Advent Music

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  • Pulcinella
    Host
    • Feb 2014
    • 12448

    Advent Music

    With the Christmas Music thread being recently resurrected, I thought it worthwhile having a more seasonal Advent thread (we usually mention the Advent Sunday service, and the occasional Compline, but not much else).

    Which is your favourite JSB Advent cantata?
    Which settings of the Great O Antiphons can you recommend?
    What else do you dig out to play/listen to in Advent?
  • mopsus
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 951

    #2
    Every year on Advent Sunday or very soon afterwards I play my recording of BWV36, BWV61 and BWV62 by Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi HMC901605). As for O Antiphons, at my church we do one of the settings written for Merton College: Rihards Dubra's O Radix Jesse.

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    • Pulcinella
      Host
      • Feb 2014
      • 12448

      #3
      I have the same combination on a single CD, but it's the JEG/Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists recording.

      I'd like to put in a plug (probably too late now for any inclusion in a service this year) for my friend David McGregor's O oriens:



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      • hmvman
        Full Member
        • Mar 2007
        • 1278

        #4
        There's a very fine performance of BWV 62 on the All of Bach site. I shall probably watch/listen to it a couple of times at least.

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        • vinteuil
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 13938

          #5
          Originally posted by hmvman View Post
          There's a very fine performance of BWV 62 on the All of Bach site. I shall probably watch/listen to it a couple of times at least.

          https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-62
          ... very many thanks indeed for that : it has provided twenty minutes of joy in an otherwise rather unsatisfactory day

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          • hmvman
            Full Member
            • Mar 2007
            • 1278

            #6
            Originally posted by vinteuil View Post

            ... very many thanks indeed for that : it has provided twenty minutes of joy in an otherwise rather unsatisfactory day

            You are very welcome!

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            • oddoneout
              Full Member
              • Nov 2015
              • 10189

              #7
              Originally posted by hmvman View Post
              There's a very fine performance of BWV 62 on the All of Bach site. I shall probably watch/listen to it a couple of times at least.

              https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-62
              One for Padraig - it has his favourite bass player in the orchestra!

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              • mopsus
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 951

                #8
                The Herreweghe recording has really imprinted itself on me. We also have the complete Ton Koopman cantata set; every so often I hear Koopman's version of one of these cantatas, which uses plucked string instruments unlike Herreweghe, and it gives me a start!

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                • Nick Armstrong
                  Host
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 26828

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Pulcinella View Post
                  What else do you dig out to play/listen to in Advent?
                  I try to give the Respighi Trittico botticelliano a listen during Advent, due to the magical use of O come, O come Emmanuel (my favourite Advent music) in the second movement

                  "...the isle is full of noises,
                  Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                  Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                  Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

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                  • hmvman
                    Full Member
                    • Mar 2007
                    • 1278

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Nick Armstrong View Post

                    I try to give the Respighi Trittico botticelliano a listen during Advent, due to the magical use of O come, O come Emmanuel (my favourite Advent music) in the second movement

                    Comment

                    • Keraulophone
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 2102

                      #11
                      I like to play the Bach-Busoni Nun Komm on the piano. The original organ version always makes a welcome appearance in the cathedral’s Advent service. Gabriel Jackson wrote a set of O Antiphons for Truro which are on one of our CDs and are still sung, though not at every Advent.

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                      • Pulcinella
                        Host
                        • Feb 2014
                        • 12448

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Nick Armstrong View Post

                        I try to give the Respighi Trittico botticelliano a listen during Advent, due to the magical use of O come, O come Emmanuel (my favourite Advent music) in the second movement

                        You have reminded me of James MacMillan's Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which I must add to the listening list.

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                        • Pulcinella
                          Host
                          • Feb 2014
                          • 12448

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Keraulophone View Post
                          I like to play the Bach-Busoni Nun Komm on the piano. The original organ version always makes a welcome appearance in the cathedral’s Advent service. Gabriel Jackson wrote a set of O Antiphons for Truro which are on one of our CDs and are still sung, though not at every Advent.
                          Merton commissioned a set of O Antiphons, including one by Gabriel Jackson, which are on this CD.

                          SUMMARY TRACK LISTING WATCH REVIEWS INFO The beginning of Advent is celebrated with a particular solemnity at Merton. For its second recording, the choir explores the musical riches that adorn this most special time in the church year, centring on a newly commissioned sequence of Magnificat antiphons from seven leading


                          (The Presto site attributes them all to Howard Skempton!)

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                          • mopsus
                            Full Member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 951

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Nick Armstrong View Post

                            I try to give the Respighi Trittico botticelliano a listen during Advent, due to the magical use of O come, O come Emmanuel (my favourite Advent music) in the second movement
                            The Wikipedia page on this hymn (which I assume to be accurate) is very informative: the tune (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Come,_O_Come,_Emmanuel#The_%22Veni_Emmanuel%22_t une) was first published by Thomas Helmore without a precise provenance, then taken up by Hymns Ancient and Modern. In the 1960s, by which time its use was widespread (not only in the English-speaking world, since Respighi knew of it), the plainchant authority Mary Berry discovered another MS containing the tune, proving its antiquity. It does not appear to have been matched to the Veni Emmanuel words before Helmore.

                            This shows a) that Hymns A&M was a very effective conduit for spreading a tune-hymn pairing across Christendom and b) we (all right, I) may be too ready to suspect that an 'old tune' without a well-attested origin is a pastiche composed by the person who first published it.

                            (For the record, the tune is also alluded to in Elizabeth Poston's Te Deum which I recorded a couple of years ago.)
                            Last edited by mopsus; 07-11-25, 12:09.

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