Three Songs of Walt Whitman
3-movement suite for a cappella mixed voices
SATB + soprano & tenor solos: price $3.50
(25 copy minimum order | minimum order total $87.50)
Three Songs of Walt Whitman | Choral score with piano reduction
[score & part formatted for 8.5 X 11]
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catalog #: 058-0180
composer: Crystal Godfrey LaPoint
settings of 3 poems by: Walt Whitman
difficulty: advanced/college/professional mixed voices
instrumentation: SATB + soprano & tenor solos
year of publication: 2026
@ duration: 8:30 minutes
ASCAP WORK ID: 934900815
copyright info: Copyright © 2026 Crystal Godfrey LaPoint
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Scroll down for a partial score sample reader for each movement of this composition.
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Listen to the full-length, digitally-generated sound file of this piece. (A live performance recording was unavailable.) Such sound files lack the text, optimal dynamic balance, and many interpretive nuances. However, the pitch accuracy is 100%, and in combination with the perusal score, can give the listener a highly-representative impression of the composition.
3 songs:
I. I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ
II. The Last Invocation
III. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
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Complete lyrics are included to enhance your appreciation of the sound file, which is not a live recording.
Three Songs of Walt Whitman
I. I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ
I heard you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ,
as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church;
I heard you, winds of autumn!—as I walk'd the woods at dusk,
I heard your long-stretch'd sighs, up above, so mournful;
I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera -
I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing;
Heart of my love!—you too I heard, murmuring low,
through one of the wrists around my head;
Heard the pulse of you, when all was still, ringing little bells
last night under my ear.
II. The Last Invocation
At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks - with a whisper,
Set ope the doors O soul.
Tenderly- be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)
III. Joy, Shipmate, Joy!
Joy, shipmate, Joy!
(Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)
Our life is closed, our life begins,
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last, she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore,
Joy, shipmate, joy.
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Composer’s comments:
Well-known for the grand, sweeping gestures of his expansive, prosaic verse, these concise verses by Walt Whitman provide an unexpected inspiration for choral settings with a vibrant, contemporary musical aesthetic. They embrace nostalgia, heart-on-sleeve emotion, and deeply personal subject matter: the sweetness of human love, and one’s complicated feelings about death (the fear of loss and the anticipation of exhilarating liberation). Each poem is set quite homophonically, keeping the voice of the narrator unified within the choir. However, in “I Heard you, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ” both soprano and tenor solos literally depict singers referenced in the poem, and later the speaker and his beloved. The setting shifts musically from scene to scene in a spontaneous, rhapsodic fashion. “The Last Invocation” is darker, slower, and much more introspective. Harsher harmonies and a rhythmic pace shaped by a natural declamation of the text, offer the listener access to the narrator’s deepest personal feelings and fears about approaching death. Finally, in “Joy, Shipmate, Joy!” Whitman speaks of the transition to the unknown beyond as a thrilling journey, described in nautical terms. The choristers present an exhilarating musical depiction of sailing on wild seas, with a rhythmically elaborate ostinato, addressing throughout a “shipmate” one might take to be the speaker’s soul. Gentle moments of poignant harmonies amidst an otherwise relentlessly energetic voyage combine in a dramatic conclusion to the set.
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