best picks for the First Sunday Advent

[oopsorganist]

Investigating the psalm now.
St mungo's website has a nice psalm 79 with audio and score by Gerry Fitzpatrick and also that Martin Foster, he has a setting too, but I have lost it temporarily in cyber space.

[oopsorganist]

and Martin Foster's nice psalm is of course, found on Bear Music.

[oopsorganist]

Well never mind
I rather think my planning services are to be ousted in favour of someone with a willy.

"He' really good with the children you know!"

Wish I was a teacher,
oh wait,
look,
I am.

Not paid by the Diocese though.

[alan29]

On the other hand ...... it means there is someone else to blame.

[justMary]

Delighted to hear others with the "our choir is the congregation" approach. We have that plus about six musicians (either solo or small groups), so it's never the same leader twice in a row. People sing - and this is in Ireland - because they have to.

For 1-Advent, Year B, we have:
Hymns: City of God, O Come O Come Emmanuel, and either Though the Mountains May Fall or Christ be Our Light.
Psalm - thanks for the St Mungo link, we have a couple of people who I will point to that, fingers crossed for a sung response anyway
Ordinary - a mix of Glendalough and others (nameless!), maybe even Seinn Alleluia if I can convince someone to do it.

[oopsorganist]

The st mungo link is tricky I had to do lots of searches after I initially found it. Both a audio track and sheet music are there if you look.

I like the sound of your music. But I think I have lost any kind of control over ours due to the involvement of the primary school who are funded centrally. And way more cute than I am.

But if I was a stranger to the ways of the church and I came and I saw some cute kids sing and other cute kids stumble out some bidding prayers I don't know what I would take away? Chances are after the dolly dress up day later in the year, I would not be back? I might think, if these guys are counting on my kiddly to lead their worship then things are a bit potty here.

[oopsorganist]

Well there you go, the angels have been smoking in the toilets today! They are sulking. They were looking forward to doing a conga down the aisle next week.

And you are right Alan, I get a week off and everyone else will be happy. Angels will manage no doubt on their own.

[JW]

Call me an old fuddy duddy if you like, but what, pray, is the relevance of a Conga to the First Sunday of Advent?

Secondly, given that the Conga was presumably scheduled as an act of worship as opposed to a performance, is it right to punish children by putting barriers in the way of their worship? And should church be associated in any way with the punishment of children, given what's been done to them in the name of Catholicism in the past? Please discuss!

[oopsorganist]

I should imagine they would be trying to stay awake.
Sermons can be long.
They would be staying awake to put that final note on the end of a chanted phrase......

[High Peak]

I understood that "O come, O come Emmanuel" was not to be sung so early in Advent. Am I mistaken?

Our offering next week for the Vigil Mass is as follows:-

Come, thou long expected Jesus (to the tune of "Alleluia, sing to Jesus"; we will probably sing it unaccompanied except for flutes playing melody and harmony - got the idea from a YouTube recording).
Let all mortal flesh keep silence.
O Jesus Christ, remember.
Abba, Abba Father.
We will use the Belmont Mass setting.

[Ephrem Feeley]

I understood that "O come, O come Emmanuel" was not to be sung so early in Advent. Am I mistaken?

O Come Emmanuel is a metrical setting of the O Antiphons, which are sung at Vespers on the seven days preceding Christmas. However, the entire season of Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas, and so the hymn is ideal throughout the season. We're singing it next Sunday and for the following three weeks.

Interestingly, the seven antiphons are:
O Sapientia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Lord)
O Radix Jesse (Flower of Jesse)
O Clavis David (Key of David)
O Oriens (Radiant Dawn)
O Rex (King)
O Emmanuel

If you read the initial letters of the antiphons in reverse, you get Ero Cras, which means "Tomorrow, I shall come". Fitting, as the last antiphon is sung on December 23.

[Southern Comfort]

the hymn is ideal throughout the season. We're singing it next Sunday and for the following three weeks.

Here is an article by Paul Inwood published in an American journal last year which gives a rather different viewpoint.

[blackthorn fairy]

Re the O Antiphons, are there settings of these anywhere? Forgive my ignorance, but although I have known about them for donkey's years - apart from O come O come Emmanuel (which was one of my favourites when I was at school - and I still like it now!) I don't know where to find them. I suppose I could go to the Liber, but I was thinking of English settings. There must be something out there...

[Ephrem Feeley]

Inwood's article is well-thought out. He states "Anyone who uses O Come, O Come, Emmanuel as a kind of signature tune on all four Sundays of Advent may be just as much mistaken as the priest who won’t let that hymn be used at all until December 17." Of course, the point is that this hymn was originally not intended to be sung as a hymn - the O Antiphons were just that - antiphons for the Magnificat on the Vespers of December 16-23. Strict liturgical purists would frown upon any hymnody in mass. In a pastoral setting, where Vespers are not done daily in a parish, and where Sunday Eucharist is when the community gathers, it is fitting to sing this hymn throughout the season of Advent. Inwood states that it best fits Sundays 2 and 3.

Re the O Antiphons, are there settings of these anywhere?

There are a few contemporary settings, which may or may not suit your situation: Marty Haugen's My Soul in Stillness Waits, or Kathy Powell's Maranatha, Lord Messiah. Both are responsorial settings. I've also written a setting using James Quinn's metrical translation of the O Antiphons, and using melodic motifs from the Gregorian Ecce Nomen Domini, Emmanuel.

[Southern Comfort]

Re the O Antiphons, are there settings of these anywhere? Forgive my ignorance, but although I have known about them for donkey's years - apart from O come O come Emmanuel (which was one of my favourites when I was at school - and I still like it now!) I don't know where to find them. I suppose I could go to the Liber, but I was thinking of English settings. There must be something out there...

Other settings include the collection by Fintan O'Carroll (surprised Ephrem didn't mention this), and they are also in Music for Evening Prayer, originally published by Collins in 1978, now out of print but still available from the Stanbrook Abbey Bookshop (http://stanbrookabbeybookshop.com/STANBROOK-AUTHORS) at only £5 (Amazon are selling used copies for £12...)