Music notes: II. Sunday of Advent

2024.12.08

On the Second Sunday of Advent it is the custom in the parish I serve to celebrate Advent Lessons and Carols. The modern tradition of services like this dates from 1880, though its structure is inspired by the much older service of Matins.

An English bishop developed Lessons and Carols for use on Christmas Eve in his temporary cathedral church, using the idea, borrowed from Matins (a long overnight service of readings), of nine lessons each followed by a musical response. Similar services sprung up around the Church of England, the most famous being the one now heard round the world from King’s College, Cambridge, which began in 1918. The Episcopal Church provides for Festivals of Lessons and Music for both Christmas and Advent focusing on Creation, the Fall, the prophetic witness to God’s plan for salvation, and the annunciation(s) and (at Christmas) the birth of Christ.

The Lesson concerning Creation – the first appearance of Christ, in and through whom all things were made – is followed by a children’s hymn, ‘I sing the almighty power of God’ [398], by the pioneer of modern English-language hymnody, Isaac Watts. It simply and beautifully acknowledges the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as known from nature, and God’s constant presence with us – and in the twenty-first century also challenges us to do our part to care for this good earth. The account of the Fall is followed by my arrangement (and textual updating) of a traditional English carol, ‘When God at first made humankind’, which retells that narrative but also looks to the coming of the promised Savior.

As the Lessons move into the realm of prophecy, the choir retells in music the lesson from Zephaniah: ‘Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion: The Lord is in your midst!’. This excellent, simple, carol- and chant-like, anthem by living composer John Eggert quotes the tune ‘Veni redemptor gentium’ (see last week’s notes).

‘How bright appears the Morning Star’, a classic Lutheran chorale, in our Hymnal’s version [497] is a strongly Incarnational text drawing closely upon scriptural imagery: Christ is the Morning Star, the Branch and Rod of Jesse, Emmanuel: God with us.

Another quintessential Advent hymn, ‘Come, thou long-expected Jesus’ [66], by the greatest English-language hymnist of all, Charles Wesley, asks us to consider: Who is Christ to us? to the world? What has he done, does he do, will he do? What do we most deeply yearn for, and how shall it be fulfilled? This short poem in simple language does more than many other, longer and more complicated texts.

The beloved medieval German carol ‘Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming’ [81], heard in a choral setting by living composer Burkhart Schürmann, reminiscent of the settings in Distler’s Der Jahrkreis, reminds us again of Christ’s place in the scriptural story and introduces the figure of Christ’s Mother to the service. The final Lesson, the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is followed by the lilting Basque carol ‘The angel Gabriel from heaven came’ [265], which quotes the Song of Mary – ‘My soul shall laud and magnify [God’s] holy Name’ – which we will hear again on Advent IV along with this same Lesson.

On the Second Sunday after Christmas we will continue the story, as it were, with Lessons and Carols for Christmastide, recounting the significant events in Christ’s very early life.