Whilst working on my latest project (importing old St. Olaf Choir tapes to MP3), I listened to this CD for the first time in a while. It's archival recordings of F. Melius Christiansen conducting the St. Olaf Choir.

It's kind of...humbling, perhaps, to listen to choral works that I know and have sung, being conducted by the original composer, and sung by the group that he wrote them for. It's also very interesting to hear how interpretations have changed in the ensuing decades.

I recall a tour concert in Moorhead, Minnesota, with the entire Concordia choir in the front four rows, and F. Melius' son Paul Christiansen sitting in the back row. I didn't see it myself, but people in the audience said that when we began singing our signature song, "Beautiful Savior" as arranged by his father, Dr. Christiansen leaned back and closed his eyes in bliss...only to open them with an angry glare when Dr. Armstrong inserted his "luftpauses" in the last verse.