Music for Thursday, 10th May: Ascension Day

The readings for Ascension Day are:

Daniel 7:9-14
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47 or Psalm 93
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53

It’s still Easter, gotta use the reading from Acts, you know the deal by now if you’ve been reading along…

Daniel 7:9-14 is a vivid, awesome vision of God, and of the “one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven” being given all dominion and kingship.

Acts 1:1-11 is a description of Jesus promising the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit, and then being taken up to heaven.

Psalm 47 is about praising God, and about God’s kingship; and of course there is the verse “God has gone up with a shout”, or, as the Coverdale version has and Common Worship has retained, with a “merry noise”.

Psalm 93 is about the kingship and mightiness of God.

Ephesians 1:15-23 is the letter writer praying that the Ephesians might receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they can know the hope they are called to, the inheritance of the saints, and the kingship and power of Christ.

Luke 24:44-53 is another description of the Ascension of Jesus.

The traditional text for Ascension Day is Psallite Domino, and in 2010 Cecilia McDowall wrote a setting of it for SSATB. I haven’t found it available to purchase online so the best thing to do would be to contact the composer via her website.

Alternately, there is also this German hymn for SAB by Sigrid Schultz-Kokerbeck.

When I asked about German translations I got a number of them back, but the one by Rosemary Riepma stands head and shoulders above the rest, because it fits the metre of the original:

Let every child of God rejoice
The Lord ascends triumphantly
So sing his praise with hearty voice

The Lord himself prepares a place
To keep us in eternal grace
So sing his praise with hearty voice

Now may he send the Holy Ghost
To bathe sore hearts that need it most
And comfort us with his own word
And guard us from the Devil’s sword

Although we’re living in this world
Our actions do not satisfy
The world, but we obey God’s word
And live as he has told us to

So let’s give thanks to our dear Lord
And offer him our heartfelt praise
Sing praises with the angels’ choir
Sing praises for the heavens to hear

In the German, the final line of the first two verses is repeated, and it would make sense to do this in English too.

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

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.