Advent Carols

[marthe]

When I was a child, my family lit the candles of an Advent wreath every evening until Christmas, 1 candle, then 2 and finally 4 candles on the fourth Sunday. We sang wonderful hymns including O Come, O Come Emmanuel. My parents loved the evening office hymns which we sang in Latin, following along in my Mother's or Father's Liber Usualis. I remember the O Antiphons and Conditer alme siderum (Creator of the Stars at Night.) I look forward to listening on-line to the Advent service at St. John's College. For me the anticipation of Christmas throughout Advent is as important as the day itself.

marthe

[jean]

Praeter rerum seriem in the wonderful settings by Josquin and Cipriano de Rore.

Most of the ones mentioned here aren't really carols, of course - if we think of the original sense of carol as a dance, something happy and celebratory.

Advent is a season of penitence, and lends itself more to reflection than rejoicing.

[Caliban]

Howells, A Spotless Rose. It sends shivers down my spine - if sung well.

Mary - agreed! The harmonies at "... cold, cold winter's night" are at the very summit of any choral setting I know.

[Caliban]

But Adam lay y-bounden and O Come o come Emmanuel also cause a shiver of pleasure and anticipation.

I always love the Advent Service - and am grateful to this thread for prompting me to find out that Advent Sunday (and hence the St John's service on R3) is tomorrow... I had assumed it would be Sunday 5th...

[mangerton]

Caliban, there are always four Sundays in Advent, so this year the first Sunday is almost as early as it can be.

[bach736]

'Hark, what a sound and too divine for hearing' sung to Highwood and the finest ever setting of 'There is no rose' by Stanley Vann, which I think he wrote for St John's - they certainly used to sing it from mss copies.

[Don Basilio]

Advent is a season of penitence, and lends itself more to reflection than rejoicing.

Quite. Next year the first Sunday in Advent will be as early as it possibly can be, as Christmas Day is a Sunday.

[DracoM]

Choir sounded in very fine form, pretty well balanced by BBC, which, given the number of locations, musicians, soloists, readers / clerics etc, not to mention 400+ congregation, was no mean feat.

Lessons exceptionally well read - was it merely an accident that most of them were read by confident women? Having listened to the choir on and off via webcasts over the term, it’s clear they have a particularly good team in at the moment.

Liked the Martin ‘Adam’ opener. Acoustic in the ante-chapel very well caught and exploited. Anticipatory, ethereal in texture, and very nicely sung. The Bennett ‘Out of your sleep’ familiar to a lot of choirs, sounded just a tad fuzzy to me – can’t explain what I mean, - just not quite focused. Sven-Erik Bäck’s motet was excellent – tenors and altos particularly strong, and trebles diction was crystal. The new carol by Roxana Panufnik accompanied by harp [?] was first rate for me, and beautifully paced and conducted too, with nice shaping of phrase and balance of ensemble.

‘This is the Record of John’ is not actually a favourite of mine, sung it lots, nevertheless, the alto soloist might have converted me because after a very, very slightly iffy start he really took up the narrative, made it almost theatrical and certainly full of colour and intensity. Good backing group too.

Bogoroditsye Dyevo by Rachmaninov was for me the star of the show, sat very well with the Martin and Panufnik pieces, was excellently sung, and gave the service a quiet, devotional, other-wordly feel to it, far from the rather predictable other jaunty offerings. In terms of tricky singing, actually ‘Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day’ in Willcocks arrangement can be as tricky as much in this service – the syncopations for the under parts can catch out the most awake, but this was effortlessly done.

I know that Bach’s Wachet Auf is the trad recessionary at this service, but it always seems such an amazing anti-climax after the rest of the service. There must be other arrangements of the chorale tune with rather more ring and majesty to them, aren’t there?

[verismissimo]

Lovely new carol for Advent, The Call, by Roxana Panufnik from St John's.

[mercia]

Lovely new carol for Advent, The Call, by Roxana Panufnik from St John's.

I agree wholeheartedly - I was wondering what the text for it was (the same as RVW's The Call?) - I thought the harp added an interesting texture