In dulci jubilo

In dulci jubilo,
Nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne liegt
in praesepio,
Und leuchtet als die Sonne
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O!

O Jesu parvule
Nach dir ist mir so weh!
Tröst' mir mein Gemüte
O puer optime
Durch alle deine Güte
O princeps gloriae.
Trahe me post te!

O Patris caritas!
O Nati lenitas!
Wir wären all verdorben
Per nostra crimina
So hat er uns erworben
Coelorum gaudia
Eia, wären wir da!

Ubi sunt gaudia
Nirgend mehr denn da!
Da die Engel singen
Nova cantica,
Und die Schellen klingen
In regis curia.
Eia, wären wir da!

"The Blessed Son of God"

Listen: Ralph Vaughan Williams — "The Blessed Son of God",
Being the fifth movement from his Christmas cantata Hodie
Performed by The Tudor Choir on this CD.
Or, if you are averse to downloading, listen to a fine performance here.

The blessed Sonne of God onely
In a crybbe full poore dyd lye:
With oure poore flesh and oure poore bloude
Was clothed that everlastynge good.
Kirieleyson.

The Lorde Christ Jesu, God’s Sonne deare,
Was a gest and a straunger here;
Us for to brynge from mysery,
That we might lyve eternally.
Kirieleyson.

All this dyd He for us frely,
For to declare His great mercy:
All Christendome be mery therfore,
And geve Hym thankes evermore.
Kirieleyson.

— Myles Coverdale, after Martin Luther (a loose translation of selected verses of "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ")

St. Lucy's Day

The best method of getting into the mind of prehistoric man is to spend more time outdoors. Perhaps the first thing one notices, upon doing so, is that one becomes far more aware of natural cycles: the phase of the moon, the barometric pressure, the time the sun sets (or, if you are un buen madrugador, the time it rises). Around this time of year it is quite possible to believe that the days will continue to get shorter and shorter until some scientist finally notices that the Earth's axis has somehow started tipping and our hemisphere will never see light again. This is, of course, implausible, though stranger things have happened elsewhere in the galaxy. The worst-case scenario would be a tidally-locked planet, with constant light in one hemisphere and constant darkness in t'other. Another possibility is a fate like that of the planet Uranus, the axis of which is so tilted that each pole is in complete darkness for forty-two years; of course, its orbital period is also much longer than Earth's. Whatever our axial tilt is, for those of us sensitive to a lack of sunlight the solstice can't come too soon.

Coïncidentally or not, today is the feast of Saint Lucy, long thought to be the shortest day of the year. ("'Tis the year's midnight", as Donne says.) The saint's connection with light needs little explanation.

There are, as it happens, quite a few hymns appropriate for this time of year. Many are used at compline. Perhaps the best is Christe, qui lux es et dies. (If you ever get a chance to hear Robert White's four polyphonic settings, do so. Here are the first and last; I can't readily find the other two.) This hymn was, in turn, adapted into two German chorales: Christe, der du bist Tag und Licht and Christe, der du bist der helle Tag. Another compline hymn is Te lucis ante terminum; my favorite version is the mode VIII melody used on ordinary Sundays and minor feasts. Other hymns include Conditor alme siderum and Lucis creator optime.

Some might complain that we've become too accustomed to the dichotomy between light and darkness, with its implication that light is to be preferred. This does not bother me. As anyone who has woken before the dawn can tell you, it is natural for man to want light. Consider Psalm 130:

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Peace, Goodwill, Christmas Hymns

I was once on the verge of becoming a Christmas fundamentalist. So obsessed was I with the idea of reclaiming Advent (which is, after all, a wonderful season that is overlooked by far too many) that I became a bit angry at the thought of putting up Christmas decorations before The Day Itself. Christmas music pumped out over the loud speakers at sundry public places was cause to avoid going anywhere. The Feast of the Incarnation, I was at pains to remind everybody, is properly speaking the start of the Christmas season, which lasts until Epiphany (though one could leave up Christmas decorations until the Feast of the Purification of Mary, Candlemas, on the second of February).

Whether it is a sign of the abandonment of principle or merely the mellowing of age, I am no longer quite so angry to see people celebrating Christmas weeks before the Holiday itself. Advent, after all, is only one of the casualties of liturgical ignorance. (I don't think I'll ever understand Christians whose only vestiges of the church year are Christmas and Easter. But then, they are no doubt bewildered by the sort of High Church pageantry that I enjoy.)

I appreciate, at least, that some people are more pleasant during the Christmas season; there is a general feeling of goodwill that makes it more difficult to be purposefully unpleasant. I suspect this is due, in part, to the music. This is the only time of year when we are permitted to like music written before we were born. This should only be encouraged: Christmas music is perhaps the last widely-known musical repertory that links us to a bygone age. Incidentally, this is also the best model for a body of hymnody: people should be taught all the good old hymns. Anyone advocating all new music in church should observe the emotional connection people have to all their favorite Christmas hymns, and ponder this in their hearts.

This is not to say that all old music, or all music that induces nostalgia, is good music. Consider "The Little Drummer Boy", written in 1941: it is one of the perversely worst-written songs ever made, from a compositional standpoint. But then, nostalgia is not a particularly logical impulse.

Rite, Meaning, Continuity

Mr Dreher has some good points about the power — and importance — of good ritual:

There is something enchanting, in the literal sense of the word, about having the reality of the Divine encompass one through one's senses. It is possible, of course, to be present in such a place and to shut oneself off from the presence of the Holy Spirit. But for me, I find it much more difficult to resist entering into a state of openness when there are so many sensual reminders — the incense, the vivid icons, the ritual motions — of the unseen reality around us, and within us.

If you read Bellah's book, "Religion in Human Evolution," you understand why ritual is more important than theology. No doubt that ritual completely disconnected from theology is empty. But humans never outgrow the deep need for ritual. It's built into the biological fabric of our being. You mess with that, you're messing with things you ought not touch.

Yes. We must, of course, address the the danger of rite displacing God from the center of worship. But this is only a danger because ritual is so important; it does serve such a important function in our lives. To devalue meaningful ritual (which is, by its nature, something inherited, something that has been a part of a given community for a significant amount of time) is to deprive ourselves of a powerful means of communion.

Perhaps the most common argument at any church is "But we've always done it that way!" This is not, in and of itself, a good argument. (It is, however, far preferable to that other common argument: "We need to change x to get new members!" These words portend doom.) We shouldn't appeal to tradition simply because it is tradition. We appeal to tradition because we trust that our forebears did things for good reason, because tradition acquires richer meanings with time, because tradition connects us to believers dead and yet unborn.

Augustana, Revisited

This evening I attended the Augustana Choirs and Orchestra Christmas concert. What's that, you well may ask, a Christmas concert in the first week of Advent? Madness! you may correctly observe. But it was an enjoyable concert, for the most part, nonetheless. There's a certain percentage of Christmas schlock that is required to satiate the blue-haired little old ladies, but fortunately there was some real repertoire as well. My favorite was Respighi's L'adorazione dei magi, part of his triptych on Botticelli themes. I do believe the more I hear Respighi the more I like him.

Returning to Augustana, whatever the circumstances, has always been pleasant for me: I feel at home there in a way I never will feel anywhere else. Notre Dame had its benefits, of course, but I never felt like a part of that community (if such a large school can be called a "community" at all). The arguments I heard — and took part in — there could interest me intellectually, but there was ultimately a disconnect somewhere: what is it to me, if the Basilica uses chant or guitars? It's not my Basilica. It was easier to take a step back and observe the pettiness and uncharity at Notre Dame. There's no less pettiness and uncharity at Augustana, of course — indeed, there may be more, per capita — but it is somehow more tolerable because it is a place I think worth fighting for; it is home. And home, for all its frustrations, is still preferable to anyplace else.

Rowan Williams: "Advent Calendar"

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

—from The Poems of Rowan Williams

Dominus Regnavit

Days like today are cause for optimism: both of my church services went well, and there are so many good hymn tunes for Christ the King Sunday. (Diademata is a particular favorite; everybody likes "Crown Him with Many Crowns".) I am becoming more and more fond of this part of November, when the fields are cleared and nearly all the trees are bare, before it snows; it's not desolate but rather clean-looking. Perhaps it's just this year in the three-year lectionary cycle, but the readings — with their apocalyptic imagery — lead nicely into Advent. Comparing different hymnals, there is even overlap between end-of-the-church-year hymns and Advent hymns: Helmsley ("Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending"), for example.

The notion, particularly relevant today, of the kingship of God is an interesting one. Perhaps the most common conception of God in the psalms is as awesome King; another, nearly as common, is as just Judge. Indeed, the two concepts seem closely linked in ancient Jewry. Other psalms (cf. esp. 45, 72, 89) describe God's covenant with mortal kings, who are expected to carry out God's justice. Some sections read as little more than monarchist propaganda; the Bible is not a book for republicans. In any case, it appears that legitimate, God-pleasing government has an obligation to the poor, a fact lost on a great many people nowadays.

There is one issue I've always wondered about: if earthly kings derive their legitimacy from God, what meaning does the title "King" have for God himself? There is — we presume! — no higher power to grant God the title. It seems that God is King simply by virtue of being God.

* * *
Next week is the start of Advent. I have resolved that I should start posting — here, if there is no more suitable place — music selections from the liturgies at my churches, like some do. So: here is some of the upcoming music at St. Paul Lutheran and St. Luke's Episcopal.

Organ preludes and postludes for Advent and Christmas, 2011:
27 November (Advent I):
J.S. Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
W.F. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, F.38, No. 1
4 December (Advent II):
Jeanne Demessieux: Rorate caeli, Op. 8, No. 1
Michael Praetorius: Alvus tumescit virginis
11 December (Advent III, Gaudete):
Healey Willan: Prelude on Richmond
Gerald Near: Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam
18 December (Advent IV):
J.S. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
Paul Manz: Toccata on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, Op. 5, No. 10
24 December (Christmas Eve):
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre: Quand Jésus naquit à Noël
Dieterich Buxtehude: In dulci jubilo, BuxWV 197
25 December (Christmas Day):
Louis-Claude Daquin: Noël X (Grand jeu et Duo)
Georg Böhm: Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her

The American Guild of Organists

This evening I attended my first AGO meeting. I am pleased to report that it went reasonably well. The theme for pieces was "things based on hymn-tunes"; I performed that bombastic Karg-Elert Nun danket alle Gott setting, and, to atone for that, also BWV 645. The membership of the local chapter is quite tolerable: the only instances in which I found it necessary to bite my tongue were when I heard praise of Allen instruments. (One must bear in mind that many — far too many — organists out here in the provinces have never played a tracker, and thus may be forgiven for their misguided tastes.)

Being away from school, even for only these few months, has taught me how important the company of one's peers is. It is, of course, a bit of a stretch to call my fellow AGO members peers — they are, after all, predominantly women who could charitably be called "post-middle-aged" — but it is nice to have people who understand the vicissitudes of a career in church music. In every profession one needs people to whom one can complain about one's job; I suspect this is the true origin of the great medieval guilds.

Wolf Hall

Finished, at last, with my slog through Tolkien, I turned immediately to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's been a bit of an adjustment, going from Tolkien (who, though a worthwhile read, has too many adverbs and all the humor of the Heimskringla) to Mantel, whose wit could be metaphorically compared to something that is very sharp.

The hero (or antihero, if you must) of the book is Thomas Cromwell (who was indeed related to Oliver, though we mustn't hold that against him). History, for the most part, has not been kind to Cromwell: the impression one often gets is that he was an amoral schemer, who, in the end, reaped the whirlwind after several years of attempting to manipulate the king's favor. If you've seen A Man for All Seasons you've probably got a much more charitable opinion of Cromwell's rival Thomas More, whom Roman Catholics now call a saint; he's held in high esteem at Notre Dame, certainly. But Mantel deconstructs this beatific image we have of More: as she sees it, he was little more than a religious zealot.

[Cromwell] never sees More — a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod — without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before?

It's worth remembering that More was not some selfless defender of personal conscience to be compared to Cromwell's unprincipled henchman of royal prerogative. More merely preferred Papal tyranny to royal tyranny. The question, perhaps, is: which should one prefer in Henry VIII's England? Despite my fondness for Anglicanism, I still have this image of the king as this horrible sort of Bluebeard character, ruled by his appetites, quite probably more beast than man. I don't know if Mantel means to dispel this characterization further on in the book; after all, I've only read about a hundred of its six-hundred-odd pages. But I recommend it highly, so far.