Wind band arrangement.
Program Notes
This hymn tune has been beautifully arranged to highlight the sonorities of the modern concert band. Just thirty-nine measures in length and lasting about three and one-half minutes, They Led My Lord Away is a great example of lyrical writing for concert band. The simple beauty of the melody, along with Allen’s careful writing of accompaniment and counter lines, creates a piece full of excellent opportunities to teach many musical aspects.

They Led My Lord Away is typical of many of the hymn tunes of the mid-eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. It is a call-response variety of hymn; each verse and refrain ends with the congregation singing, “Oh, tell me where to find him.” This type of hymn was very common in religious revival meetings that started in New England in the late 1700s and spread eastward in the early and mid 1800s.

• Program Note by Chris vanGilder