Christmas Eve, 6:30

Vocal Music

• Ding Dong Merrily on High – Charles Wood (1866-1926)
• On Christmas Night – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
• Infant Holy, Infant Lowly – arr. David Willcocks (1919-2015)
• Christmas Mass for St. William’s – Richard Shephard (1949-2021)
• Psalm 96 (based on "Vom Himmel Hoch") – Thomas Pavlechko (b. 1962)

Instrumental Music

• Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her– Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
• In the Bleak Midwinter – Allen Orton Gibbs (1910-1996)
• Festive Flourish On 'Joy To The World' – Michael Dell (b. 1959)

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

• Hymn 83 - O come, all ye faithful (ADESTE FIDELIS)
• Hymn 87 - Hark! The herald angels sing (MENDELSSOHN)
• Hymn 96 - Angels we have heard on high (GLORIA)
• Hymn 101 - Away in a Manger (CRADLE SONG)
• Hymn 111 - Silent night, holy night (STILLE NACHT)
• Hymn 100 - Joy to the world (ANTIOCH)

This has been a tough year for the choir, rebuilding from the year of no rehearsals. We've lost people to sickness, retirement, or refusal to vaccinate. So the choir anthems are familiar carols from years past. New to us this year is a setting of the ordinary of the mass (Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) which is based on traditional but lesser known carols. (Besançon; Sussex Carol; Joseph Dearest; This Endris Night). 

Christmas Mass for St. William's was written by English composer Richard Shephard, who died this year. He is acclaimed as one of the most significant composers of church music today. Dr. Shephard was educated at The King’s School, Gloucester and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 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 held 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).

Like the choral music, the organ works are all based on Christmas hymns. The first is based on a traditional German Chorale (text by Martin Luther) arranged by Johann Pachelbel of the Canon fame. It has two settings, actually. The first is a trio, with the pedal carrying the melody. The second begins as a fughetta, using the opening phrase of the hymn as its subject. It then turns into a brilliant toccata, again with the melody in the pedal.

The second organ prelude is on the tune Cranham by Gustav Holst. It is by Alabama composer Allen Orton Gibbs. She was a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatory of Music (now the Music Department of Birmingham-Southern College), where she later became a member of the faculty. An organist and pianist, for many years she was organist at McCoy United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Her compositions include works in a variety of genres: choral anthems, organ works, vocal solos, hymn tunes, and music for handbells. Most of her compositions were written for her own use, or for friends and colleagues, or to fulfill commissions. Since her death in 1996, many of these have been published.

The closing voluntary is one of my favorite Christmas works for organ. Micahel Dell used Henri Mulet's toccata Tu Es Petra (Thou art the Rock) as an outline for his flourish on "Joy to the World." The melody can be heard as a canon, alternating between the hands and the feet

Music for December 20, 2015 + The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Vocal Music

• Gabriel's Message– arr. David Willcocks (1919-2015)
• Ave Maria – J. S. Bach/Charles Gounod (1818-1893)

Instrumental Music

• Savior, of the Nations, Come BWV 659, 661– J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982)

• Hymn 74 - Blest be the King whose coming (Valet will ich dir geben)
• Hymn 54 - Savior of the nations, come! (Nun komm der Heiden Heiland)
• Hymn 66 - Come, thou long expected Jesus (Stuttgart)
• Hymn 60 - Creator of the stars of night (Conditor alme siderum)
• Hymn 436 - Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates (Truro)

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896

The last Sunday in Advent focuses on the Annunciation, that moment in our story when the Angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her that she is going to be the Mother of the Christ. To keep with the Gospel story, the choir sings David Willcocks' lovely a cappella setting of the Basque Carol, Gabriel's Message. This carol is based on 'Birjina gaztettobat zegoen, collected by Charles Bordes and published in the series Archives de la tradition basque, 1895. The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who wrote several novels and hymns (including 'Onward Christian soldiers) and who had spent a winter as a boy in Basque lands, translated the carol into English, reducing the original 6 stanzas to 4 and giving Gabriel the very beautiful and very Victorian 'wings as drifted snow'.

Sir David Valentine Willcocks

Sir David Willcocks, whom Britain's The Independent newspaper called "one of the most remarkable musicians of his generation," died this year at the age of 95. He became forever connected to Christmas when, in  1957 he became Organist of King's College, Cambridge, which already had a fine reputation courtesy of their annual Christmas Eve broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons And Carols. Over the coming years, this would be enhanced by greater television exposure and the newly emerging stereo LP. 

His connection to Christmas Choral music was further cemented in 1961 with the publication of the first of four volumes of choral music called Carols for Choir. His collaboration with John Rutter has influenced the course of choral music for Christmas for over 50 years. We'll be performing three of his carol arrangements on Christmas Eve (6:30 and 10 PM).

In 1853, French composer, Charles Gounod improvised a melody to Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major, which Bach published in 1722 as part of The Well Tempered Clavier - a book of clavier (keyboard) music Bach wrote to demonstrate the versatility of the 'new' even temperament method of tuning. Gounod's work was originally published for violin/cello with piano and harmonium, but in 1859, after receiving a request from Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann (Gounod's future father-in-law who transcribed Gounod's improvisation) Jacques Léopold Heugel released a vocal version with the melody set to the text of the Ave Maria prayer. Jade Panares, one of our choral scholars and a vocal performance major at the University of Houston, will sing this beautiful setting during communion today.