A new SATB arrangement of the tune WONDROUS LOVE is now offered on cameratapress.com. When I first heard this hymn I don't know, but the tune has had a haunting quality for me over the decades.
My first opportunity to work with the tune came in my senior year of college while also directing and recording with the then Mennonite Hour men's chorus. For years I have worked and reworked an SATB version and am pleased to offer this now. It pays homage to my own shape note tradition and that of the southern United States hymn-sings. I have sought to create the mystical character of the title and melody through counterpoint and harmony.
After William Walker of South Carolina first combined this tune and text in Southern Harmony, other such Pre–Civil War hymn collections also included it. It wasn't until the mid 1960s that mainline Protestant denominations began to include this unique and now widespread hymn.
Some hymnals end the first line of text with a question mark, others with an exclamation point. I just now changed my ?s to !s. Now that I think about it, the ! is stronger—showing a confident, awestruck marvel at God's love.
Choir directors, singers, anyone, I invite you to look at/listen to the music and learn more about Dorian mode, shape notes, and this setting of the text.
-David A. Seitz