All Who Dwell In The Shadow of the Lord – Stroope

The text for Z. Randall Stroope’s All Who Dwell In The Shadow of the Lord (2010 – listen) is drawn loosely from Psalms 90 and 91 [1]. The text features “Lauda, Laudé!” repeated at the end of many of the lines [2]. This device is a play on words: Lauda is Italian for song, Laude its plural as well as the Latin word for praise, glory, honor (as in Magna Cum Laude). The precedent for the phrase is Simple Song from Leonard Bernstein’s polarizing Mass (1971), with Stephen Godspell Schwartz.

The phrase and idea “All who dwell in the shadow of the Lord find a refuge and fortress”, extracted from Psalm 91:1-2, is a fine bit of wordsmithing.

Z. Randall Stroope (b. 1953) is an American composer, conductor, and sometimes faculty member. He is said to have published over 190 works including both choral and instrumental projects.

__

• [1] Psalm 90 is source of Isaac Watts’ Oh God Our Help In Ages Past
• [2] Per http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/Groupings/of%20Repetition.htm, this repetition is termed an epistrophe.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z._Randall_Stroope
• https://www.zrstroope.com/