley
Where the sun refuse’ to shine
But I’m climbing up to the highland,
Gonna make that mountain mine!
Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, lord, by and by
There’s a better home a-waiting
In the sky, lord, in the sky.

 

 

Over the Rainbow
(‘The Wizard of Oz’, Arr. Joanna FORBES after Eva CASSIDY – 2006)

Over the Rainbow is a ballad by Harold Arlen (1905 – 1986) with lyrics by Yip Harburg (1896 – 1981). It was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, in which it was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy Gale. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland’s signature song.

The song has known many versions since the original recording by Judy Garland, most notably those by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, Eva Cassidy and Cliff Richard.

The plaintive melody and simple lyrics of the song tell a little girl’s desire to escape the world’s ‘hopeless jumble’, sadness and rain, and to reach a new world full of colours ‘over the rainbow’. The song also expresses the childish belief that skies will open a way towards a place where ‘troubles melt like lemon-drops’.

The song was originally written with a long introductory verse which was not sung but instead spoken by Judy Garland in the film: ‘Someplace where there isn’t any trouble…. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It’s not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It’s far, far away…. Behind the moon, beyond the rain’

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
In the land that I heard of, once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow
Why, oh, why can’t I?

 

 

Down to the river to pray
(Christian Traditional Appalachian Hymn, Arr. Sheldon CURRY – 2002)

Down in the River to Pray is a traditional American song variously described as a Christian folk hymn, an African-American spiritual, an Appalachian song, and a Southern gospel song. The exact origin of the song is unknown.

The earliest known version of the song, titled ‘The Good Old Way’, was published in Slave Songs of the United States in 1867.

In some versions, ‘in the river’ is replaced by ‘to the river’. The phrase ‘in the river’ is significant, for two reasons. The more obvious reason is that the song has often been sung at outdoor baptisms (such as the full-immersion baptism depicted in the 2000 film ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’). Another reason is that many songs sung by victims of slavery contained coded messages for escaping. When the enslaved people escaped, they would walk in the river because the water would cover their scent from the bounty-hunters’ dogs. Similarly, the ‘starry crown’ could refer to navigating their escape by the stars. And ‘Good Lord, show me the way’ could be a prayer for God’s guidance to find the escape route, commonly known as ‘the Underground Railroad’.

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way

O sisters, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sisters, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way

O brothers, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
Come on, brothers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way

O fathers, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O fathers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way

O mothers, let’s go down
Come on down, don’t you wanna go down?
Come on, mothers, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way

O sinners, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down
O sinners, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray

As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way