In 1714, while he was a court musician in Weimar, Johann Sebastian Bach composed a cantata for the first Sunday in Advent. It was first sung on December 2 of that year. The text for the opening chorus was from a very early Lutheran hymn, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, “Now come, savior of the Gentiles.” This cantata — as do all of Bach’s cantatas — takes its name from that opening line. There is sometimes a Roman numeral I at the end of the title, to distinguish it from a later cantata with the same opening text and hence the same name. (N.B.: This cantata is also known as Cantata #61, or…
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Advent service from St. John’s, Cambridge, on the BBC website
At 3:00 PM (GMT) on the first Sunday in Advent (December 2), the BBC will broadcast “A Service for Advent with Carols from the Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge. You may listen to a recording of that broadcast here. The program for the service is as follows: Carol: Adam lay ybounden (Boris Ord) Processional Hymn: O come, O come, Emmanuel! (Veni Emmanuel) Carol: E’en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come (Manz) I The Message of Advent Sentence and Collect Antiphons: O Sapientia and O Adonai First lesson: Isaiah 11 vv.1-5 Carol: Tomorrow shall be my dancing day (James Burton) Second lesson: 1 Thessalonians 5 vv.1-11 Sacred Song: Einklang (Hugo Wolf) II…
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Recommended recording: Advent at St. Paul’s
In a 1952 essay called “The World’s Last Night,” C. S. Lewis critiqued one of the great modern myths, a belief he called “developmentalism.” We have been taught to think of the world as something that grows slowly toward perfection, something that “progresses” or “evolves.” Christian Apocalyptic offers us no such hope. It does not even foretell (which would be more tolerable to our habits of thought) a gradual decay. It foretells a sudden, violent end imposed from without; an extinguisher popped onto the candle, a brick flung at the gramophone, a curtain rung down on the play — “Halt!” Lewis went on to urge Christians to give more attention to…
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Creator of the stars of night
Hymn #6Text: Anonymous, 9th century;translated by John Mason Neale (1818-1866)Music: Sarum Plainsong, Mode IVTune name: CONDITOR ALME THE TEXT This hymn is a translation and slight musical adaptation of a 7th-century Latin hymn, Conditor alme siderum. Not surprisingly — since this text refers to the stars of night and to the coming of the Savior into the world — this hymn was first sung in monasteries during Advent as part of Vespers (comparable to our Evening Prayer liturgy). The point of view presented in the hymn is clearly one anticipating the Second Advent in light of the history that led to and beyond Christ’s first coming. The first five verses…
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Conditor alme siderum
This Advent hymn dates back at least to the 7th Century. At one time it was attributed to St. Ambrose, but his authorship is no longer considered likely. It has long been sung during Advent, especially at Vespers services.. Here is the hymn chanted by the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz, a monastery in the southern part of the Vienna woods: This chant has served as the basis for motets written by many composers, including Guillaume Dufay, Orlande de Lassus, Francisco Guerrero, Giovanni Luigi da Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Ludwig Senfl, Michael Praetorius, and Jean Titelouze. Below is the Latin text and a fairly literal English translation. The translation in…
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Francisco Guerrero: Conditor alme siderum
This is the third in a series of “lessons” about how Renaissance composers explored the musical potential of the plainchant melody in Conditor alme siderum. In English translation (“Creator of the stars of night”) this hymn has been our Sequence hymn during Advent. (The earlier pieces featured compositions by Victoria and Dufay.) Francisco Guerrero (1528-1599) shares a Spanish origin with Tomás Luis de Victoria. But while Victoria spent much of his career in Rome, Guerrero spent most of his life in Spain, and most of that time making music at the Cathedral in Seville. His setting of the 6 verses of Conditor alme siderum — like Victoria’s — alternates between plainsong…
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Come, thou long-expected Jesus
Hymn #1Text: Charles Wesley (1707-1788)Music: Christian F. Witt (c.1660-1716)Tune name: STUTTGART THE TEXT This Advent hymn was first published in Charles Wesley’s Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord (1744). As every good Advent hymn should do, it refers to both comings of our Lord, with numerous biblical allusions. The first and second stanzas reflect the longing of ancient Israel for a Redeemer. The third stanza connects Christ’s rule of all things with his rule in us, an idea picked up in the last stanza with the reference of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us, coupled with an anticipation of our ascent to the presence of God. THE TUNE…