Why fum’th in fight for 4 clarinets

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Description

This is a simple instrumental transcription of the setting by Thomas Tallis of the first part of Psalm 2
The Psalm teaches that people can either defy God and perish, or submit to him and be blessed.
(This psalm was also set by Handel using the translation “Why do the nations so furiously rage together”).
The Tallis setting was, of course, also used by Vaughan Williams in his marvellous Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

The original words are:
Why fum’th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout?
Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
The Kings arise, the Lords devise, in counsels met thereto,
against the Lord with false accord, against His Christ they go