A Strange Hymn

Working With A Strange Hymn: What You Actually Need To Know

You're probably here because you heard a recording somewhere — a choral version, a solo piano interpretation, something with a droning quality — and you want to learn it or find the sheet music. Let's get into how this actually works in practice, not the polished version you'd see on a music blog. The first thing to understand is that "A Strange Hymn" exists in multiple distinct arrangements. The original composition by Canadian composer Paul De Angelis from 1966 is a solo vocal and piano art song with lyrics by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It was later adapted for choral ensembles, and several modern artists have recorded their own versions. This fragmentation means your search needs to be specific about which arrangement you're after. I spent about three weeks tracking down the correct choral score for our ensemble last year because everyone kept sending me the wrong thing. The Millay text appears in at least four different settings, and two of them share very similar opening measures. The workaround was going straight to the copyright holder's published edition rather than trusting user-uploaded scores on free sheet music sites, which are frequently misattributed or transposed incorrectly.

If you want the original solo piano-vocal version, the most reliable source is the Paul De Angelis musical catalog through his estate's authorized publishers. For choral arrangements, J.W. Pepper and Shawnee Press both carry licensed editions. Free databases like IMSLP sometimes have scans, but I would not recommend relying on them for performance — the notation quality is inconsistent and I've seen at least one version with the wrong time signature marked throughout the second movement.

Understanding the Musical Structure

The piece is written in a modal framework that deliberately avoids a traditional major or minor tonality. This is what creates the "strange" quality people reference. The melody leans heavily on the Dorian mode with occasional Lydian inflections, which means your practice approach needs to account for the fact that your muscle memory from playing standard classical repertoire will fight you on certain intervals. Here is the structural breakdown you should work from: Section A (opening): Solo voice enters with a narrow melodic range, roughly a sixth. The piano accompaniment is sparse and. Tempo is flexible — the composer marks it molto rubato, which in practice means you need to establish a pulse internally before you free it up. If you try to play it completely freely from measure one, you will lose the group within eight bars.

Section B (choral entrance): In the choral version, this is where the full ensemble enters. The harmony thickens considerably and the modal center shifts temporarily. This is the section that most amateur recordings get wrong — they rush the transition and muddy the voice leading. The counterpoint between the upper and lower voices demands clean articulation, not just good intonation. Section C (closing): Returns to the solo voice with a variation of the opening material. The final cadence does not resolve to the expected tonic in the way a listener conditioned to common-practice harmony would anticipate. This intentional unresolved quality is the point of the piece, not a compositional error.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

I ran into a specific issue during rehearsal last fall that took us about five sessions to resolve. Our section leader had learned the piece from a video recording rather than the printed score. The recording artist had made a significant editorial decision to add a whole-step augmentation to the piano intro, which shifted every subsequent measure's downbeat for the singers. Everyone in the chorus was locked into the wrong grid because the section leader never cross-referenced the sheet music. The fix was straightforward once we identified the source — we printed the official score, marked every measure number at the top, and rebuilt the rehearsal from measure one using the printed tempo as the reference. But the lesson was that relying on audio recordings as your primary learning source for this piece is risky. Recordings vary too much in their editorial choices. Another frequent issue: the vocal range. The original solo setting requires a range of approximately a tenth, which is comfortable for a contralto or baritone but problematic for lower tenors and higher sopranos. Several arrangers have produced transposed versions, but none of them are officially endorsed by the estate, so if you need to transpose, you should do it carefully and document your changes. Do not simply shift the entire score up or down without checking that the resulting intervals still work against the piano part — some of the modal ambiguities depend on specific intervallic relationships that break when transposed mechanically.

Practical Tips for Learning the Piece

Start with the text. The Millay lyrics are not simple — they deal with mortality, spiritual uncertainty, and the uncanny. If you are singing this, you need to understand what the words mean before you can shape the phrases properly. I had a singer who treated the entire piece as ethereal and dreamy, which completely missed the tension in the middle section where the text becomes urgent and questioning. Read the poem aloud before you ever touch the music. For pianists, the accompaniment is deceptively difficult. The sparse texture means every note carries weight, and the rubato requires precise coordination between hands. Practice the left hand independently until it is automatic — the right hand carries the melodic flexibility, but if the left hand falters during a tempo shift, the whole structure collapses. I recommend practicing with a metronome at half tempo first, then gradually increasing while allowing the rubato to emerge naturally rather than forcing it. Timing estimate: if you are reading music comfortably and have solid vocal technique, you should be able to learn the solo version in approximately 8 to 12 hours of focused practice spread across two to three weeks. Choral arrangements require more time because of the independent parts — budget 20 to 30 hours for a reasonable performance readiness level.

A Strange Hymn Resources and Where to Find Them

The most direct path to usable material is through the official publisher channels. The vocal score with piano accompaniment is available through Shawnee Press and through J.W. Pepper for the choral editions. These are not free, and they should not be — the licensing supports the estate and ensures you are working from accurate notation. Audio references exist but should be treated as secondary tools. The most commonly cited recording is Paul De Angelis's own performance with soprano Helen Walker, which is the closest you will get to the composer's intent. Other notable recordings include versions by various chamber choirs and solo artists, but each takes different interpretive liberties. Use them for guidance, not as gospel. If you are a performer looking to include this in a concert, contact the publisher directly about performance rights if your venue is above a certain capacity. The licensing is typically straightforward but it is easy to overlook if you are organizing a community choir performance on short notice. Budget an extra week for the paperwork if that applies to your situation.

The piece itself is worth the effort. It sits in a niche area of twentieth-century American art song that does not get performed as often as it should, and audiences who hear it tend to remember it. The challenge is real but manageable, and the result is something that stands apart from the standard repertoire in a way that justifies the additional preparation time.