Rejoice in the Lamb is a festival cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 for four soloists, SATB

SATB

In music, SATB is an initialism for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, defining the voices required by a chorus or choir to perform a particular musical work...

 choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

, and organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 composed by Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

 in 1943 and based on the poem Jubilate Agno

Jubilate Agno

Jubilate Agno is a religious poem by Christopher Smart, and was written between 1759 and 1763, during Smart's confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London. The poem was first published in 1939, under the title Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam, edited by W. F...

by Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...

 (1722-1771). The poem, written while Smart was in an insane asylum, is a highly idiosyncratic and ecstatic praise and worship of God by all created being and things, each in its own way. The cantata was commissioned by Rev. Canon Walter Hussey

Walter Hussey

Walter Hussey was an Anglican clergyman who had a great fondness for the arts, commissioning a number of musical compositions and visual art for the church as well as amassing his own collection....

 for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton.

Form

Rejoice in the Lamb has a duration of about 17 minutes. It is divided into eight sections.

1. (Chorus) The piece begins with a slow, mysterious setting of "Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues," and then launches into a fast, vigorous, dance-like section with rapidly changing meters, in which the lines follow the form, "Let Nimrod, the mighty hunter, bind a Leopard to the altar, and consecrate his spear to the Lord." The section closes with a slow, stately setting of "Hallelujah from the heart of God ... and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty."
2. (Treble
   Boy soprano
   A boy soprano is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range. Although a treble, or choirboy, may also be considered to be a boy soprano, the more colloquial term boy soprano is generally only used for boys who sing, perform, or record as soloists, and who may not necessarily...
   
   /Soprano
   Soprano
   A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
   
    soloist) "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey, ... a cat, surpassing in beauty, from whom I take occasion to bless Almighty God." Britten uses the organ part to depict the cat "wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness."
3. (Alto
   Alto
   Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...
   
    soloist) sings of the mouse, "a creature of great personal valour," and dramatically describes the male mouse defending the female mouse from an attacking cat. Britten selects an organ registration that suggest the sound of mice.
4. (Tenor
   Tenor
   The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
   
    soloist) a slow, gentle praise of flowers: "For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the Adversary; ... For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ."
5. (Chorus) a passage in which Smart describes his mistreatment by "the officers of the peace" because he is mentally ill, comparing himself to Jesus: "For I am in twelve Hardships, but he that was born of a virgin shall deliver me out of all." Philip Brett writes of this section: "At the heart of Rejoice in the Lamb, framed by a Purcellian
   Henry Purcell
   Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
   
    prelude and postlude and cheerful choruses and solos, lies a chilling choral recitative
   Recitative
   Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
   
    rehearsing the theme of oppression that was to boil over in Peter Grimes
   Peter Grimes
   Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
   
   , and a spiritual resolution that looks forward to the very different scenario of The Rape of Lucretia." Britten also alludes to the composer Dmitri Shostakovitch, who was facing censure in the USSR. The DSCH
   DSCH (Dmitri Shostakovich)
   DSCH is a musical motif used by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes D, E flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H , thus standing for the composer's initials in German...
   
    motif (the sequence of notes D, E flat, C and B which spell out the composer's name) appears frequently in the organ part, at first quietly, and later fortissimo against the thunderous chords accompanying "And the watchman strikes me with his staff".
6. (Bass soloist) a short recitative in which the letters of the alphabet symbolize different aspects of God. This segues into the next section.
7. (Chorus) a "very gay and fast" section about various instruments and "their rhimes" (rhymes): "For the Shawm
   Shawm
   The shawm was a medieval and Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family made in Europe from the 12th century until the 17th century. It was developed from the oriental zurna and is the predecessor of the modern oboe. The body of the shawm was usually turned from a single piece of wood,...
   
   rhimes are lawn fawn moon boon and the like. . ." This builds to a climax - "For the Trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence" - and then gradually relaxes into an increasingly peaceful section, ending: "For this time is perceptible to man by a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul."
8. (Chorus) A reprise of the ending of the first section: " ... from the hand of the artist inimitable, and from the echo of the heavenly harp in sweetness magnifical and mighty. Hallelujah."