ALLELUIA, AMEN (AIR IN G)

Music: Johann Sebastian Bach
Arrangement: Mack Wilberg

The surviving manuscript for J. S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, from which this music is adapted dates from 1731, although the work might have been composed earlier than that. The “Air” from this suite has become one of the best-known classical melodies of all time largely due to an arrangement for solo violin and piano published in 1879 as the “Air on the G String.” Tuneful and tender, Mack Wilberg’s choral adaptation of Bach’s “Air” keeps the two-part form of a stylized dance, with the pendulum-like movement of the bass providing the regular pulse. It places the melody in the choir’s alto section, matching the lower register of Bach’s original. Additional countermelodies in both choir and orchestra—some by Bach, some added by Wilberg—enrich the poly- phonic textures of this now-sacred chorus.