Music for December 5, 2021 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Come, Though Long Expected Jesus – Marty Wheeler Burnett (b. 1961)

Instrumental Music

• Benedictus – Alec Rowley (1892-1958)
• Partita on Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42) – Johann Pachelbel (1661–1733)
• Prepare the Way, O Zion – Paul Manz (1919-2009)

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

• Hymn 76 - On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (WINCHESTER NEW)
• Hymn R-128  - Blessed be the God of Israel (FOREST GREEN)
• Hymn 67 - Comfort, comfort, ye my people (PSALM 42)
• Hymn R-92 - Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 - Prepare the way, O Zion (BEREDEN VAG FOR HERRAN)

Marty Wheeler Burnett

This Sunday the choir sings a new anthem by Houston native (and friend of mine), Marty Wheeler Burnett. It is a lush setting of the famous Charles Wesley text, "Come, thou long expected Jesus," with a melody more suited to the feeling of longing and hope found in Wesley's words that the plodding tune found in our hymnal.

Marty got her degrees in organ performance from Rice University in 1988, and in 2010 she received her doctoral degree, with a liturgical music focus, from Sewanee: The University of the South. In 2020 Marty joined the faculty of  Virginia Theological Seminary as the Associate Professor of Church Music and Director of Chapel Music.

Prior to her appointment at VTS, Marty led and coordinated the music ministry at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska. An award-winning educator, Burnett previously served as Director of Fine Arts and Associate Professor of Music at College of Saint Mary in Omaha. She is the immediate past-president of the Association of Anglican Musicians, an organization of musicians and clergy serving the Episcopal Church.

+ + +

As you know, each Sunday we sing a Psalm that is part of the lectionary readings for the day, but this year, three of the four Sundays in Advent designate a Canticle be sung instead of a Psalm. (A Canticle is a hymn or chant, typically with a biblical text, forming a regular part of a church service. The most common Canticle is Glory to God in the highest (Gloria in excelsis), which is Canticle 6 (Rite I) or 20 (Rite II). The canticle for Advent II is Canticle 4 or 16, The Song of Zechariah (Benedictus Dominus Deus). That's why I am playing a piece called Benedictus for the opening voluntary. However, it is not based on the canticle, but on two lines from a poem by Christina Rossetti, a litany of praise entitled: "All Thy Works Praise Thee, O Lord: A Processional Of Creation".  Those two lines are

Christina Rossetti

I bring refreshment —  I bring ease and calm.

Because so much of Rossetti's poetry is Christian, one can assume that Rossetti is talking about Christ. But in this poem (very much like a canticle, actually), Rossetti has each individual piece of creation sing a three line hymn of praise, starting with seraphs, cherubs, angels, heavens, sun, moon, comets, winds, fire, heat, winter, spring, frost, night, light, thunder, clouds, until we finally get down to Medicinal Herbs, who sing:

I bring refreshment,—

                      I bring ease and calm,—

I lavish strength and healing,—

                                I am balm,—

We work His pitiful* Will and chant our psalm.

Alec Rowley was an English composer, organist, and pianist who taught composition at Trinity College in London. His name was known to many through his writing and through the many educational pieces that he wrote, staple fare for many a beginner or amateur player. His more demanding work as a composer has been unfairly neglected, save for the music he wrote for choirs and organ.

* at Rossetti's time, 'pitiful' still had the alternate meaning of 'compassionate.'