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 Spanish nationality 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 (odd-numbered…
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Guillaume Dufay: Conditor alme siderum
Here is another setting of Conditor alma siderum — our Sequence hymn for the season of Advent — and the earliest setting I’ll be presenting. It’s by a prominent 15th-century composer, Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474). Dufay was one of the leading composers of his time, and a widely influential figure in shaping the direction taken in the music of the Renaissance. Ordained a deacon, then a priest, Dufay became a member of the choir at the Papal chapel in Rome. But it was an era of great turmoil in the Church, with tumultuous Councils, schisms, and an antipope. Perhaps that explains why Dufay traveled a lot, which extended his aesthetic influence across Europe. In…
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Tomás Luis de Victoria: Conditor alme siderum
During Advent, our congregation often sings the hymn, “Creator, of the stars of light,” as our Sequence Hymn. As the name of the hymn’s tune suggests, this hymn is based on the 7th-century Latin hymn Conditor alme siderum. Victoria’s setting was written for four vocal parts. It includes all six verses of the Latin original, and alternates between plainchant (in the odd-numbered verses) and polyphony (in the even-numbered verses). This alternation was a very common compositional form in the Renaissance. Here is a performance of Victoria’s motet sung by Ensemble Nobiles.
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Recommended recording: Gregorian Chants (Advent)
Earlier this week, I recommended a recording of Advent music sung by an all-female group, the sisters of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The current recording features an all-male ensemble, CantArte Regensburg. This album includes traditional Gregorian chant settings of many texts used liturgically during Advent, including texts from the propers for the Sundays in Advent (Introits, Gradual and Alleluia, Offertory, Communion) and the texts for the O antiphons, traditionally sung at Vespers during the last week of Advent. There are different ways of chanting these venerable works. Sometimes one hears recordings of monks who seem to have among their ranks sincere but somnabular brothers whose chanting may convey…
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Third Sunday in Advent (December 16, 2018)
Our service will open with one of the most familiar of Advent hymns, “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” This hymn conveys ancient texts in the life of the Church, but its recovery within English-Language hymnody is in large measure thanks to priest-poet-translator John Mason Neale (1818-1866). His involvement with the Oxford Movement led to efforts to restore to more common use a number of profound hymns from the Church’s first millennium. The Introit chanted (or said) on the third Sunday in Advent is from the 4th chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” If our choir chanted that text in Latin,…
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Bach’s Advent cantatas, part 3: Schwingt freudig euch empor (BWV 36)
While most of the cantatas written by Johann Sebastian Bach were written for liturgical use, he also wrote a number of cantatas that are typically designated as “secular.” These were written to accompany festive civic celebrations, for the private enjoyment of noble patrons and their guests, and for other public performances. Conductor Masaaki Suzuki — who with the Bach Collegium Japan has recorded all of Bach’s cantatas — has commented that “in Bach’s attitude toward composing there was no difference between sacred and secular cantatas, in spite of some technical differences derived from the different aim. And this is probably how he has felt about his life in — and…
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Recommended recording: Advent at Ephesus
Not far from the ancient city of Ephesus is a small stone building traditionally known by Christians and Muslims as the “house of Mary.” Since the 19th century, the building has been maintained as a shrine to the Virgin Mother of Jesus. About 5,900 miles away — an hour’s drive north of Kansas City, Missouri — is the site of the Priory of Our Lady of Ephesus. It is the home of the small community of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The sisters living, working, praying, and singing there recognize a connection between their vocation and the house of Mary As their website explains: This little home is the…
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Second Sunday in Advent (December 9, 2018)
This Sunday, our processional hymn is “Savior of the nations, come.” For some reason, this venerable hymn didn’t get included in the 1940 Hymnal we sing from (although it is in the 1982 Hymnal of the Episcopal Church and in the recent Book of Common Praise, the hymnal used by our brothers and sisters in the Reformed Episcopal Church). We’ll sing it from an insert in the bulletin with a harmonization taken from the final chorale of one of J. S. Bach’s cantatas for Advent. Our sequence hymn will again be “Creator of the stars of night.” Some remarkable arrangements of this melody are featured on the recording of Advent music I…
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Recommended recording: German Advent Music
What might one expect from an album with the subtitle German Advent Music? From what genealogy does this music emerge? In Music in Early Lutheranism, an introductory guide to the tradition that gave the Church some of its most enduring musical achievements, Carl Schalk writes: The first two centuries of the Lutheran Reformation — the period between Martin Luther and Johann Sebastian Bach — produced a singularly impressive body of music written specifically for the worship life of the church. Less often noted is that this music developed as a clear result of Lutheranism’s understanding of worship and the important place it gave to the art form it considered next in importance to…
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Bach’s Advent cantatas, part 2: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland II (BWV 62)
In Lutheran Germany in the early 18th century, the first Sunday in Advent was the last time until Christmas when any elaborate music would be heard in church services. The relative austerity of the second, third, and fourth Sundays in Advent served to focus attention on the prospect of Christ’s return in judgment. It also gave church musicians an opportunity to concentrate their energy on preparing for the grueling demands of the Christmas season. Advent of 1724 was J. S. Bach’s second season as Kapellmeister at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. For the first Sunday in Advent that year he wrote a second cantata based on Luther’s Advent hymn, Nun…