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I know that is probably obvious to you, but it was a point that was driven home in a hymn sung in many parishes.

Maybe you caught it? It was in the list of negatives that we sang in the opening of Hymn 259 in the Hymnal 1982: “Hail to the Lord who comes.”

Hail to the Lord who comes,
   comes to his temple gate;
not with his angel host,
   not in his kingly state;
no shouts proclaim him nigh,
   no crowds his coming wait;

John Ellerton (1826–1893), alt.

In this hymn’s first stanza, John Ellerton gives us four consecutive negative images to let us know what the Presentation is not.

It’s not like the Second Coming when Jesus will come in glory with his “angel host.”

And, notably, it’s not anything resembling the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday when the crowds lining the streets of Jerusalem acclaim Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!”. These very roads lead toward the temple, and at least in Mark's Gospel, Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem culminates with his entry into the temple.

For Ellerton, it is important to stress that the Presentation is not that kind of arrival. This is a quiet, unheralded entry—at least on the outside. The acclamations and epiphanies about who Jesus is come from Simeon and Anna once the infant Jesus is inside the Temple.

Defining something by what it is not strikes me as an unusual maneuver in hymn writing, but not a unique one. We find other examples of this in our hymn repertoire.

Request for rhetorical vocabulary: If there is a useful rhetorical term for this, I would be eager to learn what it is!

Not here for high and holy things
   we render thanks to thee,
but for the common things of earth,
   the purple pageantry

Hymn 9, st. 1, Geoffrey Anketel Studdert-Kennedy (1883–1929)

When this old world drew on toward night,
   you came; but not in splendor bright,
not as a monarch, but the child
   of Mary, blameless mother mild.

Hymn 60: "Creator of the stars of night," st. 3, Latin, 9th cent. ver. Hymnal 1940, alt.

He sent him not in wrath and power,
   but grace and peace to bring;
in kindness, as a king might send
   his son, himself a king.

He came as Savior to his own,
   the way of love he trod;
he came to win us by good will,
   for force is not of God.

Not to oppress, but summon all
   their truest life to find,
in love God sent his Son
   to save, not to condemn mankind.

Hymn 489: "The great Creator of the worlds," st. 3, 5, 6, Epistle to Diognetus; ca. 150; tr. F. Bland Tucker (1895–1984), rev.

for not with swords loud clashing,
   nor roll of stirring drums,
but deeds of love and mercy,
   the heavenly kingdom comes.

Hymn 555: "Lead on, O King eternal," st. 2b, Ernest Warburton Shurtleff (1862–1917)

Labels: hymn, Hymn 259, Hymn 489, Hymn 555, Hymn 60, Hymn 9, John Ellerton, Presentation

Of the hundreds and hundreds of settings of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, one genuinely scares me. I am afraid to perform it, either as a conductor or as an organist.

And it’s not that this piece is overly technical. Indeed Herbert Howells has written more difficult settings of the Evening Canticles (the Dallas Service comes to mind).

But there is a unique difficulty in this music written for King’s College, Cambridge, in 1945. Like no other piece I can think of, the “Collegium Regale” Evening Canticles seem to demand perfection.

I recently pulled out my copy of the piece to accompany the canticles this past Sunday at Evensong. I found myself briefly second-guessing the composer at the slurring of the word “lowliness,” but quickly realized that Howells got it right (of course). It is also the first slur in the piece that somehow feels as if it was already full of them.

I can study the notes, I can sing them, I can play them, and yet, these pieces somehow remain a mystery. The kind of alchemic liquidity that Howells achieves is impressive. The culminating Gloria Patri seems to transcend time and space every time we encounter it, and blissfully, it comes up twice when these canticles are sung at Evensong.

I realize need to get over my fear which has resulted in a kind of reluctance to program these canticles. They must always remain special, but Howells has done that work for us. I relished the chance to accompany these on Sunday. They cry out to be performed, not kept under glass.

Labels: Howells, King's College (Cambridge)

The Abbey has quietly begun a regular series of live video webcasts of various services.

The series began on September 8, 2024, with a Sung (Choral) Eucharist, and continued with a service of Choral Evensong on Holy Cross Day. Each of the service they have broadcast has stayed up on their YouTube channel for about a month.

The most recent service was a Service of Lessons and Carols for Christmas.

Today, the Feast of Epiphany, the Abbey will webcast a Sung Eucharist.

The Abbey began indexing these services on their “Streamed Services” page, which is now called “Watch Services”.

This kind of endeavor is of great interest to us at Sinden.org, as we suspect it is of all students of church music. The value in these kinds of regular, live webcasts is immeasureable. They allow us to hear a wide variety of liturgical music—sung at a very high standard—fully within a specific, contemporary liturgical context. Though any electronically mediated liturgical experience is, by definition, something other than being truly present, there is value in seeing and hearing liturgy and music as it is conducted in a place like this.

It is not lost on us that as the webcasts at St. John's College, Cambridge have sadly decreased in frequency (only four services were webcast in 2023/24), they have begun at Westminster Abbey. The common denominator here, we must speculate, is Andrew Nethsingha. Webcasts sprung up when he was directing the St. John's Choir, and now they seem to have done the same toward the beginning of his tenure at the Abbey.

Labels: Andrew Nethsingha, Epiphany, St John's (Cambridge), webcasting, Westminster Abbey

But that’s not the carol I am writing about today.

In the run-up to Christmas this year (so, Advent, I guess?) I had occasion to type all of the words to the carol “O little town of Bethlehem”.

And, unusually for this blog, I’m going to eschew any mention of the various tunes for this completely, and just invite you to reflect on the words. Although now common throughout the Anglican Communion, and really all of Christendom, these words come from the pen of Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks (”Born in Boston, Died in Boston”). Brooks later became the Bishop of Massachusetts.

You might be struck by the Christmas silence of the third stanza. Or the glorious crescendo achieved in the fourth stanza. It’s all rather beautiful, and our familiarity with it sometimes prevents a true close reading.

I hope you have had a blessed Christmas!

O little town of Bethlehem,
   how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
   the silent stars go by;
yet in thy dark streets shineth
   the everlasting Light;
the hopes and fears of all the years
   are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary;
   and gathered all above,
while mortals sleep, the angels keep
   their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
   proclaim the holy birth!
and praises sing to God the King,
   and peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently,
   the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
   the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
   but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him,
   still the dear Christ enters in.

Where children pure and happy
   pray to the blessed Child,
where misery cries out to thee,
   Son of the Mother mild;
where charity stands watching
   and faith holds wide the door,
the dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
   and Christmas comes once more.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
   descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in,
   be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
   the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
   our Lord Emmanuel!

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Phillips Brooks

More often than not at Christmas, I find myself reaching for “Sing lullaby,” a modern carol text by Sabine Baring-Gould. If that name is familar to you, it may be because you know his carol “Gabriel’s Message” or, perhaps, his book on were-wolves.

The Director of Music of St. James Cathedral, Chicago, writes that this carol has become a regular feature of Christmas in that cathedral.

Particularly as Christmastide nears its end, it is fitting to look ahead to the whole of Jesus’ saving work, including his death and resurrection. This carol does that beautifully beginning in the second stanza.

The juxtaposition of the infant Jesus with his death is an affecting one. It appears in various places: the gift of myrrh at Epiphany, one elaborated in Peter Warlock’s carol, “Bethlehem Down”

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby baby, now reclining,
sing lullaby.
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Angels are watching, stars are shining
over the place where He is lying:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby baby, now a-sleeping,
sing lullaby.
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon will come sorrow with the morning,
soon will come bitter grief and weeping:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby. 
Lullaby baby, now a-dozing, 
sing lullaby. 
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing,
then in the grave at last reposing:
sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby.
Lullaby, is the babe awaking?
Sing lullaby.
Hush, do not stir the infant King.
Dreaming of Easter, gladsome morning.
Conquering death, its bondage breaking:
sing lullaby.

I am more familiar with the Willcocks arrangement of this tune (as I suspect many of us are), but it’s very good to spend some time with the original, too.

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Edgar Pettman, St James Cathedral (Chicago), Stephen Buzard, Warlock, Willcocks

In these days of Christmastide, we have been sharing a carol every day on the blog. It just so happens that, along the way, we’ve made a list of five carols that are in E minor that you should know!

1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   Come for a great tune. Stay for the three-part descant.
2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   It's a tune so good that no one minds the whole thing is in Latin (although, yes, it can be sung in English, too)
3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES
   The quintessential E minor carol. Or is it? What mode will you sing it in?
4. Make we joy now in this fest - William Walton
   Walton’s carols are second to none. This is his first.
5. The Oxen - Jessica French
   A newer, reflective carol.

BONUS: After beginning this list of five carols, we realized one in E minor had already made an appearance this Christmas: Dormi, Jesu - Jaebon Hwang—so let’s just call it six carols in E minor that you should know!

Labels: Christmas, Holst, Jaebon Hwang, Jessica French, Walton, Willcocks

In the latest volume of the Carols for Choirs series is found a work by Seattle composer Jessica French. The words are “The Oxen” by Thomas Hardy.

This carol was recently recorded on the popular new Christmas album from Trinity, Boston. The work is for unaccompanied choir with tenor and soprano solos. The first stanza of the poem serves as a refrain.

And, sure enough, this completes our list of...

Five Carols in E minor That You Should Know
   1. God rest you merry, gentlemen - David Willcocks
   2. Personent hodie - Gustav Holst
   3. What child is this - GREENSLEEVES
   4. Make we joy now in this fest - William Walton
   5. The Oxen - Jessica French

Labels: 12 Carols for Christmas, Christmas, Jessica French, Trinity (Boston)