Voicing: 2-part mixed, piano
Arranger; Nancy Raabe
This transparent setting of Seigi Abe's tune MABUNE ("manger" in Japanese) for two-part mixed choir, piano, and light percussion brings Japanese pastor Ko Yuki's simple, poignant account of the story of salvation to life in a manger that is both earnest and whimsical. A brief foray into the hymn "Oh, That I Had a Thousand Voices" (O DASS ICH TAUSEND ZUNGEN HÄTTE), a fragment of which is then woven into the final stanza of MABUNE, suggests that our own proclamation of the gospel is indispensable to God's kingdom.