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J. David Moore

J. David Moore is a composer, arranger, conductor, teacher, and Southerner who has lived in the Upper Midwest for most of his life. His music has been called “endlessly inventive,” “glorious…haunting…breathtaking,” and “joyous…wild and elemental.” He publishes through his company Fresh Ayre Music, and is the founder and conductor of The First Readings Project, a...

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Fresh Ayre Music (J. David Moore)

America the Beautiful (Moore)

Name: America the Beautiful (Moore)
SKU: FAM-1077-04dg
Availability: InStock

J. David Moore

A setting of the familiar song accompanied by the Bach C Major Prelude.

Choral

treble choir

piano

Difficulty: 1

Duration: less than 3 min.

FAM-1077-04dg

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treble voices, piano

This arrangement seeks to de-politicize this song’s message and to emphasize its poetic imagery through the sounds of children’s voices suspended by the simple, tranquil beauty of J.S. Bach’s C Major Prelude.

Text

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

– Katharine Lee Bates

$2.50 per licensed PDF