It’s a quiet Sunday morning here in New Jersey and as I was wandering around YouTube looking for a subject for Great Music Chapter 53 when YouTube popped up a recommendation for my consideration. I looked at it and realized it contained music from my childhood idol, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and my adult idol, Andrea Bocelli –WOW, this is no coincidence, it is a message.
When I was a boy, my parents had numerous records featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I used to lie on the Living room floor turning up the volume of these recordings very loud and imagining that when I grew up I could lead a choir with a million voices and what grand music that could make. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir was the closest thing to that dream choir, and probably still is. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is universally considered the best large scale choir in the world. Andrea Bocelli needs no introduction as perhaps the best male singer in the world.
Today’s selection features music set to the Bible’s account of the Lord’s Prayer. Over time this Prayer has been set to many different musical themes. However, the version shown today, and probably the most popular, was written by Albert Malotte of Philadelphia in 1935. Malotte was a pianist and organist and this piece of music is his claim to fame although he did write music to a number of Disney animation movies.
Whether one is Jewish, Christian or other, the words of this prayer are universal and setting to music with the power of Bocelli’s voice surrounded by hundreds of singers in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir can easily produce goosebumps to even the most jaded listener. Without further ado here is Andrea Bocelli and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir: