Ending Your Anthem: Go Big or Go Home?

Every composer/arranger’s dilemma (at one point or another): 
How do I end this anthem??? I’ve run out of ideas!
After all, how many ways can one finish an SATB choral piece?

If you write for choirs long enough, and do as many arrangements as I have, you’ll start repeating yourself. For this very reason I have particular arrangements that should never be programmed back-to-back in a concert. I once asked the venerable Camp Kirkland what he did about varying the endings for his countless arrangements.  “Oh, I’ve numbered mine,” he said. “I have seventeen endings.”  I’m pretty sure Camp was joking, but even so, it told me we all struggle with this problem.

Regardless how many Variations on an Ending Theme one might have concocted, there are only two paths to end any piece of music: with a bang or with a whisper. After that, it’s all nuance: How big of a bang, or how quiet of a whisper?  Some pieces answer the question for themselves. You’re simply not going to close “Silent Night” with a Hollywood “stinger.”  Nor will you finish “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a hush. Still, for many of the anthems we write, there is the option to end either big or small, both being viable alternatives depending on how the arranger hears the music best serving the moment. So then, how do you choose?

In the 1990s, I was writing full-time for the evangelical church choral market (that’s pretty specific).  At that time, it was Standard Operating Procedure to end anthems big, unless the song clearly called for something otherwise.  Being the sort that hates going along with the crowd (what???), I started turning in certain arrangements with quiet endings – arrangements that would have generally ended with a bang.  I justified this with the publisher by saying that somebody has to do something different.  We can’t all be doing the same thing all the time.  Actually, we could have been doing the same thing all the time, and the publisher probably would have preferred that.  I was being difficult.  (It’s that “difficult” strain in my personality that ultimately led me to self-publishing.)  The reality was then, and may well still be, big endings sold better than quiet endings – especially in the evangelical church market, where bigger and higher was always better.  

TRUE STORY: A former music minister at a prominent Baptist church was instructed by the pastor that every choral anthem preceding the sermon must have a big ending because (Are you ready for this?) the pastor insisted on striding to the pulpit to the closing strains of a huge choral and orchestral ending.  

Now, I have to believe that is a rare case. I truly do hope it is rare.  But it points to an underlying sensibility that big endings in music are more glorious, more inspiring, and more uplifting. And what preacher wouldn’t want a set-up from the choir that was all those things? Besides those are quite often the very qualities we arrangers are striving for as we bring our music to a close.  We want our listeners to be swept up in something glorious and inspiring.  This is especially so when the texts we work with are glorious and inspiring.  Consider these familiar words: 

Praise to the Lord the almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him for he is thy health and salvation!

With an opening text like that, you pretty much know from the outset you’re headed toward something powerful that will require you to pull out all the arranging stops you’ve got.  The question isn’t – Is this going to have a big ending? But – How big can I make the ending?  Is there something beyond fortissimo?

Know this – just because big endings are common and popular, doesn’t mean we should avoid them.  Even I, the guy who bucks the crowd and who can be difficult, write big endings all the time.  Why? Because they work, and because they are often exactly what the music and the moment call for.  Believe it or not, I like glorious, inspiring, and uplifting music, too.

But a quiet ending can be a very powerful thing, as well.  I think it is in the quiet moments that our hearts are most open, and the Holy Spirit has its best opportunity to speak to us.  There are dozens upon dozens of contemplative anthems that both begin and end with a whisper. But the quiet ending is sometimes most powerful when it is unexpected.  

As I structured the arrangement, the hymn text, which is incredibly powerful, and the closing phrase of the chorus began to weigh heavily on me:

All I have needed, Thy hand has provided.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.

It was the “to me” that was throwing me off.  Even though the arrangement had reached a soaring, glorious point near its end, I could not bring myself to make the words “to me” big and loud.  It just seemed like it was drawing attention the wrong direction.  What’s more, I knew from talks with Jon Duncan, that the man being honored was a humble person – not the sort who needed to stride to the pulpit to the sound of crashing cymbals and loud “hosannas.”  The obvious big ending was feeling inappropriate in this particular case. And so, in the closing measures of the arrangement, I turned the piece into a humble acknowledgement of God’s undeserved provision.  The arrangement ends with a quiet three-fold “Great is Thy faithfulness” and all-but-whispered “to me.”  I suspect the ending isn’t what my commissioners expected. But to Jon Duncan’s great credit and musicality, he “got it,” and he made the premier of the piece a success.

I suppose the take-away of this blog post would be: Stay open to all the possibilities of how your latest anthem might conclude.  Maybe the obvious ending is the right choice.  It often is.  But – maybe a surprise is in order. It’s highly unlikely that a quiet, contemplative piece will suddenly need a big ending.  But if you’re developing an anthem that goes through some dynamic paces, and is leading up to the obvious big ending – pause for a moment and consider what might happen if you chose the other path.