• 5:45-6:45 Chalice Singers
  7-7:45 Music Committee Meeting
  8-8:30 Music for March 18
  8:30-9:15 Festival Choir music for 4/1 (Dona nobis pacem, #5 and #6)
  9:15-9:30 Adult Choir music for March

Daylight Savings Time Begins Sunday, March 11
Rev. Carlton Elliott Smith: "Together We Can: Reflect, Reconnect, Renew"
Kickoff of the Annual Stewardship Campaign

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Instrumental Music for St. Patrick's Day
  David Whitford, violin
• Offertory: Betörte Welt from Cantata No. 94, no. 4 (1724) by Johann S. Bach (1685-1750)
  Dorothy May, alto; Carl Schlaikjer, oboe, Wendy Covell, organ
  In his masterful 1972 book The Church Cantatas of J. S. Bach, musicologist Alec Robertson writes “This aria puts the unjust steward [described in the Gospel of Luke] in his place. The amazing part for the flute may well depict his ill-gained but attractive profits: but when the tempo changes to allegro, he is left to count his gains, whereas the Christian holds to Jesus as his wealth.” Bach wrote two of his most masterful cantatas on this text: Betörte Welt! Auch dein Reichtum, Gut, und Geld ist Betrug und falscher Schein. [Deluded world! All your wealth, goods, and money are false, an empty shell.] Fenwick West, principal flautist for the Boston Symphony, writes, "Bach first wrote for the transverse flute in the 1720s, and demonstrated almost immediately an unparalleled understanding of its technical and expressive potential. Much of his greatest writing for solo wind instrument can be found in the cantatas and the B-minor Mass. The arias in these works nearly always include an instrumental obbligato that illustrates, comments upon, adorns, or engagaes in dialogue with the text.
  
  Du magst den eitlen Mammon zählen, / Ich will davor mir Jesum wählen;
  Jesus, Jesus soll allein / Meiner Seele Reichtum sein.
  Deluded world! / All your riches, goods and gold / are false; an empty shell.
  You may count your futile hoard, / but I shall choose instead my Jesus;
  Jesus, Jesus alone / shall be the wealth of my soul.
  
  Bach almost always sets sin not as something ugly but something irresistibly and dazzlingly beautiful. In the period when Bach wrote this work there was in Leipzig a guest and evidently quite accomplished flutist. Certainly the series of arias and ensembles with flute written at this time are among the high points of the literature. The text for the alto aria with flute continues the self-flagellation of the previous verses, but the tone is softer and more forgiving. The eight lines of text are divided up irregularly. The first three comprise an extended slow section with poignant chromatic sequences in the flute. The next two lines are taken up with a tiny 7 bar allegro, over before you know it. Lines 6 and 7 are a kind of arioso resembling the beginning but not really a tempo. The last line is the faux da capo, using all of the opening material but very condensed.
  As with many of Bach’s great, lesser-known works, the difficulty and ambiguity of this piece have kept it from being famous rather than any lack of musical quality. It also must be said that Cantata BWV 94 is an example of a work that can have devastating effect in a liturgical setting and makes virtually no musical sense in a concert.
  Note by Craig Smith, Emmanuel Church, Boston
• Anthem: Choir/Solo
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:
• 3pm Arlington Philharmonic Chorale Concert at First Parish

Sunday, March 18
Affiliate Minister Rev. Caitlin O' Brien: "Eat, Play, Love" [restoring yourself through devoted attention to life]
with Rev. Carlton Elliott Smith

• Prelude:
• Opening Hymn: Chalice Singers and Chalice Sparks accompany on bells
• Children's Choirs: Food, Glorious Food from Oliver!
• Candle Music: Instrumental Music
• Offertory:
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:
• Organ Show following the service (11:45-12:30pm), Wendy Covell, organ
• After-church rehearsals: 12:15-12:45 High School Girls' Group & Band
  12:45-1:15 Easter Orchestra (for 4/8)

Sunday, March 25
Worship Leaders from the "Rebuild New Orleans" Krewe & the Rev. Tricia Brennan: "Love in Action"
Stories and Reflections from the recent New Orleans Service Project

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: One Voice by Barry Manilow
  or
  Apamuy Shungu (Giving of the Heart) by Gerarado Guevara (b. 1930, Ecuador)
  Click here to read about Guevara's work with Amazonian rhythms.
  Notes - Educated at the National Conservatory of Music in Quito, where he won composition and conducting prizes, Guevara was able to teach music and to study in Paris, France with Nadia Boulanger under a UNESCO grant. He directed the choir of the Central Univerisity of Ecuador for twenty years and was Director of the National Conservatory 1980-1988. His compositions include ballets, orchestral suites, string quartets, choal works, and transcriptions of Amazonian rain forest dances.
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:
• Possible All-Church meeting following the service
• After-church rehearsals: 11:45-12:15 Chalice Sparks
  12:15-12:45 High School Girls' Group & Band
  12:45-1:15 Easter Orchestra (for 4/8)

Saturday, March 31
Morning Dress Rehearsal for Spring Music Service

Sunday, April 1
Topic: Music Service - Waging Peace through Song

• Prelude: Fools Medley
  UUphonics, led by Andrew Leonard
• Intergenerational Palm Sunday Music
• Chalice Lighting Music:
• Opening Hymn: Chalice Singers and Chalice Sparks accompany on bells
• Candle Music: 1st & 2nd movements of Dona nobis pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams
  Click here to practice this selection by individual part
• Offertory: Reconciliation from Dona nobis pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams
  Click here to practice this selection by individual part
• Anthem/Sermon: 5th & 6th movements of Dona nobis pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams
  Click here to practice this selection by individual part

Sunday, April 8
Topic: Easter

• Prelude: Organ
• Chalice Lighting Anthem with bells: Serenity (1919) by Charles Ives
  Chalice Singers
  Text: O, Sabbath rest of Galilee!
  O, calm of hills above,
  Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee,
  the silence of eternity
  Interpreted by love.
  
  Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
  till all our strivings cease:
  Take from our souls the strain and stress,
  and let our ordered lives confess,
  the beauty of thy peace.
  by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) , The Brewing of Soma, from The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and Other Poems, published 1872
• Candle Music: Rise Up, My Love (1929) by Healey Willan
  Click for here a biography of the composer.
  Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.
  For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
  The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come. Songs of Songs 2: 10-12
• Offertory/Anthem: Symphony No. 6, I. Allegro by Ludwig van Beethoven
  First Parish Orchestra
• Closing Hymn: Chalice Singers and Chalice Sparks accompany on bells
• Sung Benediction: Alleluia from Ben Hur by Miklós Rózsa (1907-1995) in celebration of Rózsa's 100th Birthday Year

Sunday, April 15
Topic:
Beginning of School Spring Break

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Bogoroditsye Dyevo (Hymn to the Mother of God) by Sergei Rachmaninoff
  Click here to practice this movement of the Vespers by individual part
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Igor Stravinsky in celebration of Stravinsky's 125th Birthday Year
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, April 22
Topic: Alliance Sunday with music coordinated by Cheri Minton

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Intergenerational Women's Choir
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Intergenerational Women's Choir
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, April 29
Topic:

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music:O, pray for the peace of Jerusalem by Herbert Howells
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Ego flos campi by Clemens non Papa
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Saturday, May 5
Stewardship Wrapup/Fellowship Dinner

Sunday, May 6
Membership Sunday

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Ce moys de May by Clement Janequin
  Click here to see the score for this selection
  Click here to hear the parts played for this selection
  Click here to hear a live recording of this selection
• Offertory: Revecy venir du printans by Clement Janequin
• Anthem:

Sunday, May 13
Topic: Shinn Service - Social Justice topic & Mother's Day

• Prelude: Band
• Chalice Lighting Song for Mother's Day: This Little Light of Mine
• Candle Music/Offertory: Magnificat (Canticle of Mary) by Arvo Pärt
• Anthem: Bell Chorus from Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, May 20
Topic:

• Prelude: Band
• Candle Music: Band
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem:
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:
• Annual Meeting following the Service

Sunday, May 27 NO ADULT CHOIR DUE TO SERVICE TRIP
Memorial Day Weekend

• Prelude: Organ
• Offertory: Organ
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, June 3
Topic: Hymn Contest Winner Announced

• Prelude: Organ
• Chalice Lighting Music: Deep in My Soul, op. 53, no. 2 (1908 ) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron (1788-1824) from The Corsair, Canto I: xiv, 1-2:
  Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,
  Lonely and lost to light for evermore,
  Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,
  Then trembles into silence as before.
  
  There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp
  Burns the slow flame, eternal - but unseen;
  Which not the darkness of Despair can damp,
  Though vain its ray as it had never been.
• Candle Music:
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Hymne au Soleil (1912) by Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
  Click here for a biography of Lili Boulanger
  Text by Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843):
  Du soleil qui renaît bénissons la puissance.
  Avec tout l'univers célébrons son retour.
  Couronné de splendeur, il se lève, il s'élance.
  Le réveil de la terre est un hymne d'amour.
  Sept coursiers qu'en partant le Dieu contient à peine,
  Enflamment l'horizon de leur brûlante haleine.
  
  O soleil fécond, tu parais!
  Avec ses champs en fleurs, ses monts, ses bois épais,
  La vaste mer de tes feux embrasée,
  L'univers plus jeune et plus frais,
  Des vapeurs de matin sont brillants de rosée.
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, June 10
Topic: Flower Communion

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: There is Sweet Music, op. 53, no. 1 (1908) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892):
  There is sweet music here that softer falls
  Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
  Or night-dews on still waters between walls
  Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
  Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
  Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
  Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
  
  Here are cool mosses deep,
  And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
  And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
  And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
• Offertory: Organ
• Anthem: Music, When Soft Voices Die by Sir Charles Hubert Parry (1848-1918)
  Text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
  Music, when soft voices die,
  Vibrates in the memory -
  Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
  Live within the sense they quicken.
  
  Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
  Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
  And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
  Love itself shall slumber on.
• Postlude: Organ
• Hymns & Readings:

Sunday, September 9 Water Communion Service

• Prelude: Organ
• Candle Music: Sicut cervus by Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina
  Click here to hear a live recording of this piece (FVHS)
• Water Music: To Be Sung on the Water by Samuel Barber
  Click here to hear all parts played
• Water Music: The Shower , op. 71, no. 1(1914) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Henry Vaughan (1622-1695):
  Cloud, if as thou dost melt, and with thy train
  Of drops make soft the Earth, my eyes could weep
  O'er my hard heart, that's bound up and asleep;
  Perhaps at last,
  Some such showers past,
  My God would give a sunshine after rain.
• Offertory: The Fountain, op. 71, no. 2 (1914) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Henry Vaughan (1622-1695):
  The unthrift sun shot vital gold,
  A thousand, thousand pieces;
  And heav'n its azure did unfold
  Chequer'd with snowy fleeces;
  The air was all in spice,
  And ev'ry bush
  A garland wore:
  Thus fed my eyes,
  But all the earth lay hush,
  Only a little fountain lent
  Some use for ears,
  And on the dumb shades language spent,
  The music of her tears.
• Anthem: As Torrents in Summer (1896) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year and of Longfellow's 200th Birthday Year
  Text by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) from his epic poem The Nun of Nidaros:
  As torrents in summer,
  Half dried in their channels,
  Suddenly rise, though the
  Sky is still cloudless,
  For rain has been falling
  Far off at their fountains;
  
  So hearts that are fainting
  Grow full to o'erflowing,
  And they that behold it
  Marvel, and know not
  That God at their fountains
  Far off has been raining!

Sunday, September 16

Sunday, September 22

Sunday, September 29

Sunday, October 7

Sunday, October 14

Sunday, October 21

Sunday, October 28 Hallowe'en Service

• Anthem: Owls, op. 53, no. 4 (1908 ) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Elgar:
  What is that? ... Nothing;
  The leaves must fall, and falling, rustle;
  That is all:
  They are dead
  As they fall, -
  Dead at the foot of the tree;
  All that can be is said.
  What is it? ... Nothing.
  
  What is that? ... Nothing;
  A wild thing hurt in the night,
  And it cries
  In its dread,
  Till it lies
  Dead at the foot of the tree;
  All that can be is said.
  What is it? ... Nothing.
  
  What is that? ... Ah!
  A marching slow of unseen feet,
  That is all:
  But a bier, spread
  With a pall,
  Is now at the foot of the tree;
  All that could be is said.
  Is it ... what? ... Nothing.
• Anthem: O Wild West Wind, op. 53, no. 3 (1908 ) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) from Ode to the West Wind:
  O wild West Wind, [...]
  Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
  What if my leaves are falling like its own!
  The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
  
  Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
  Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
  My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
  
  Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
  Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
  And, by the incantation of this verse,
  
  Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
  Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
  Be through my lips to unawakened earth
  
  The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
  If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Sunday, November 4 Requiem Service

• Prelude: Organ
• Gabriel Fauré - Requiem
  Click here to practice each movement by individual part

Sunday, November 11

Sunday, November 18

Sunday, November 25

Sunday, December 2 First Sunday of Advent
Service of Lessons and Carols
Carol History online - www.oremus.org

• Prelude: Organ
• #1 Chalice Lighting Music: Austria & Bavaria - Star Singers Carol
  In Austria and Bavaria, children dress up as "The Three Kings" and carry an imitation star on a pole. They go from house to house from New Year's day to January 6th, and sing religious songs. The children are called "Star singers." If they are rewarded with sweets, they may eat them. If they are rewarded with money, it is given to a Catholic church or to a charity. They put a chalk mark "C.M.B" on houses they have visited. Although this is sometimes taken as a reference to the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar - it may originally have represented the words "Christus mansionem benedicat" (Christ bless this house).
• #2 Opening Carol: France - Il est né, le divin Enfant
  It is not clear whether the word carol derives from the French "carole" or the Latin "carula" meaning a circular dance. In any case the dancing seems to have been abandoned quite early, but some examples are very danceable. In the 1680s and 1690s two French composers incorporated carols into their works. Louis-Claude Daquin wrote 12 noels for organ. In 2002 Mark Darlow researched the verses that belonged with the tunes and arranged them for choir and orchestra. Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote a few instrumental versions of noels, plus one major choral work "Messe de minuit pour Noël" (carols with orchestral links written by Charpentier). Ça, Bergers, assemblons nous is from the 16th century, and was sung aboard Jacques Cartier's ship on Christmas Day 1535. Perhaps the best known traditional French carol is "Il est né, le divin Enfant!", which comes from Provencal. In 1554 "La Grande Bible des Noels" was printed, in several versions in Orleans. It was a collection of French carols. "Chants de Noels anciens et nouveau" (1703) was printed by Christophe Ballard (1641 - 1715) in Paris.
• Reading for Candles: The Coming of Light (2002) by Mark Strand
  Even this late it happens:
  the coming of love, the coming of light.
  You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
  stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
  sending up warm bouquets of air.
  Even this late the bones of the body shine
  and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.
• #3 Candle Music: Spain - Ladino Song for Hannukah
• #4 Offertory: Leipzig & America: O Christmas Tree
  O Tannenbaum (1824) by Ernst Anschütz
  O Christmas Tree (1965) by Vince Guaraldi
  The best known version was penned in 1824 by a Leipzig organist and teacher named Ernst Anschütz. The melody is an old folk tune. The first known "Tannenbaum" song lyrics date back to 1550. An instrumental version of "O Tannenbaum" was composed by former pianist Vince Guaraldi for the Peanuts special "A Charlie Brown Christmas," a very popular Christmas tv show that was created and first aired in 1965 and continues to air during the holiday season. Rev. Follen - 1st to decorate a Christmas Tree
  http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1996/12.12/ProfessorBrough.html
  
  O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
  Wie grün sind deine Blätter!
  Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
  Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
  O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
  Wie grün sind deine Blätter!
  
  O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
  Your branches green delight us.
  They're green when summer days are bright;
  They're green when winter snow is white.
  O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree,
  Your branches green delight us!
  
  O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
  Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
  Wie oft hat schon zur Winterszeit
  Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
  O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
  Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
  
  O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
  You give us so much pleasure!
  How oft in wintertime the sight,
  O tree of fir, gives us delight!
  O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
  You give us so much pleasure!
• #5 400th Birthday of a Yule Song: Scandinavia and England - The Boar's Head Carol
  Nineteenth century antiquarians rediscovered early carols in museums. According to Britannica, about 500 have been found. Some are wassailing songs, some are religious songs in English, some are in Latin, and some are "macaronic" - a mixture of English and Latin. Since most people did not understand Latin, the implication is that these songs were composed for church choristers, or perhaps for an educated audience at the Royal courts. The most famous survival of these early macaronic carols is the The Boar's Head. Allegedly, it has been sung every year at Christ Church Cambridge since December 1607.
  According to folklorists the boar's head "tradition was initiated in all probability on the Isle of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, although our knowledge of it comes substantially from medieval times....[In ancient Norse tradition] sacrifice carried the intent of imploring Freyr to show favour to the new year. The boar's head with apple in mouth was carried into the banquet hall on a gold or silver dish to the sounds of trumpets and the songs of minstrels." In Scandinavia and England, Saint Stephen may have inherited some of Freyr's legacy. His feast day is December 26 and thus he came to play a part in the Yuletide celebrations which were previously associated with Freyr. In old Swedish art, Stephen is shown as tending to horses and bringing a boar's head to a Yuletide banquet. Both elements are extracanonical and may be pagan survivals. Christmas ham is an old tradition in Sweden and may have originated as a winter solstice boar sacrifice to Freyr.
  The earliest copy of the words, from 1521, was found in The Queen's College, Oxford. At Hurstpierpoint College, in West Sussex, England, the boar's head procession takes place on the first Wednesday in December after a short service in Chapel for all, and heralds the feast which is held to acknowledge the work done by the College's Sacristans and Choir. The Boar's Head is carried on a platter carried by four Sacristans and preceded by the mustard pot carried by a fifth. The remainder of the Senior School lines the cloisters which form three sides of the Inner Quadrangle, the fourth being formed by the Chapel and Dining Hall. The lights are extinguished and the procession, its members carrying candles, moves from the east of the college through the cloisters lined by unusually silent students and back through the Chapel to the vestry.
  The boar's head in hand bring I,
  Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary.
  I pray you, my masters, be merry (Or: And I pray you, my masters, merry be)
  Quot estis in convivio (Translation: As you all feast so heartily)
  CHORUS
  Caput apri defero (Translation: Lo, behold the head I bring)
  Reddens laudes Domino (Translation: Giving praise to God we sing)
  
  The boar's head, as I understand,
  Is the rarest dish in all this land,
  Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland
  Let us servire cantico. (Translation: Let us serve with a song)
  CHORUS
  Our steward hath provided this
  In honour of the King of Bliss;
  Which, on this day to be served is
  In Reginensi atrio. (Translation: In the Queen's hall)
  CHORUS
• #6 Solstice Anthem: Solstice by Randall Thompson (1899-1984)
  An exuberant setting (originally for solo voice) of Robert Lee Wolff’s poem. Refrain: "It's the solstice, the time when the sun stands still, outside you and inside you, you feel a bitter chill. It's the solstice, when the cold north wind could kill; but hold your breath and it's Christmas, Peace on earth, and to men good will."
  Click here to hear a recording of this selection
• Reading for Sounding Bells: from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
  The flying cloud, the frosty light:
  The year is dying in the night;
  Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
  
  Ring out the old, ring in the new,
  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
  The year is going, let him go;
  Ring out the false, ring in the true.
  
  Ring out the grief that saps the mind
  For those that here we see no more;
  Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
  Ring in redress to all mankind.
  
  Ring out a slowly dying cause,
  And ancient forms of party strife;
  Ring in the nobler modes of life,
  With sweeter manners, purer laws.
  
  Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
  The faithless coldness of the times;
  Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
  But ring the fuller minstrel in.
  
  Ring out false pride in place and blood,
  The civic slander and the spite;
  Ring in the love of truth and right,
  Ring in the common love of good.
  
  Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
  Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
  Ring out the thousand wars of old,
  Ring in the thousand years of peace.
  
  Ring in the valiant man and free,
  The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
  Ring out the darkness of the land,
  Ring in the Christ that is to be.
• #7 Bell Carol: from Hark, How the Bells by Mikhail Leontovich

Sunday, December 9 Music Service:

• Prelude: Preludio by Michael Tippett (1906-1975)
• Candle Music, Offertory, and Anthems: Claudio Monteverdi's Vespro della Beate Virgine, 1610 (Venice)
  Click here to practice each movement by individual part

Monday, December 10 Alliance Intergenerational Party

Sunday, December 16 Intergenerational Pageant
Amahl & the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti (in memoriam 2006)

Sunday, December 23 Latin American Christmas Traditions

December 24 Christmas Eve Service

• Text from Shakespeare's Hamlet:
  Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
  Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
  This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
  And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
  The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
  So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
• Carol: The Lamb (1946) by Theodore Chanler
  Chalice Singers
  Text: Little Lamb, who made thee?
  Dost thou know who made thee?
  Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
  By the stream and o'er the mead;
  Gave thee clothing of delight,
  Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
  Gave thee such a tender voice,
  Making all the vales rejoice?
  Little Lamb, who made thee?
  Dost thou know who made thee?
  
  Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
  Little Lamb, I'll tell thee.
  He is called by thy name,
  For He calls Himself a Lamb.
  He is meek, and He is mild;
  He became a little child.
  I a child, and thou a lamb,
  We are called by His name.
  Little Lamb, God bless thee!
  Little Lamb, God bless thee!
  by William Blake (1757-1827), from Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789)
• Carol: The Lamb by John Taverner
  Notes: The Lamb is a hauntingly beautiful piece. It is for unaccompanied SATB choir. It is almost entirely syllabic which, along with its homophony, adds to the simplicity of the piece. Performance directions state that tempo should be flexible and also guided by the words, and Taverner uses contrapuntal varitations to develop his themes.
  In the second bar, the alto part sings an inversion (upside down) of the melody sung by the soprano. Bars 3 and 4 are also soprano solo, with bar 4 being the retrograde (reverse) of the previous bar. The same technique is used in the soprano part in bars 5 and 6, with the alto singing a retrograde inversion (combining both ideas, sung upside down and backwards). The overall effect of this section is blatant dissonance, though the fact that each line returns to the same point reaffirms a serene, uncomplicated mood.
  After an atonal start, the full chorus joins for the second half of the verse. The music here is gently dissonant, with a feeling of E-minor but without the expected D-sharps. This section is entirely based upon the opening soprano melody. The soprano and alto parts sing in thirds throughout, with the tenors and basses helping to create subtle suspensions. Each bar ends with an E-minor chord. The second verse is similar to the first, with the women's voices focusing on the tune in unison.
• Carol: A Christmas Greeting, op. 52 (1907) by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in celebration of Elgar's 150th Birthday Year
  Text by Caroline Alice Elgar (1848-1920):
  Bowered on sloping hillsides rise
  In sunny glow, the purpling vine;
  Beneath the greyer English skies,
  In fair array, the red-gold apples shine.
  
  To those in snow,
  To those in sun,
  Love is but one;
  Hearts beat and glow,
  By oak and palm.
  Friends, in storm or calm.
  
  On and on old Tiber speeds,
  Dark with the weight of ancient crime;
  Far north, thr' green and quiet meads,
  Flows on the Wye in mist and silv'ring rime.
  Refrain
  
  The pifferari wander far,
  They seek the shrines, and hymn the peace
  Which herald angels, 'neath the star,
  Foretold to shepherds, bidding strife to cease.
  
  Our England sleeps in shroud of snow,
  Bells, sadly sweet, knell life's swift flight,
  And tears, unbid, are wont to flow,
  As "Noel! Noel!" sounds across the night.
  Refrain
• Anthem with Children's Choirs: The Oxen
  Text: Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
  "Now they are all on their knees,"
  An elder said as we sat in a flock
  By the embers in hearthside ease.

  We pictured the meek mild creatures where
  They dwelt in their strawy pen,
  Nor did it occur to one of us there
  To doubt they were kneeling then.

  So fair a fancy few would weave
  In these years! Yet, I feel,
  If someone said on Christmas Eve,
  "Come; see the oxen kneel,

  "In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
  Our childhood used to know,"
  I should go with him in the gloom,
  Hoping it might be so. by Thomas Hardy

2007 Music:

• Chalice Lighting Music: Tota pulchra es Maria by Maurice Duruflé
  Click here to practice this selection with soprano 1 emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with soprano 2 emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with soprano 3 emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with alto 1 emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with alto 2 emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection all parts emphasized equally
  Click here to hear a recording by the Cal Tech Women's Glee Club
• En hiver by Paul Hindemith or a movement from Morten Lauridsen's Mid-Winter Songs
• Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind by John Rutter
  Text: Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
  As man's ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
  Because thou art not seen,
  Although thy breath be rude.
  Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
  Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
  This life is most jolly.
  
  Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
  That does not bite so nigh
  As benefits forgot:
  Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
  As friend remembered not.
  Heigh-ho! sing . . .
  by William Shakespeare
• Trois Beaux Oiseaux du Paradis by Maurice Ravel
  Click here to hear a recording of this selection
• Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi by Sir Arthur Bliss
  Text - Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love;
  where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
  where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
  O Divine One, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
  to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love;
  for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
  and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
  
  Notes - Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss, CH, KCVO (1891-1975) was a British composer of American descent, his father having left New England to come and settle in London. Bliss’s mother, Agnes Kennard, was an accomplished pianist and his brothers all had musical abilities. He was educated at Rugby School and gained a considerable reputation at the school as a pianist. He received his BA from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and entered the Royal College of Music in 1913: here he studied composition with Charles V. Stanford and befriended Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. His musical studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in which he was wounded in the Battle of the Somme (1916) and gassed at Cambrai (1918). The tragic death in battle of his brother, Kennard, together with his own war experiences, had a profound and lasting impact on his life and in his music, and found expression most particularly in his choral symphony, Morning Heroes (1930). Vaughan Williams credited this work as the primary inspiration for his 1937 Dona nobis pacem, which in turn served as the main model for Britten's 1962 War Requiem.
  
  Bliss's early music shows the influence of Stravinsky and Debussy: a Concerto for [wordless] Tenor, piano and strings; and his Colour Symphony of 1922 which explores the idea of the musical associations of different colors. After the war, Bliss was offered a professorship at the Royal College of Music (even though he had never finished his graduate studies), but instead he accompaned his American father (who had retired in Santa Barbara, California) to the U.S. In California he met Gertude Hoffmann, whom he married and brought back to London in 1925. His music from the 1920s-30s focused on ballet commissions and six film scores. His Introduction and Allegro which was premiered in Philadelphia under Leopold Stokowski, and his Music for Strings debuted at the Salzburg Festival in 1935 under Sir Adrian Boult.
  
  During the first years of the Second World War, Bliss taught at the University of California - Berkeley. From 1941-44 he was Director of Music at the BBC; he spearheaded the division of British music broadcasting into categories after the war, such as the present day Radios 1 and 3. In 1950 he was knighted and in 1953 he was appointed to succeed Arnold Bax as Master of the Queen's Musick. In this capacity he composed numerous works and fanfares for royal occasions including the Investiture of the Prince of Wales (1969). Throughout the 1950s-60s, Sir Arthur Bliss recorded fine interpretations of several of his major works, but was often overshadowed by coincidentally similar large-scale works by Benjamin Britten and Witold Lutoslawski. 1970 brought the publication of Bliss’s autobiography, As I remember. The last of the composer’s masterpieces – the Cello Concerto written for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and the haunting Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi - date from his final years.
• Miserere mei by Gregorio Allegri
• I'll Ay Call in by Yon Town
  Click here to hear a live recording of the piece (FVHS)
• O, My Luv's Like a Red, Red Rose
  Click here to hear the text spoken with a proper Scottish accent
  Click here to read a discussion of the text
• The Sailor and Young Nancy by E. J. Moeran
• Music of Hildegard von Bingen, and Hymn #27
• Strawberry Fair by Donald James
• Circles by Dave Brubeck
  Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years,
  the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years,
  the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,
  the circles of our reasons within the cycles of the moon.
  
  Again, again we come and go, changed, changing.
  Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy.
  The circles turn, each giving into each, into all.
  Only music keeps us here, each by all the others held.
  
  In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs, that joining joining each to all again.
  And then we turn aside, alone, out of the sunlight gone into the darker circles of return.
  -Wendell Berry
  
  Notes on the composer - David Warren Brubeck (1920- ) is a U.S. jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a genius in his field, he has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way." Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. Much of his music employs unusual time signatures. His new choral piece Circles sets a text by Wendell Berry.
  After graduating from the University of the Pacific in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the army and served overseas in George Patton's Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge. He played in a band, quickly integrating it, and gaining both popularity and deference. After finishing his compositional studies at Mills College (Oakland, CA) under Darius Milhaud, Brubeck founded The Dave Brubeck Quartet (1951-67) with Paul Desmond on saxophone. The group maintained a long residency at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub, and in 1954 Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, the first jazz musician to be so honored. Brubeck converted to Catholicism in 1980, shortly after completing the Mass To Hope. Today, Brubeck continues to write new works, including orchestrations and ballet scores, and tours about eighty cities each year. Since his 85th birthday his area of focus is the US, where he still premieres new works, like the 2006 Cannery Row Suite.
  
  Notes on the text - Poet and conservationist Wendell Berry was born in Newcastle, Kentucky in 1934. Berry's father and Robert Rodale contributed to the founding of the organic farming movement: following their examples, Wendell uses only farm animals to work his fields and organic methods of fertilization and pest control. In 1958, Berry received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and attended Stanford University's creative writing program, where he studied with Stegner in a seminar that included Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey and Ken Kesey. His writing is grounded in the notion that one's work ought to be responsive to one's natural environment. In 1964, he and his wife Tanya purchased the Kentucky farm close to his parents' birth places, and in 1965 moved onto the land to become organic farmers (of tobacco, corn and small grains) on what would eventually become a 125-acre homestead.
  Berry was granted a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, which took him and his family to Italy and France in 1961. From 1962 to 1964, he taught English at New York University’s University College in the Bronx. From 1964-77, he began teaching creative writing at the University of Kentucky. In the 1970s and early 1980s he served as an editor of, and wrote many articles for, Rodale Press publications including Organic Gardening and Farming and The New Farm. In 1987, he returned to the University of Kentucky, teaching literature and education. Today he still lives, writes, and farms at Lane's Landing near Port Royal, Kentucky, alongside the Kentucky River, not far from where it flows into the Ohio. He is a prolific author, with at least twenty-five books (or chapbooks) of poems (A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997), sixteen volumes of essays (The Failure of War, 1999), and eleven novels and short story collections to his name. His poetic voice is direct and resonant, indebted to Whitman and William Carlos Williams.
• Closing Words (to accompany the Brubeck above):
  Antiphonal reading by Wendell Berry (P is the pulpit side; C is the choir side)
  P: Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years,
  C: the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years,
  P: the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,
  C: the circles of our reasons
  P: within the cycles of the moon.
  Leader1: Again, again we come and go, changed,
  Leader2: changing. Hands join,
  P: un-join in love and fear, grief and joy.
  C: The circles turn, each giving into each,
  P: into all. Only music keeps us here,
  C: each by all the others held.
  P: In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs,
  C: that joining, joining each to all again.
  Leader2: And then we turn aside, alone,
  Leader1: out of the sunlight gone
  All: into the darker circles of return.

Additional Music and Anniversaries

• The Rapid Stream (1922) & The Woodland Stream (1922) by Edward Elgar for boychoir and piano
• Solstice 2007:
• Birds: Fly, Singing Bird and When Swallows Fly by Edward Elgar; The Blue Bird by Charles V. Stanford; excerpts from Dalglish's music
• Shape-Note and Southern Mountains Music
• Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber
• Drömmarna by Jean Sibelius
• Esti Dal by Zoltan Kodaly
• The Lost Chord by Sir Arthur Sullivan
• Va Pensiero from G. Verdi's Nabucco
• Tu es Petrus by Maurice Duruflé
  Click here to practice this selection with the soprano emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with the alto emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with the tenor emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with the bass emphasized
  Click here to practice this selection with all parts played equally
• Agnus Dei from the Missa Papae Marcelli of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• I Cannot Grow from Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia
  Click here for notes on this work
  Click here to practice
• By and By from A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett
  Click here for a biography of Sir Michael Tippett
  Click here for an interview with Sir Michael Tippett