I heard a funny thing on the classical radio station this morning. Well, not exactly funny, but it made me laugh when I figured it out.

It was obviously a “classical” work, but mostly for brass. I was hearing some rather contemporary “praise song” tunes in it (like “Seek Ye First” and “Be Glorified”). At first I thought it might be coincidence, but when I heard the second one, it was the whole tune. Made me wonder what this piece was. Turns out it was by a guy named Robert Redhead (who was a longtime Salvation Army officer, by the way) and it was called “Pastoral Symphony.” I had to laugh, since we normally think of pastoral works as conjuring images of nature, meadows, tranquility, that kind of thing. But this was pastoral in the pastor-sense. :-D
I also thought it was a good name because if classical radio station programmers didn’t know the tunes, they’d never know they were playing a “Christian song.” Unless they read the liner notes. Which they probably usually do. But still….

Here’s the actual recording I was hearing (same group and all):

[tags]music, symphony, classical music[/tags]