Music for December 2, 2018 + Advent I

Vocal Music

• Christ Hath a Garden – Gerald Near (b. 1942)
• Missa Oecumenica in Byzantine Style - Richard Proulx (1937-2010)

Instrumental Music

• Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott (BWV 602) – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Creator of the stars of night – Gerald Near
• Herr Christ, der ein'ge Gottes-Sohn (BWV 601) – Johann Sebastian Bach

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 57 - Lo! he comes with clouds descending (HELMSLEY)
• Hymn 60, st 6 - Creator of the stars of night (CONDITOR ALME SIDERUM)
• Spiritual - Steal away to Jesus (STEAL AWAY)
• Hymn R278 - Wait for the Lord (Taizé Community)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (TRURO)
• Psalm 25:1-9 – Tone Ig

This anthem by the American organist and composer Gerald Near was published in 1973. The tune is based on the Scottish folk song "O Waly, Waly," best known as "The Water Is Wide" or "The Gift of Love." The words are from a hymn by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), a Nonconformist minister and prolific hymnodist whose many well-known works include the words to the carol "Joy to the World" and "O God, Our Help in Ages Past."

Watts's original verses ("We are a garden walled around / Chosen and made peculiar ground; / A little spot enclosed by grace / Out of the world’s wide wilderness") were adapted in the late 19th century by Robert Bridges – physician, future poet laureate of the UK and a selfless champion of the work of his friend Gerard Manley Hopkins, whom he knew to be a much better poet. I love the last two stanzas, which are appropriate for Advent:

Awake, O wind of heav'n and bear
Their sweetest perfume through the air:
Stir up, O south, the boughs that bloom,
Till the beloved Master come:

That he may come, and linger yet
Among the trees that he hath set;
That he may evermore be seen
To walk amid the springing green.

Near also wrote the communion organ voluntary based on the Gregorian hymn for Advent "Conditor alme siderum." (Hymn 60 - we'll be singing it each Sunday as the presentation hymn.) This same chant is the basis for the melody of the Advent chorale Lob sei dem allmächtigen Gott. 

J. S. Bach included that chorale in his Orgelbuchlein, a collection of organ works based on hymns from the Lutheran church. Bach had planned 146 chorale preludes arranged according to the seasons of the church year, but only finished 46. Bach provided titles of two texts for this chorale. The first of these, Praise to the almighty God, an Advent hymn, is the likely basis for the prelude. The second, actually a table grace, bears no liturgical relationship to Advent or Christmas. It is the last of four Advent hymns in the collection.