The spiritual When the Saints Go Marching In is often associated with jazz settings and marching bands. This arrangement for cello choir traverses styles in a lengthy setting of eighteen variations for ambitious ensembles, ideally played with at least two cellists per part and a free, improvisatory approach.

The first few repetitions are relatively classical style, with jazz forms emerging more overtly in the fifth setting onward, and subtle variations in each repetition of the melody. The seventh setting is an original four-part harmonization, repeated twice to allow the thicker harmonies to settle, that sets up a few verses that gradually soften and suggest a false ending.

The eleventh verse beings the back half of settings that take a more rhythmic approach to the melody. The upper octave soon joins in thumb position, joining the rhythmic melody by the fourteenth setting. Hymn tune SINE NOMINE, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of For All The Saints, joins fourteenth and fifteenth settings as a double-time countermelody in two parts. The sixteenth and seventeenth repetitions simplify to an abstract series of call-and-response arpeggios that loosely outline the melody. Finally, the parts join for a closing verse in rhythmic unison where the inner parts outline the melody under a constant high G.