Music suggestions

Music for Sunday 10th December: Advent 2 (Year B)

Kathryn

The readings for this Sunday are:


Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Isaiah: Comfort ye my people. Make the way straight. The Lord is coming, and he will feed his flock like a shepherd.
Psalm: A prayer for God’s favour. Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
2 Peter: It’s all a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey… The Lord is not slow, but patient; and then some stuff about what it will be like when God does turn up, new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. In the meantime we are to wait patiently and strive to be found at peace.
Gospel: good old John the Baptist, telling us who’s coming next. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

I was expecting to run into a Sunday eventually where I couldn’t make many recommendations yet, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.

There’s always Crimond, if you didn’t use it last week, given the feeding of flocks like a shepherd; but that isn’t particularly Advent-y.

So, I wrote a hymn tune myself, to some words by Percy Dearmer.

Music for Sunday 3rd December: Advent 1 (Year B)

Kathryn

The readings for this Sunday are:

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-8, 18-20
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

Serious stuff. Repentance is a theme in Isaiah and the Psalm; 1 Corinthians is more encouraging, and the Gospel reading is about keeping awake.

If you’re of a Marian bent you could use the Alma Redemptoris Mater, which is the Marian antiphon used from Advent to Candlemas. There’s a setting by Isabella Leonarda available on CPDL; here’s a Youtube recording of it sung by women, rather than the SATB:


[external link: Alma Redemptoris Mater by Isabelle Leonarda, on Youtube]

If Advent carol services and processions are more your thing, you could sing Stephanie Martin’s Legend of the Bird, a carol in the form of a conversation with a robin about the return of Christ. It’s available to order from Cypress Choral Music, and here it is on Soundcloud:

[external link: Legend of the Bird by Stephanie Martin, on Soundcloud]

Finally, my own setting of “Advent” by Christina Rosetti is available from Lulu or CPDL, and here’s a demo recording of it on YouTube:


[external link: Advent by Kathryn Rose, on Youtube]

There are also arrangements by women of various traditional Advent tunes; these are in some ways beyond the remit of Cecilia’s List, but the two that spring to mind are O Come O Come Emmanuel arranged by Sheena Phillips, and Es kommt ein Schiff, geladen by Sigrid Schultz-Kokerbeck. I’m intrigued by the text for the latter — there’s more information at good old Wikipedia but no English translation there, and my German is pretty shaky; however, I did find this blog post from 2013 with an English translation.

Music for Sunday 26th November: Christ the King (Year A)

Kathryn

It’s the very last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year this Sunday: Christ the King. For year A, the readings are:

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 100 or Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46

Amy Beach set “All hail the power of Jesu’s name” as an anthem for SATB and piano or organ. You can download the score from MusOpen. It’s pretty straightforward and rather dramatic, but it does require a good top A of your sopranos. I haven’t found a recording of it yet, though, so if you know of one then do drop me a line in comments.

The hymn tune CRIMOND is also by a woman (I only found this out on Tuesday!), Jessie Seymour Irvine; so if you’ll be singing “The Lord’s my shepherd”, as well you might with that Old Testament reading, and you have no other music by women, then CRIMOND is a good and reliable choice of tune; and it’s in most hymnals (sometimes attributed to David Grant), and very well-known.