Music for December 18 , 2016 + The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Hail, Blessed Virgin Mary – arr. Charles Wood (1866-1926)

Instrumental Music

• Savior of the Nations, Come! – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 475 - God himself is with us (Tysk)
• Hymn 56, st. 7-8 - O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni, veni, Emmanuel)
• Hymn 54 - Savior, of the nations, come! (Nun komm, der Heiden Heilend)
• Hymn 59, st. 3-5 - Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (Merton)
• Hymn R26 - Jesus, name above all names (tune)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (Stuttgart)
• Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18 - Qui regis Israel

Charles Wood

Before there was Mack Wilberg, (1), before there John Rutter (2), before there was David Willcocks (3), there was Charles Wood.

Charles Wood was an Irish composer and teacher. (His pupils included Ralph Vaughan Williams at Cambridge and Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music.) He is chiefly known, however, as an Anglican Church musician. His anthems, especially Expectans expectavi, O Thou, the Central Orb, and  Hail, gladdening light, are both frequently performed and recorded.


His four-part settings of traditional English and European Carols were in use before the compilation of the popular Oxford Book of Carols. Two of his carols are among the pieces that we are singing this year during the Advent and Christmas season. Hail, Blessed Virgin Mary, is a traditional carol from Italy first published in 1920. Anglican priest George Ratcliffe Woodward translated the original 17th century Italian verse depicting the Annunciation.

All the organ music today is by Bach, from his organ collection Clavierübung, and all are based on the same tune, Nun Komm Der Heiden Heilend.  Clavierübung literally means “keyboard practice,” - the pieces both provide an opportunity to develop skill, as well as demonstrate the technical and stylistic conventions of keyboard composition and performance.  It is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his musically most complex and technically most demanding compositions for that instrument. The work is sometimes referred to as the German Organ Mass: between its opening and closing movements—the prelude and "St Anne" fugue—are 21 chorale preludes, setting parts of the Lutheran mass and catechisms. The chorale preludes range from compositions for single keyboard to a six-part fugal prelude with two parts in the pedal.

Nun Komm Der Heiden Heilend is a chorale derived from a chant.  The tune dates from a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Einsiedeln manuscript. The adaptation of the tune, presumably by Johann Walther, was published in 1524. J. S. Bach used the tune for three preludes in the Clavierübung as well as the Orgelbüchlein and in his cantatas 36 and 62.

This hymn establishes that the Savior of the world came not only to Jews, but to “Heiden”—literally to the heathen. However, “Heiden” does not carry a negative connotation; it is simply a reference to the Gentiles. In this hymn text as a prayer, we bid our Savior, our coming King Jesus, to come and give us hope by His grace.

(1) Mack Wilberg, the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, is a composer/arranger well known for his Christmas Music.

(2) John Milford Rutter CBE is a British composer/arranger well known for his original Christmas carols and arrangements of traditional carols.

(3) David Willcocks CBE MC was a British choral conductor, organist, composer who compiled Carols for Choirs I, II, III and IV, volumes which became the quintessential Christmas Choral collection.