Music for Sunday 28 November

I think everyone has a different sense of how Advent looks and sounds.  For me, the accent of the season is decidedly German -- Bach's organ chorales for this season are an important part of my repertoire, and I've lost count of the number of years where I've done performances of various movements from his cantatas for the season.  This year is no exception.

Equally, some of the art I turn to at this time of the year has a decidedly northern European accent.  Albrecht Durer's engravings dealing with the end-of-times seem to take on a sharper edge during the next four weeks.  Likewise, in my reading, Thomas a Kempis comes back to the fore.  Blake is my Advent poet with similar intensity to T.S. Eliot for Lent.

One of the challenges of having a youth choir is helping them to understand why we sing some of the music that we do, and how it fits in with what's going on in the liturgy.  Some things, such as the Advent wreath, are pretty self-explanatory.  Kids are natural pyromaniacs, so anything involving lighting a special candle gets their attention.  Likewise, the change of colour in the vestments and other penitential features of the season -- such as giving the gloria a rest -- are easily understood.

I've assembled a little teaching exercise linking up the words of Zion hears the watchmen's voices to the readings associated with Bach's 140th Cantata.  The Gospel reading in the Lutheran lectionary for the year 1731 was the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.  The words of the hymn will be found here, although Bach's famous setting only uses the second verse.  The choir will be singing this piece for the Advent carols on 12 December, so it will be good to give them a richer sense it.  Perhaps the hardest thing is going to be getting them to understand that they're jumping through the same hoop as for their (by now) well-worn favourite, Jesu, joy of man's desiring; those who 'get it' will be the ones to drag the rest along in the performance!

Here's a sprightly performance of Zion from youtube, with Ton Koopman.

But back to this week...

There will be a joint parish mass at St Mary's, East Preston, followed by the Annual General Meeting.

I've alluded to some general seasonal variations in the service for the next four weeks, but there will be some local variations as well.  The choir will be singing the proper introit for the week throughout Advent, using the Francis Burgess psalm tone formula.  As we already use the Burgess tones for the offertory and communion sentences, this will make a nice set of chants to use at other times in the year.  Having arrived in the church, there will be a short service of light for the Advent wreath, including a hymn which gets longer with the season.  It's an old trick, but a good one!

The chant theme will be carried into the first part of the service, where we will be singing the Kyrie de Angelis.

The setting for the Sanctus, acclamations and Agnus Dei will be Michael Dudman's Parish Eucharist (Together in Song, 756).  

The readings will be found here.  The psalm will be sung to Anglican Chant.  The hymns will be as follows:

Service of Light: Come, thou long-expected Jesus [verse 1 only, 272]
Sequence: The advent of our God [271]
Offertory: Wake, awake, for night is flying [266]
Communion: Dona nobis pacem, Domine [713]