A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief

Violin/Flute/Cello solo with piano accompaniment

Arranged by Craig Petrie

 

(I will dispense with my usual terseness and get a little more descriptive here...) I offered to arrange any hymn for a Young Women's auction/fund-raiser in our ward a while back, and the person who bought the service wanted me to arrange this song for the piano. The music to this song is pretty repetitive and uses only two chords, so at first I was not too excited with her choice. However, after working with it and adding an extra instrument (flute or violin or organ), I really like the way it turned out. And the Young Women got $20. My wife and I performed the Piano/Organ duet in Sacrament Meeting and it is now one of my favorites. This arrangement is more about Joseph Smith than it is about service; I tried to loosely portray his final hours in Carthage Jail.

For the organ/piano duet, download both versions below and ignore the flute/violin line on the piano part. Parts for violin/piano and cello are broken out separately.  Disclaimer: Like many church organists, I know very little about playing the organ. In the organ part there are no pedal notes and it plays more like two separate instruments than it does an organ. But it sounds very nice with the piano.

 

PIANO/INSTRUMENT SHEET MUSIC (PDF)

 

ORGAN SHEET MUSIC (PDF)

 

FLUTE/VIOLIN ONLY (PDF)

 

CELLO ONLY (PDF)

 

For the lyrics to this familiar song, see hymn #29 of the LDS hymnbook.