Ralph Carmichael: “Un lugar tranquilo” / “A Quiet Place”

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Ralph Carmichael (Compositor góspel, nacido 1927)

“Un lugar tranquilo”

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Hay un lugar tranquilo

lejos del paso raudo

donde Dios puede calmar mi mente afligida.

Guardado por árbol y flor,

está allí que dejo atrás mis penas

durante la hora quieta con Él.

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En un jardín pequeño

o alta montaña,

Encuentro allí

una nueva fortaleza

y mucho ánimo.

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Y luego salgo de ese lugar sereno

bien listo para enfrentar un nuevo día

con amor por toda la raza humana.

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Ralph Carmichael es un compositor de canciones ‘pop’ / cristianas contemporáneas.

Su canción “A Quiet Place” (“Un lugar tranquilo”) fue adaptada por un cantautor góspel estadounidense, Mervyn Warren, con su grupo “a capela” cristiano, Take 6, organizado en la Universidad Adventista Oakwood, de Huntsville, Alabama, EE.UU., durante los años 80. El arreglo musical de Señor Warren – hecho para seis voces en 1988 – es exquisitamente dulce y sensitivo.  Éste no es el sonido tradicional de la música góspel, sino algo afinado y jazzístico.

Escuche la canción (versión original en inglés) en este videoclip del Festival de Jazz de Vitoria-Gasteiz (País Vasco, 1997):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2orpg6ww4

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Ralph Carmichael (born 1927)

“A Quiet Place” (1969)

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There is a quiet place

far from the rapid pace

where God can soothe my troubled mind.

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Sheltered by tree and flower

there in my quiet hour with Him

my cares are left behind.

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Whether a garden small

or on a mountain tall

new strength and courage there I find.

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And then from that quiet place

I go prepared to face a new day

with love for all mankind.

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Ralph Carmichael is a composer and arranger of both pop music and contemporary Christian songs.

From 1962 to 1964 he arranged music for Nat King Cole, including Cole’s final hit, “L-O-V-E”.

“A Quiet Place” dates from 1969. 

Mervyn Warren and Claude McKnight arranged a number of Christian songs – both traditional and “new” – for their six-part-harmony “barbershop”-style Gospel vocal sextet, Take 6.

Take 6 was formed at the Seventh-Day-Adventist college, Oakwood University, in Huntsville, Alabama in the early 1980s.

Mervyn Warren – most especially – is responsible for the exquisitely tender or playful harmonies that characterize Take 6’s unique sound.  His 1988 arrangement of  “A Quiet Place” is a good example of his genius as arranger.   Astonishingly, Warren’s magnificent arrangements were never published or transcribed – all members learned their harmonies “in the moment” – through many hours of vocal jamming and experiment.  Warren later left the group because the revelation of his homosexuality put him at cross-purposes with the Seventh-Day-Adventist credo.

Listen to Take 6 perform “A Quiet Place” (Mervyn Warren’s arrangement) on the following YouTube clip from a 1997 concert in Spain at the Festival de Jazz de Vitoria Gasteiz – their unusual Gospel sound is belovéd of Jazz aficionados, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH2orpg6ww4

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