Notes for Sunday's Music

The Fourth Sunday of Advent is a pivotal point between two church seasons for us. This morning we conclude our patient waiting and expectation of the Advent season and this afternoon we usher in the season of Christmas with a Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols. There is such a wealth of music associated with the season of Advent that it seems a shame we must put it aside for another year after today, but the liturgical calendar marches on. Hymn 56, perhaps one of the most memorable of all of the Advent hymns, is also one of the most ancient. The text comes from the "O antiphons" ("The Great Os," O Sapientia, O Adonai, O radix Jesse, O clavis David, O Oriens, O Rex genitum, and O Emmanuel), which arose no later than the eighth century. These antiphons have traditionally been attached to the Magnificat at Vespers (Evensong) from December 17th through 23rd, hence the dates found at the beginning of each verse. The second word of each antiphon yields an acrostic: read in inverse order from the last to the first stanza, the words begin with the letters ERO CRAS, Latin for "I shall be present tomorrow." If one antiphon is sung each day at Vespers, the full text of the acrostic is revealed only on the day before Christmas Eve. Hymn 66 for many Episcopalians is synonymous with Advent. The text/tune combination was Hymn 1 in The Hymnal 1940 and in a survey held by the Sacred Commission on Church Music prior to the 1982 General Convention ranked as number one in usage. Behind this hymn stand Isaiah 9:6 (and following) and other messianic passages of the Old Testament. Christ's redemptive and liberating rule is here seen stereoscopically in all its stages, from prophecy through the Incarnation to present sovereignty and final triumph; it bears individual, communal, and ultimately cosmic dimensions.

Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols this Sunday 21 December

Plan to arrive early to get a good seat for our annual Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols This Sunday 21 December at 5:00pm. Visiting Assisting Organist Owen Sammons (St Peter's, Paris) joins Organist John Linker and the Good Shepherd Choirs in singing this annual first service of the Christmas season. Nine lessons are read by various representatives of church and civic life in ascending rank from a chorister through the bishop.

The format for Lessons & Carols was drawn up by The Right Rev'd Edward White Benson, Bishop of Truro (later Archbishop of Canterbury) and first presented in crude surroundings on Christmas Eve 1880. This service format became wildly popular after it was aired live in 1918 by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. To this day this service is aired live on BBC Radio 4 in the UK on Christmas Eve and rebroadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC World Service on Christmas Day (be sure to tune in to WEKU, 88.9 at 10:00am on Christmas Day). Cathedrals and parishes throughout the Anglican Communion present a similar service each Christmastide.

This year's service at Good Shepherd includes works by a wide range of composers spanning many centuries. The choir will sing anthems and carols in modern English, Middle English, French, Latin, and German. The congregation sings six hymns during the course of the service. Join us as we put away the darkness of Advent and usher in the joyous season of Christmas.