Music for December 21, 2014 + The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Maria Walks amid the Thorn - David Cherwein (b. 1957)
• The Provençal Carol - Donald Busarow (1934-2011)

Instrumental Music

• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel – arr. Larry Dalton (1946-2009)
• Ave Maria von Arcadelt – Franz Liszt
• Magnificat primi toni (BuxWV 203) – Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 56 – O come, O come, Emanuel (VENI, VENI, EMMANUEL)
• Hymn 54 – Savior of the nations, come (NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND)
• Hymn 66 – Come, thou long expected Jesus (STUTTGART) 
• Canticle S-242: The Song of Mary (Magnificat) – Tonus Peregrinus

Two ancient Christmas melodies from two different countries provide the tunes for today's anthems. At the offertory you will hear the Minnesota composer David Cherwein's setting of the German Folk Song, Maria durch ein'n Dornwald ging, a sixteenth-century hymn traditionally sung in anticipation of Christmas during the Advent season. Although the melody is considered to be much older, its first appearances of lyrics and music together is the Gesangbuch of Andernach (1608) which claims that it was universally known and liked at that time.

Translated into English in the 1950s by Henry S. Drinker, the lyrics and hymn tune were introduced to Americans by Maria Augusta Trapp, (of Sound of Music fame) in her book, Around the Year with the Trapp Family (New York: Pantheon, 1955), who identifies this as a traditional Advent hymn.  

The lyrics combine the Greek text of the “Kyrie eleison” from the Ordinary of the Mass with a vernacular text (originally German, translated into English) that both tells of Mary’s pregnancy and her role as mother of Jesus,with the association of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the “spotless Rose”—a traditional image in German Christian hymnody.

The Annunciation. Fra Angelico c.1450. Fresco, 230 x 297. Museo di San Marco, Corridor, Florence, Italy

The other anthem is a setting of a Christmas Carol from the Provence region of France, arranged by the Lutheran composer, organist, and educator Donald Busarow. The tune first appeared in a collection of Provençal Noels in 1856, but Dr. Busarow wrote these lyrics suitable for the Gospel account of he Annunciation, in 1995. 

As this is the last Sunday of Advent, I like to include the well-known chant, Veni, Emmanuel. We'll sing it as a processional hymn, but I will also play a piano arrangement as the opening voluntary by a man known as Larry Dalton. He's unique among the composers I usually  play in that he is not Anglican, Lutheran or any other liturgical-based composer, but Pentecostal! In fact, he was once the music director for Oral Robert's Television program. The fact that this charismatic musician arranged and played this ancient chant is testimony to the popularity of this hymn, which appears in over fifty modern hymnals.

The communion voluntary is a piece by another talented pianist, Franz Liszt, though not for piano, but for the organ. Many people know that Liszt was known to be quite the ladies' man in his youth, with dashing good looks and a mesmeric personality and stage presence. Women fought over his silk handkerchiefs and velvet gloves, which they ripped to shreds as souvenirs. He had several affairs with married women. But in later years, he retreated from public life and joined the monastery Madonna del Rosario, just outside Rome. He was ordained to the four minor orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte, and was often called Abbé Liszt.  He wrote several organ works for liturgical use during this time, often based on famous choral works of the day. This work is based on an Ave Maria by Jacob Arcadelt (c. 1507 – 1568) , a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance.

Hymns: 
Hymn 56: O come, O come, Emanuel  - The text for "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" comes from a 7 verse poem that dates back to the 8th century. It was used during the Advent evening, service. The original text created the reverse acrostic "ero cras," which means "I shall be with you tomorrow," and is particularly appropriate for the advent season. The tune, VENI EMMANUEL was originally music for a Requiem Mass in fifteenth-century France. In 1854, an Anglican priest, Thomas Helmore adapted this chant tune and published it in The Hymnal Noted.

Hymn 54: Savior of the nations, come - One of the oldest hymn texts in our hymnal, St. Ambrose wrote this hymn ("Veni, Redemptor gentium") in the fourth century. The text appears in a number of eighth- and ninth-century manuscripts. Martin Luther translated this text into German ("Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland") in 1523. Various English translations have come down through the years. Like VENI EMMANUEL, this tune is derived from a chant which was found in  a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Einsiedeln manuscript. The adaptation of the tune was published in 1524 in an early Lutheran Hymnal. Johann S. Bach used the tune for preludes in the Clavierübung and Orgelbüchlein and in his cantatas 36 and 62.

Hymn 66: Come, thou long expected Jesus - Charles Wesley wrote this Advent hymn and printed it in his Hymns for the Nativity of our Lord (1744). Like so many of Wesley's texts, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" alludes to one or more Scripture passages in virtually every phrase. The double nature of Advent is reflected in this text, in which we remember Christ's first coming even while praying for his return. Our hymnal uses the tune STUTTGART, which is from Psalmodia Sacra (1715), one of the most significant hymnals of the early eighteenth century, which paired the tune STUTTGART to the text "Sollt' es gleich."
The tune title STUTTGART relates to a story about Rev. C. A. Dann's banishment from his pulpit at St. Leonard's Church in Stuttgart in the early nineteenth century. When Dann was eventually invited back to his church, his congregation greeted him with the singing of "Sollt' es gleich." ("It seems right" or something like that.)

Canticle S-242: The Song of Mary (Magnificat) – Tonus Peregrinus. Instead of the Psalm today, we are going with the other option of Mary's song of praise upon hearing the news that she would bear the savior of the world. Like the psalms in Advent, we will chant to text to a Psalm tone, this time the Tonus Peregrinus (or "wandering tone"), a so-called "deviant" Psalm-tone since it uses two different reciting tones (an A for the first part of the psalm verse and a G for the second half), unlike the first eight Psalm tones which use the same note for both halves of the psalm verse.