Theodore DuBois penned perhaps one of the most beautiful chorales of all time as a closing to his oratorio "The Seven Last Words of Christ." The simplicity and purity of the chorale adds to the simple text with minimal embellishment. It has all the sonority of a Bach chorale without the ornamentation. In its own way, it simply says "less is more."

The lyric is quite simple:

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Christ, we do all adore Thee, and we do praise Thee forever.
For on the holy cross hast Thou the world from sin redeemed.
Christ, we do all adore Thee.

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The original lyric was in Latin, but we have included only the English version, as we expect most choirs will want it to be easily understood by English-speaking audiences.

The chorale is almost completely a cappella, using the organ only for an introduction, a break, and the last chord. Many choirs find it easier to have the organ drop out all together (this deals with pitch drift) or simply sing the entire piece a cappella, in either case omitting the two bars of organ break.

MP3 sound sample: Entire piece (synthesizer/midi).



CHRIST WE DO ALL ADORE THEE comes in a pdf file of 816K containing three pages of complete score and license page, four pages in all. Performance time should be around 1:30.