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Evan Stephens’ “Hosannah Anthem” was written for and performed at the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple in Utah on April 6th, 1893. William W. Phelps’ “The Spirit of God” was performed at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in Ohio on March 27th, 1836.

Hymns are generally designed to be easy to learn and easy to sing by those with little to no musical skills, where as anthems are more complex and usually require singers with definite musical abilities. This is why the United States has a national anthem (mostly due to the range) instead of a national hymn. The S.A.T.B. parts of this piece are definitely well within the anthem category.

01/13/2024 Update: I found some transcription errors I made in measures 34 and 39 which have now been corrected.

12/31/2023 Update: The version below has been transposed down from the original key of B flat to instead start in the key of G so that the sopranos and tenors aren't voiced so high. I was originally reluctant to post this version because I felt it lost some of its zing by transposing it down, but I have grown more comfortable with it over time, especially if it makes it more accessible to the choirs that will learn and perform it. Because this version is voiced lower, I was able to fill out the final amens a bit more. The version in the original key, along with some additional information, follows this one.Hosannah Anthem – Evan Stephens (G) by Jason Hunsaker

This version is in the original key of B flat.
Hosannah Anthem – Evan Stephens (B flat) by Jason Hunsaker

This is a transcription of the original version that was published in “The Contributor” in April 1893. Source scan: https://archive.org/details/contributor1406eng/page/312/mode/2up 

After I completed my initial transcription, I found another engraving for comparison which was made in 1950 for the collection "Eight Favorite Anthems by Evan Stephens." In 1980, an arrangement by Darwin Wolford was published which is still under copyright but can be found here. Wolford's arrangement reduces some of the complexity of Stephens' original work. You can hear a performance of Wolford’s arrangement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KQdZMTqvkI

In this transcription, I updated the notation and ended up making some editorial decisions. 


I changed “hosanna” at the beginning to the less common spelling of “hosannah” to match the title and to match the use at measure 45 onward through the end of the piece.


I added piano, forte, etc. dynamic marks throughout and made various hidden tempo changes so that the playback sounds closer to the way this piece is typically performed.


At beat 3 of measure 3, the lowest bass note in the organ appears to be printed as an F2-flat. I changed it to G2-flat because that made more sense, and it looked like an engraving error to me.
 The 1950 engraving made the same change as I did.

I changed the downbeat of measure 6 and beat 3 of measure 8 from quarter notes to eighth notes because I preferred the way it made the playback sound, and I filled in the missing ties.


At measure 9, the lowest bass note is printed as an F2, but I switched it to a G2 because that made more sense.
 The 1950 engraving made the same change as I did.

The 1950 engraving clarified that the pickup notes to measure 13 are 16th notes instead of the 8th notes they appear to be in the 1893 engraving. This also helped that fanfare sound less random.

At the downbeat of measure 18, the 1950 engraving adds a B2 in the bass and Wolford does the same in the corresponding part of his arrangement. While this might have been an omission from the 1893 engraving, I chose to leave it out because I preferred the way it sounded.

At measure 27 on beat 4, I changed the bass note from F3 to F3-sharp because it made more musical sense, and the lack of a sharp symbol could have been an inadvertent omission by the 1893 engraver. The 1950 engraving made the same change as I did.

At measure 28, the tenor note is missing. The stem and a ledger line are there, but the notehead is missing. The 1950 engraving and Wolford both put a D4 here. Initially, because I felt it disrupted the flow less, I put an E4-natural and added a courtesy accidental since the tenors just came from E4-flat. But in the end, I followed the 1950 engraving and Wolford here once I noticed that with the D4 it was essentially a two-five-one chord progression (vi7 - VII - I6 - #Iº7 - IIsus4 [II7sus4] - V7 - I - V7 - I, instead of: vi7 - VII - I6 - #Iº7 - V - V7 - I - V7 - I).

At measure 31, I changed the down beat from a dotted quarter note to a quarter note and eighth rest because the playback sounded better that way.


From measure 52 thru measure 59 the 1893 engraver left some minor ambiguity in the SATB parts regarding which syllables are supposed to go with which notes, particularly for the sopranos. The 1950 engraving didn't clarify anything here, and Wolford did his own thing here to reduce some of the complexity. I have spelled this out based on what looked like a reasonable interpolation to me.


At measure 71, I changed the second beat of the lowest bass note in the organ from F2 to G2 because it looked like an engraving error.
 The 1950 engraving kept it as F2 while Wolford also changed it to G2.

At measure 72, I changed beat 3 in the tenor from C4 to D4 because the C didn’t fit with the rest of the chord being played.
 The 1950 engraving kept it as C4 while Wolford did his own thing here but also with a D4 in the tenor.

(If you are unfamiliar with terms such as C4, D4, F2, etc. you can find information on Scientific Pitch Notation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch_notation .)