November 30, 2007
Opening Hymn: Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel
I Soloist: Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, Oh Israel.
II Congregation: Oh Come, Oh Wisdom from on high
Who orders all things mightily
To us the path of knowledge show
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, Oh Israel.
III Choir: O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, Oh Israel.
IV Together: O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here
And drive away the shades of night
And pierce the clouds and bring us light.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, Oh Israel.
Good Evening. I’d like to welcome you tonight to the Cathedral of the Holy Family for what we hope will become an annual tradition of hosting an Advent Carol Sing-Along.
With such beautiful voices as these two soloists showed in our opening hymn it should be no difficulty in making this an annual event. Our thanks tonight to soloists Elizabeth Skrypczyck and Alec Reutter.
My name is Mike Malcolm and I serve the Cathedral parish as Director of our Youth and Young Adult Ministries and I will be your host tonight.
I think if you asked the average Catholic what his or her favorite season of the Church year was, most of them would say ‘Advent’; and if you asked them “why?” well, they would tell you that there is something special about the Church’s tradition of Advent hymns and carols, something so rich and so ‘evocative’ that it would be hard to imagine what Advent could sound like without the familiar notes of ‘Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel” echoing in our hearts after the first Sunday of Advent.
I also think that many of us might complain that since Advent usually lasts less than four full weeks, we don’t get to hear all our favorite hymns and carols. We just have too many favorites and each of them brings with it its own special memories.
So - since we don’t get a chance to hear all of our favorite carols - tonight we thought it would be fun to bring together singers and musicians and people - like yourselves - who love Advent and Christmas and give everyone an extra chance to sing our hearts out.
That’s our plan for tonight.
But our purpose is also to introduce you to one or two new carols, to let a couple of our parish choirs enjoy the spotlight, and finally to have a little fun by sharing with you the surprising history behind some of these pious pieces.
Did you know, for example, that “Oh Come all Ye Faithful” was originally written as a call to arms? It’s true!
Father John Francis Wade, who penned both the melody and the lyrics in about 1740, wanted to rouse sympathy and support for the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in his attempt to re-capture the throne of Great Britain for the Stuarts.
But when the Bonnie Prince finally landed on the coast of Scotland in 1745, he had only 9 soldiers with him, which probably goes to show that John Francis Wade’s vocation was to write beautiful hymns, rather than military recruiting songs.
In the version we sing tonight, we have included one of Wade’s original verses with the original chorus. Now, remember, when you sing it, that the ‘King’ here actually refers to a ‘Prince,’ Bonnie Prince Charlie.
2nd Hymn: Adeste Fideles
Adeste, fideles,
Læti, triumfantes,
Venite, venite in Bethlehem
Natum Videte, Regem angelorum
Venite, adoremus,
Venite, adoremus
Venite, adoremus, Dominum!
Child, for us sinners
come with none to welcome,
Fain we’d embrace thee with love and awe
Who would not love thee,
loving us so dearly?
Domine, salvum fac,
Domine, salvum fac,
Domine, salvum fac, regem nostrum!
Partly as a result of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s failed revolution, thousands and thousands of Scottish Catholics and Nonconformists fled their homes in the Scottish highlands to find refuge in the southern American colonies, principally in North and South Carolina.
Finding the English presence still too strong along the coast, these Scots-Irish fled further into the interior of the country, where eventually they settled the vast Appalachian Mountain region. In the relative isolation of their hills and hollows, they were able to preserve an incredible store of beautiful carols which have served since then to enrich our national musical treasure.
During the 1930s, folklorist John Jacob Niles travelled throughout the Appalachian Mountains to collect these ancient remnants. In the little town of Murphy, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, Niles heard a young girl named Annie Morgan singing a carol of such incomparable sweetness that he asked her to sing the few notes over and over, paying her a few pennies each time, until he had jotted it all down in his notebook.
The melody’s minor key; the minor intervals and unfinished cadences, as well as the poem’s deep pensiveness, make I Wonder as I Wander unique among American carols.
Our soloists are David and Donna Reneau.
3rd Hymn: I Wonder as I wander
I. Donna:
I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on'ry people like you and like I …
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
II. David:
When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall,
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God's heaven a star's light did fall,
And the Promised of Ages it then did recall.
III. Mixed voices:
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's angels in heav'n for to sing,
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King.
Some scholars are of the opinion that Niles must have written this song himself, but I like to think of him sitting at the feet of little Annie Morgan listening to her clear sweet voice as she sang it for him.
There is no doubt about the author of our next hymn. It is Aaron Garber, a very young and very accomplished American composer and director.
Director of Music at College Lutheran Church, in Salem, Virginia, Garber made his Carnegie Hall debut this past summer conducting this setting of Our Lady’s Magnificat from St. Luke’s Gospel. We are very pleased to welcome cellist Phil Ince and flautist Robin Hill as they accompany the choir from Saint Bernard’s Parish, under the direction of Anne Roberts, in Aaron Garber’s “My Soul Magnifies the Lord.”
Musicologists make lots of clear distinctions between various types of Advent and Christmas music, clarifying all the differences between carols, hymns, cantatas, and other pieces of chorale music, many of which were not originally written to celebrate the Christmas season but have become so identified now with this liturgical season, that one would be hard pressed to imagine them being sung at any other time of the year.
One such piece is Handel’s famous “Allelujah Chorus” which we will sing later this evening.
Another chorale identified with Christmas - but not originally intended for this season - is Sleepers Awake! for Night is Flying.
Its author, Philip Nicolai, never intended this as a Christmas hymn; but it has been so permanently adopted by the Spirit of “Christmas ever-present” that we would never expect to hear it any other time of the year, and certainly not at a funeral, although it was written as a Christian meditation on death.
Nicolai was a Lutheran pastor serving his flock in the city of Unna, in Westphalia, during the last decade of the sixteenth century. Beginning in July of 1597, the town was ravaged by a terrible pestilence which lasted until the following January. During these seven months, Nicolai recalled times when he celebrated the funerals of as many as 30 of his parishioners in a single day.
All told, some 1,300 died and were buried.
Pastor Nicolai was especially moved by the death of his fifteen-year-old pupil, Count Wilhelm Ernst who died on September 16, 1598, in the very midst of this horror.
Confronted by so much anguish, and himself filled with grief, Nicolai contemplated with meaning of death for a Christian and turning his enormous musical talent to the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins in the 25th chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Nicolai wrote his most famous hymn: “Sleepers Awake! for Night is Flying!”
Generations later, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote one of his most beloved cantatas to enshrine the deep spiritual insight offered by Philip Nicolai’s contemplation of death. Tonight we will first sing Wake, O Wake, and then we will hear Bach’s chorale prelude to this piece, played by the cathedral organist, Ernest Neal.
5th Hymn Wake, O Wake, and Sleep no Longer
Wake, O wake, and sleep no longer,
For He who calls you is no stranger,
Awake! God’s own Jerusalem!
Hear the midnight bells are chiming,
The signal for his royal coming,
Let voice to voice announce his name!
We feel his footsteps near,
the Bridegroom at the door,
Alleluia!
The lamps will shine with light divine
As Christ our savior comes to reign.
Zion hears the sound of singing,
Our hearts are thrilled with sudden longing:
She stirs and wakes, and stands prepared.
Christ, her friend and Lord and lover,
Her star and sun and strong redeemer -
At last his mighty voice is heard.
The Son of God has come
To make with us his home
Sing Hosanna!
The fight is won, the feast begun
We fix our eyes on Christ alone.
As you can tell, Christmas music isn’t always ‘Christmasy.’
Or perhaps it might be better to say that not every hymn we consider a Christmas Hymn was originally written for Christmas. Certainly Sleepers Awake! was not. But we do have a second Bach prelude tonight which serves as a magnificent introduction to what might well be the first Advent hymn ever written.
The contender for that honor would be the Latin hymn - Veni Redemptor Gentium - which was written by Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, about the year 395.
Equally known by its English or German titles, Savior of the Nations, Come! and Nun Komm Der Heiden Heiland, the chorale prelude which we will hear tonight allows the incredible musical genius of Bach to shine through without ever overwhelming the spiritual purity of St. Ambrose’ composition.
By the way, while Saint Ambrose, who wrote Savior of the Nations, Come! at the close of the fourth century, is often called the Father of Latin Hymnody, any good Lutheran would want to remind us that the text of St. Ambrose’ work which Bach used was the 1523 German translation by Martin Luther.
After we sing two verses of Savior of the Nation’s Come!, the Cathedral organist, Ernest Neal, will play Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale prelude for the hymn.
6th Hymn Savior of the Nations, Come!
Savior of the nations, come, show the glory of the Son!
Marvel now, Oh heaven and earth, that Our Lord chose such a birth.
From the Godhead forth You came, and return unto the same,
Captive leading death and hell, high the song of triumph swell!
You, the chosen Holy One, have o'er sin the victory won.
Boundless shall Your kingdom be; when shall we its glories see?
Before we return to some simple American carols, let’s look at another contender for the honor of the ‘First Advent Hymn’ ever written.
As we have heard, one very strong possibility, is the hymn Veni Redemptor Gentium written by Saint Ambrose. But at the same time that Ambrose was serving as Bishop in Milan, there was another poet and composer writing in Spain, whose name was Marcus Aurelius Prudentius.
A native of Zaragoza in Spain and a lawyer by training, Prudentius had grown increasingly disenchanted with the practice of law and the corruption which he saw at the court of the Emperor Theodosius I. Retiring from public life about the year 395, Prudentius was determined to spend the rest of his life honoring God by composing hymns to be sung at Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.
Lawyers, as you can imagine, are never at a loss for words and Prudentius’ most famous hymn ‘Of the Father’s Love Begotten,’ was originally written with twenty-four verses, one for each hour of the day.
It was translated into English by John Mason Neale in 1851, who also translated Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel which we sang to open our evening’s enjoyment.
We’ll sing Prudentius’ beautiful hymn tonight but with the original Latin ending to the verses:
7th Hymn, Choir/Congregation: Of the Father’s love begotten,
Ere the World from chaos rose
He is alpha and omega,
He the source and ending He
Of whatever is or has been,
or that future years shall see;
Sæculorum, sæculi.
Choir alone: This is He Whom seers in old time
Chanted of with one accord;
Whom the voices of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word;
Now He shines, the long expected,
Let creation praise its Lord;
Sæculorum, sæculi.
Congregation: He assumed this mortal body
frail and feeble, doomed to die
That the race from dust created
Might not perish utterly
Which the dreadful Law had sentenced
In the depths of hell to lie;
Sæculorum, sæculi.
As you know, we’re planning to close our evening with a kind of ‘do-it-yourself rendition’ of the Hallelujah Chorus by Handel.
This, I suppose, would fall under the supposition that anyone who can sing in a shower can manage to muddle his or her way through the most complicated baroque oratorio ever written.
But most of us are familiar enough with the Hallelujah chorus that we know how it should sound - and this should help us to manage our parts. But even more importantly, we want to inspire to do your very best by presenting first a solo performance of the chorus “Comfort Ye / Every Valley,” which is also taken from The Messiah.
We’ll get to that in a minute but before we turn to Handel, we wanted to teach you a little known American hymn, called: Christ the Apple Tree.
This hymn, set to a melody by Elizabeth Poston, is beautiful enough to deserve a wider audience in Church, but is rarely heard outside of the concert hall or perhaps on the occasional Christmas CD, where unfortunately it might be paired with the singing chipmunks’ version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”
Joshua Smith, an itinerant Baptist preacher, is sometimes credited as having authored the verses of Christ the Apple Tree; but more than likely Smith did not write the hymn, but simply included it in his collection of the best religious verse which came out of New England’s experience of the Great Awakening which he published as his own hymn bood in 1784.
The Great Awakening was a period of enormous religious enthusiasm, which swept across America from North to South in a sixty year period beginning about 1730. True to its name, this revival sought to awaken in the hearts of believers a deep longing for a personal relation with Christ.
An intensely felt conversion, followed by a passionately and emotionally felt sense of Christ’s presence are among the hallmarks of this piety, and helped to shaped the fervor as well of the anonymous author of Christ the Apple Tree.
Since you may have never heard this haunting melody before, we have printed the music in your booklet. This should help you master the final two lines of each verse.
We will also have a soloist sing the first two verses, so that you can hear how beautifully the melody carries the message. Then together we can sing the final three verses.
8th Hymn Christ the Apple Tree
I. Soloist: The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.
II. Soloist: His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.
III. All: For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.
IV. All: I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.
V All: This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.
While Handel’s Easter oratorio The Messiah is too large and too complicated a piece of music to be accessible as a hymn in most parish congregations, it remains one of the most widely performed pieces of Christmas music and the final scene of the second act, the celebration of God’s triumph over sin and death in Christ - the Hallelujah Chorus - is known the world over.
Handel wrote his most famous religious oratorio at a furious pace, completing the entire work on September 14, 1741 after just twenty-four days. The premier performance was given in Dublin the following Spring, which would seem curious to us, since we consider this the pre-eminent orchestration in celebration of Christmas.
The truth, however, is that Handel conceived of his work as a summary of the whole of our Christian faith and intended it to be performed at Easter, as indeed it generally was, until the mid-1800s.
Handel is famous for employing text painting, which is the musical technique of having the melody mimic its lyrics. Perhaps the most famous and oft-quoted example of this technique is found in the first movement of the first act, in the tenor aria which begins: “Every valley shall be exalted.”
As you listen to Ernest Neal sing this aria, you can hear the melody trace the outlines of the hills and even mimic the crooked curves of those roads which God intends to straighten out for us.
The pianist who will accompany Ernest this evening is Michelle Cowan, organist at St. Pius Parish in Tulsa
9th Hymn: Comfort Ye / Every Valley (from Handel’s Messiah)
"Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God;
speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem;
and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned."
"The voice of him that cried in the wilderness:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
(Isaiah 40:1-3)
"Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill made low,
the crooked straight and the rough places plain."
(Isaiah 40:4)
The most famous movement of Messiah is the “Hallelujah” chorus, which concludes the second of the Oratorio’s three parts, the text of which is drawn from three passages in Saint John’s Book of Revelation.
In many parts of the world, it has become the accepted practice for the audience to stand through the entire presentation of the chorus.
Tradition has it that when King George II attended a performance of the Oratorio in London he rose to his feet as the first notes of the triumphant Hallelujah Chorus rang out. Since protocol demands that whenever the monarch stands, everyone in the monarch's presence must also stand, so the entire audience rose and remained standing for the entire movement.
No one knows exactly why the King stood at this moment, but it might have been simply that he needed to stretch his legs. We know that George II suffered from the gout and after listening for the better part of an hour, he might have grown tired of sitting with one foot elevated.
Whatever the reason, King George initiated a tradition that has lasted more than two centuries.
Let me ask you to stand now, and you might want to strtech a bit before we begin our ‘do-it-yourself’ performance of the Hallelujah Chorus.
Remember, after we conclude, everyone is welcome to reconvene in the Cathedral Hall to enchange cookies and enjoy some hot apple cider.
Final Hymn: Hallejuah Chorus (from Handel’s Messiah)
Hallelujah: for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.
The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord,
and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah!
Thank you for coming. If you are not going to join us downstairs, please drive carefully so you can get home safely tonight.
Merry Christmas everyone!
