Music for December 4, 2016 + The Second Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Adam Lay Ybounden – Richard Shephard (b. 1949)

Instrumental Music

• Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Comfort, Comfort Ye, My People – Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• 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 616 Hail to the Lord’s anointed (Es flog ein kleins Waldvogelein)
• Hymn 56, st. 3-4 O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni, veni, Emmanuel)
• Hymn 67 Comfort, comfort ye, my people (Psalm 42)
• Hymn 59 Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding (Merton)
• Hymn R92 Prepare the way of the Lord (Taizé)
• Hymn 65 Prepare the way, O Zion (Berenden vag for Herran) 
• Psalm 72 - Deus, judicium – tone VIIIa

Adam Lay Ybounden is a poem from the 15th Century by an anonymous British poet. It's commonly heard around Christmas time as it extols the reason Christ was born.

Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond,
Four thousand winter thoughte he not to long;
And al was for an appil, and appil that he tok,
As clerkes fyndyn wrytyn, (wrytyn) in hire book.
Ne hadde this apple taken been, this apple taken been,
Ne hadde nevere Oure Lady (ybeen)* (hevene) Queen.
Blessed be this time that apple taken was:
Therfore we mown  singen Deo Gratias.

(here is a loose modernization of the text)
Adam lay bound up, bound by his sin

Four thousands years was not too long,

and it was all because of the apple that he took.
as clergy find it written in their book (Bible)
Had never the apple been taken,
then never would our Lady (Mary) had been the queen of heaven.
Blessed be the time this apple was taken!
Therefore we can sing Deo Gracias! (Thanks to God!)

It is a popular text to accompany the reading of the first lesson (about Adam and Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden) read in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols made famous by the choir of King's College Cambridge. Most often it is a setting by Boris Ord, the director of the choir from 1929 until 1957, that is sung, but other musical settings by Benjamin Britten and Peter Warlock are in common usage, too. The music we are singing today was written by English composer and organist Richard Shephard for Robert Delcamp and the University Choir, Sewannee, Tennessee, for their Lessons and Carol service sung each year at the University of the South.

Richard Shephard, MBE

Shephard was educated at The King’s School, Gloucester and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was formerly Headmaster of the Minster School in York from 1985-2004 and now serves as Chamberlain of York Minster and Director of Development for the Minster, responsible for raising funding for conservation work at the cathedral. He is an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Music Department of the University of York. 

His compositions include operas, oratorios and orchestral works but it is perhaps for his church music that he is best known. His anthems and service settings are sung widely in the cathedrals and churches of the UK and they have a considerable following in the USA. He holds the Lambeth Doctorate of Music from Oxford University and two Honorary Doctorates from the University of the South (Sewanee, TN) and the University of York (York, UK).