the T hree K ings
Music for Christmas from Tewkesbury Abbey
Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum
Carleton Etherington organ Benjamin Nicholas director
The Three Kings Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum
Carleton Etherington organ
Benjamin Nicholas director
1. The Magi * [5:41]
Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)
2. Lux Aurumque [4:18]
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)
3. Lullay, dear Jesus [3:33]
Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
4. The Word Made Flesh [5:04]
Philip Wilby (b. 1949)
5. The Kings [2:51]
Peter Cornelius (1869-1953)
6. The Virgin’s Slumber Song [2:18]
Max Reger (1873-1916)
7. Welcome, Yule! [1:24]
C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918)
8. There is no rose of such virtue [2:37]
John Joubert (b. 1927)
9. Quem pastores laudavere [4:53]
James Bassi (b. 1961)
10. La Nativité [6:01]
Jean Langlais (1907-1991)
Recorded in Tewkesbury Abbey on 5, 6, & 7 March 2007 with kind
24-Bit
24-Bit
Giles Swayne: Convocation
The National Youth Choir of Great Britain
Laudibus Mike Brewer, conductor
Michael Bonaventure, organ Stephen Wallace, counter-tenor (DCD34033)
When a powerful team of new music exponents come together, magic will happen; when the music is by Giles Swayne, a composer whose light shines brilliantly in its own unique direction, the results will entrance. This disc offers a bracing sonic experience – vividly communicative music performed with rare verve, passion, and youthful vibrancy.
‘Swayne is undoubtedly the finest choral composer writing today’ – The Times, October 2006
William Turner: Sacred Choral Music
The Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Yorkshire Baroque Soloists (Peter Seymour, director)
Geoffrey Webber, conductor (DCD34028)
It is easy to forget that our great English choral tradition was once silenced by Act of Parliament. The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 subsequently ushered in one of the finest periods in English music, though the road to recovery for church music was a slow and difficult one. Turner, then a precocious nine year-old, went on to become one of the best known composers and singers of his day. This premiere recording presents a cross-section of Turner’s sacred music, ranging from small-scale liturgical works to one of his grandest creations, the Te Deum and Jubilate in D.
‘Geoffrey Webber’s choir sings with greater passion than most of its Oxbridge rivals’
– Classic FM Magazine
O How Glorious is the Kingdom
The Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle
Timothy Byram-Wigfield, conductor Roger Judd, organ (DCD34048)
The Choir of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, offers a sumptuous programme of jewels from the anthem tradition whose repertoire spans five centuries. Under the luminous direction of Timothy Byram-Wigfield, and in the luxurious resonance of St George’s Chapel, the choir resounds with exhilarating energy, at once arresting and awe-inspiring.
‘The Queen’s own choir is in rude health’
– Gramophone, September 2006
11. O, my deir hert (Cradle Song) [2:52]
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
12. I wonder as I wander [2:00]
Carl Rütti (b. 1949)
13. Thou whose birth * [3:51]
Gabriel Jackson
14. When Christ was born of Mary free * [2:32]
C. Hubert H. Parry
15. The Three Kings [4:46]
Jonathan Dove (b. 1959)
16. God is with us (A Christmas Proclamation) [5:34]
Gabriel Jackson: Sacred Choral Music
Choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh
Matthew Owens, conductor Susan Hamilton, soprano
Michael Bonaventure, organ Simon Nieminski, organ (DCD34027)
The culmination of a four-year association between the choir of St Mary’s Cathedral and British Composer Award winner Gabriel Jackson, this disc presents eight world premiere recordings. Whether gentle and meditative, brilliantly exuberant, or soaring in ecstatic contemplation, Jackson’s vividly communicative music is brought thrillingly to life by a choir at the peak of its powers.
‘Beautifully crafted music that allows this excellent choir full rein’
– Gramophone, 2005
John Tavener (b. 1944)
17. Vom Himmel Hoch (Toccata-Prelude IV) [5:44]
Garth Edmondson (1900-1971)
Total playing time: [66:02]
* world premiere recordings
If good music always sounds contemporary, then good carols sound contemporary in a special way. After all, there is nothing quite like this unique Christmas tradition, a synthesis of the sacred and secular, spanning denominations and centuries and blending high art and folk art, custom and belief. Carols are settings of seasonal texts – not necessarily ones about Christmas – in which English verse may rub shoulders with Latin, or two texts may co-exist side by side. Musically, they have journeyed far, on a long and winding path to the present from their origins in the late medieval mystery plays, and en route they have acquired all kinds of musical treasure, from balladry and hymnody to the rhythms of Stravinsky and pop.
Such an eclectic history makes programming them an adventure in itself. There is much potential for creative contrasts of mood and style, and the sequence of fourteen sung items and two organ solos in this collection has been assembled in such a spirit. It is extraordinary how soon the ear grows as accustomed to the Byzantine acclamations of God is with us by John Tavener, born in 1944, as to the pastoral modality of O, my deir hert by Herbert Howells (1892-1983), as to the chorale strains of The Three Kings – in which an affecting melody by the German opera composer Peter Cornelius (1824-74) in turn ‘piggybacks’ on one of the most famous of Christmas chorales, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern by Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608). Though we think of carols as a
native tradition, in typically English fashion its genius has been assimilative, extending its embrace even beyond the bounds of Protestant cultures, to include the beauty of the Roman and Eastern Churches. Moreover, as testified by the works of contemporary composers featured on this disc, the modern carol reflects changing popular expectations of the form both in its inclusive attitude to style and to what is indeed a goodly heritage.
Not that earlier composers were less sensitive to the worth of this inheritance – certainly not Hubert Parry (1848-1918), whose choice of medieval texts for his two carol-anthems Welcome, Yule! and When Christ was born of Mary free suggests the Janus-faced quality that is part of a good carol’s contemporary flavour. The text of Welcome, Yule! is probably best known as the first movement of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols of 1942, where its setting is indeed a paradigm of the timelessness of great art. In contrast, Parry was responding at the end of his life (these choruses date from the First World War) to an important nineteenth-century movement, begun by collectors such as Davies Gilbert and William Sandys, to save genuine folk carols from death by Victorian Christmas.
As a result of their dedication, and that of twentieth-century textual critics who brought new life to carols preserved in musty manuscripts, we are infinitely the richer, not
Trebles
Benoit André
David Bath
Oliver Bullock
James Deans Sidgreaves
George Eldridge
Marcus Emmerson
Andrew Gamman
Oliver Gay
Aaron King
Nathan King
Joe Morford
William Northcott
Thomas Ooi
Joshua Roberts
Hector Watson
Giles Williams
Robert Wilks
Altos
Derek Acock
Stephen Burrows
Ian Harrold
Alexander Pridgeon
Tenors
James Atherton
James Brown
James Cadogan
Christopher Hand
Henry Watson
Basses
Christopher Borrett
James McKelvey
Christopher Monk
Elvin Young
Yang Wern Ooi
Soloists
Oliver Gay (Wilby)
Nathan King and Hector Watson (Dove)
Aaron King (Whitacre)
Christopher Borrett (Cornelius)
Christopher Watson (Tavener)
Carleton Etherington is the Organist of Tewkesbury Abbey and director of the Abbey Choir. Prior to this he held appointments at Leeds Parish Church and St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street. In addition to his work at the Abbey, Carleton is an active recitalist, conductor of Pershore and Cirencester Choral Societies, a member of the music department at Dean Close School, Cheltenham and a member of the council of the Royal College of Organists.
Carleton was educated at Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester and the Royal Academy of
Music, London, where he studied with Peter Hurford and David Sanger. He graduated from London University with an honours degree in music winning numerous prizes for organ performance, culminating in the Recital Diploma. Carleton won first prize at the 1992 Paisley International Organ Festival Competition and, the following year, was winner of the prestigious Royal College of Organists’ “Performer of the Year” competition. He has travelled widely as a recitalist, performing at most of the major British venues and further afield in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Australia and the USA. He has made several recordings, both as soloist and accompanist, and has broadcast on BBC radio and television.
only as recipients of a priceless gift, but also for a sense of Christmas as a joyful season rather than a brief abstinence from toil and commerce. For example, Welcome, Yule! celebrates not only the Nativity but also saints’ days, the Holy Innocents, New Year and – least palatable to evangelical Victorians – Candlemas, focus of medieval veneration of Mary that informed the entire festival.
A variety of carols relating to the Virgin – including lullaby carols newly composed or imported from the continent, and compositions on pre-Reformation English carol texts – has indeed been among the chief additions to English Christmas music of the last hundred years. They account for a quarter of the works on this disc, and the most recent of them, There is no rose of such virtue by John Joubert, born in 1927, looks furthest back, its text being found in a fifteenth-century manuscript roll preserved at Trinity College, Cambridge. Decay has made parts of it unreadable. But Joubert’s setting, with a hint of medieval fauxbourdon in its euphonious thirds, sounds as fresh now as when it was written in 1954, two years after the publication of John Stevens’s definitive collection of medieval carols in the Musica Britannica series had rendered this forgotten repertoire ‘modern’.
Though the anonymous author of the Trinity roll was content to dwell on the theme of Mary idealised as a rose, later writers have rarely
been happy to employ this conceit without also registering the pathos of the forthcoming Passion. And as two continental carols included in this collection demonstrate, the latent tension between the birth and death of Christ has been a creative focus for composers as well.
In setting The Virgin’s Slumber Song by the poet Martin Boelitz (1874-1918), the German Catholic composer Max Reger (1873-1916) simplified his style to counter criticism of over-complexity. But in the third verse of this brief lyric, a touch of his more unsettled manner aptly suggests irony in the comforting words of the bird to the infant Jesus. And in a refined example of musical symbolism, Arnold Bax (1883-1953), in his arrangement of Lullay, dear Jesus (Lulajze Jezuniu), prefaced this Polish carol with a hushed quotation of Bach’s Passion Chorale. That a lullaby-carol from a Catholic heartland, fourth of Five Fantasies on Polish Christmas Carols commissioned in 1942 for the Polish Red Cross, could rub shoulders with the most truly sacred of German Protestant melodies – and all from the musical poet of the Celtic twilight – is a indeed a miracle of the genre’s capacity to absorb and reconcile.
For Christians, the source of the miraculous is God incarnate, announced by the Angel of the Lord and witnessed by the first carollers, the shepherds ‘keeping watch over their flock by night’. Without doubt the greatest of all texts and tunes inspired by the Nativity is from
Germany: the Christmas-eve chorale Vom Himmel Hoch, da komm’ ich her, written by Martin Luther for his own children, and raised to consummate art by J.S. Bach in chorale preludes, canonic variations and, most notably, in The Christmas Oratorio.
Though technically more hymn than carol, chorales have been at home for centuries in the English tradition, which pragmatically blurs the distinction between the two. The exquisite words of Herbert Howells’s O, my deir hert, composed in 1920, are a translation of verses thirteen and fourteen of Luther’s text, taken from Ane Compendious Buik of Godlie Psalmes, by the brothers James, John and Robert Wedderburn, and published in 1567, only three decades after the chorale itself. Also from the years between the two world wars, the organ toccata-prelude on Vom Himmel Hoch, by the American composer Garth Edmundson (19001971), a native of Pennsylvania who studied in Leipzig, reminds us that the New World was the destination for many European Protestant migrants seeking refuge from the Old. The tune is heard four times, treated in a virtuosic manner worthy of Bach, though concluding with a most un-Bachian penultimate chord.
And what of the haunting tune that floats across the numinous harmonies of La Nativité, second of three Poèmes évangéliques written in 1932 by the blind organ virtuoso Jean Langlais (19071991)? The French organ school, of which he
was an exponent, remains quite separate from the Anglican musical tradition. Yet this piece is a favourite of British players, and is often heard in places of worship on this island.
In fact all these strands, and others, have influenced contemporary composers, striving to create new music fit for Christmas. Openminded to the vocabulary of modernism, they are also fluent in the approachable speech of late-twentieth century figures, from Glass to Pärt. Social upheaval has unclouded our nationalistic view of carols, and emphasised the vernacular. But the prestige of the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and the popularisation of the genre through series like Carols for Choirs, linked inalienably with the names of Willcocks and Rutter, have also secured for carols a place in the public mind, no less than in the repertoire of choral societies.
Time-honoured texts continue to be a fruitful source of inspiration, especially for those who favour the familiar harmonies and rhythms of popular music. The arrangement of the fourteenth-century Latin verse Quem pastores laudavere by the New York composer James Bassi, born in 1961, is a fine example, its song and vocalisation moving gently forward within a simple tonal setting. In contrast, the Swiss composer Carl Rütti, born in 1949, chose a quietly syncopated backing for the haunting Appalachian folksong I Wonder as I Wander.
Benjamin Nicholas is Director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and Conductor of Stroud and Monmouth Choral Societies. From October 2008 he will also be assistant to Peter Phillips at the newly established choral foundation at Merton College, Oxford.
In September 2000 Benjamin took up his post as Director of The Abbey School Choir at Tewkesbury. Over the next six years he raised the choir’s profile with six foreign tours and a number of recordings, including Elgar’s choral music for Japanese television, Stainer’s choral music for Priory Records and various anthologies for Regent, Guild, Signum and Delphian. On
the closure of The Abbey School in July 2006, Benjamin Nicholas moved with the choir to Dean Close Preparatory School when they were renamed Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum.
As a conductor, Benjamin Nicholas has worked with a number of groups including The Oxford Chamber Choir, Reading Bach Choir, St Cecilia Singers and the English Symphony Orchestra. He has directed many large-scale works, most recently Bach’s Mass in B minor with James Bowman, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Neil Jenkins and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Justin Lavender.
Benjamin read music at Oxford University and was organ scholar at Lincoln College. He also held organ scholarships at Chichester and St Paul’s Cathedrals and was Director of Music at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea.
Formed in 2006, Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum is the successor to The Abbey School Choir, singing weekday services in the abbey during term-time. Following the closure of The Abbey School, the role of choir school for Tewkesbury Abbey was taken over by Dean Close Preparatory School, Cheltenham, where all the choristers are now educated.
The work of Schola Cantorum has continued the many successes and busy regime of The Abbey School Choir, which, amongst other activities, includes numerous international tours, recordings and broadcasts. The 2006-07 season began with a broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from St Michael’s Church, Tenbury Wells, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of St Michael’s College, and continued with two performances of J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion, one of which was with the Cheltenham Bach Choir and Stephen Jackson in Gloucester Cathedral. Further concert appearances during the year included Mahler’s Third Symphony, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Handel’s Messiah. In addition to regular concerts in the Abbey, the choir also appears annually at the Pittville Pump Rooms in Cheltenham, and during 2006 made further appearances with the Cheltenham Bach Choir. Future highlights will include a performance,
broadcast and recording by the choristers of Honegger’s Cantate de Noël with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales.
Recent foreign tours by the choir have taken them to Italy (including perfromances in Venice), Germany (to the monks at Neresheim) and the USA (singing services at St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York). In 2007 the choir celebrated the end of its first year at Dean Close with a ten-concert tour of France, with performances in Albi, Foix, Tournus and Paris.
Schola Cantorum also continues The Abbey School Choir’s pursuit of new choral music, resulting in commissions from composers such as Geraint Lewis, Richard Popplewell and Gabriel Jackson. The Abbey School Choir’s numerous recordings include discs for the Guild, Naxos, Priory, Regent and Signum labels.
At the heart of the choir’s work, however, is the regular service of Evensong in Tewkesbury Abbey.
For further information on Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, please visit: www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk or www.deanclose.co.uk
And, neatly contradicting expectations, the luminous chords of the advent anthem Lux Aurumque by the American composer Eric Whitacre, born in 1970, are the musical image of Latin words in praise of light, which turn out to be not at all traditional, but a translation from an English verse by Edward Esch.
These are cases not of composers re-treading old ground, but of their planting it with new seed. In The Word Made Flesh by Philip Wilby, born 1949, and Thou whose birth, by a leading name in new music for Anglican worship, Gabriel Jackson, born in 1962, two composers approach the subject of the Nativity through the words of two individualists, the Elizabethan dramatist Ben Jonson and the Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, with equally convincing yet opposite effects. A Mozart scholar, Wilby captures the innocence of Jonson’s lyric in a web of solo and tutti exchanges and deftly modulating phrases. Jackson’s carol, in contrast, is unitary in conception. Matched by organ timbres of flute and celeste, an ornate chain of melody for trebles – as emblematic of ‘perfect day’ as of the ‘wild world’s night’ – transfixes the ear with its bright D major till the climax, suddenly touched with subdominant colour, invokes an ecstatic peace.
No longer the idyllic subject as treated by Peter Cornelius, Epiphany in particular has in recent times struck a sombre note among artists, with
its themes of wealth, genocide and outsiders – be they Zoroastrian priests or monarchs! It is therefore fitting that two of the most recent works on this disc from two leading British composers should explore this festival. Written for Harrow School in 2006, Jackson’s setting of The Magi encompasses both the Yeats poem and the Vulgate Latin of Matthew’s Gospel, the uncompromising division between the two languages – an ancient device of the carol tradition – suggesting the dual nature at the heart of our experience. To the unyielding tread of the camels, heard in the accompaniment, the sternly syllabic utterance of the music leads us without sentiment to its vision of ‘the bestial floor’, relaxing at last from minor to major in a flood of radiantly melismatic song.
The musical dramatist Jonathan Dove, born in 1959, answered a commission for the 2000 King’s College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols with The Three Kings, to a poem by the detective writer and Christian apologist Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957). For each of the gifts Dove offers a different kind of music, drawing archaic splendour and tenderness from the same theme, through bold contrasts of tonality and texture. The work ends quietly, with a return to its opening mood. In the process, however, we have been changed.
It would be hard to imagine John Tavener’s music being welcomed in Anglican circles before the 1960s, and in his recent works,
such as the Koran-based The Beautiful Names, he continues to challenge our notions of what is fitting. But the point of the Christmas Proclamation God is with us, written in 1987, is not how strange this music might sound, with its Orthodox vocal tunings, but how rooted it has become in our affections, reflecting an aspect of both the awe and tenderness of God which is absent from models in the Western Church. Its words from the Compline service recall the incarnation through Old Testament prophecy – the perennial Janus-face of Christmas, witnessed again in a modern work of musical ecumenism.
© 2007 Nicholas WilliamsA graduate of the University of Cambridge, Nicholas Williams is the publishing director of Stainer & Bell, as well as a regular commentator on music. Amongst his various writing activities, he is a music critic for The Independent newspaper.
15The Three Kings
Jonathan Dove (b. 1959)
The first king was very young, With doleful ballads on his tongue, He came bearing a branch of myrrh Than which no gall is bitterer.
O balow, balow la lay, Gifts for a baby King, O.
The second king was a man in prime, The solemn priest of a solemn time, With eyes downcast and rev’rent feet He brought his incense sad and sweet.
The third king was very old, Both his hands were full of gold, Many a gaud and a glittering toy, Baubles brave for a baby boy.
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) from Poetry of Dorothy L. Sayers, published by The Dorothy L. Sayers Society and The Wade Centre
16 God is with us (A Christmas Proclamation)
John Tavener (b. 1944)
God is with us.
Hear ye people,
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.
The people that dwell in the shadow of death, upon them the light has shined.
For unto us a child is born!
For unto us a son is given!
And the government shall be upon his shoulder;
And his name shall be called Wonderfull Counsellor!
The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace.
Hear ye people,
Even to the uttermost end of the earth.
God is with us. Christ is born!
From the Orthodox Great Compline for Christmas Eve
13 Thou whose birth
Gabriel Jackson
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While the stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again.
As this night was bright
With thy candle ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world’s night
To Thy perfect day.
Bid our peace increase,
Thou that madest morn;
Bid oppressions cease;
Bid the night be peace;
Bid the day be born.
14 When Christ was born of Mary free
C.
Hubert H. ParryWhen Christ was born of Mary free, In Bethlehem that fair citie, Angels sang there with mirth and glee, “In excelsis gloria.”
Herdsmen beheld those angels bright, To them appearing with great light, Who said, God’s Son is born this night. “In excelsis gloria.”
This King is come to save mankind, As in the Scripture truths we find; Therefore this song we have in mind, “In excelsis gloria.”
Then, dear Lord, for Thy great grace, Grant us the bliss to see Thy face, That we may sing to Thy solace, “In excelsis gloria.”
Anonymous 15th century,
Texts and translations
1 The Magi
Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)
Ecce Magi ab Oriente venerunt Jerosolymam, Dicentes, Ubi est Qui natus est Rex Judaeorum? Vidimus enim stellam Ejus in Oriente, et venimus adorare Eum.
Behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is He That is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship Him.
Matthew 2 vv. 1 & 2
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.
W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
The words of The Magi are reproduced by permission of A.P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael B. Yeats
2 Lux Aurumque
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)
Lux, calida gravisque pura velut aurum et canunt angeli molliter modo natum.
Light, warm and heavy as pure gold and the angels sing softly to the new-born baby.
Edward Esch (b. 1970)
Latin translation by Charles Anthony Silvestri (b. 1965)
3 Lullay, dear Jesus
Arnold Bax (1883-1953)
Lullay, dear Jesus, my heart’s only treasure; Lullay, my darling, my life’s sweetest pleasure. Lullay, dear Jesus, oh lullay, stop grieving, Mother will comfort Thee, Thy pain relieving.
Shut now Thine eyelids, so weary from weeping; I’ll cool Thy fevered lips while Thou art sleeping. Lullay, dear Jesus, oh lullay, stop grieving, Mother will comfort Thee, Thy pain relieving.
Traditional Polish English translation by Jan Sliwinski
4 The Word Made Flesh
Philip Wilby (b. 1949)
I sing the birth was born tonight,
The author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it,
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,
Yet searched, and true they found it.
The Son of God, the eternal King,
That did us all salvation bring,
And freed our soul from danger,
He whom the whole world could not take,
The Word, which heaven and earth did make,
Was now laid in a manger.
The Father’s wisdom willed it so,
The son’s obedience knew no No;
Both wills were in one stature,
And, as that wisdom had decreed,
The Word was now made flesh indeed,
And took on him our nature.
What comfort by him we do win,
Who made himself the price of sin,
To make us heirs of glory!
To see this babe, all innocence,
A martyr born in our defence,
Can man forget the story?
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)9 Quem pastores laudavere
James Bassi (b. 1961)
Quem pastores laudavere, Quibus angeli dixere, Absit vobis iam timere, Natus est rex gloriae.
Ad quem magi ambulabant, Aurum, thus, myrrham portabant, Immolabant haec sincere, Nato regi gloriae.
Christo regi, Deo nato, Per Mariam nobis dato, Merito resonet vere Laus honor et gloria.
The one praised by the shepherds, to whom the angels said, “Now lay aside your fears,” has been born the king of glory.
To whom the wise men made their way, bringing gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which they offered with open hearts to the victorious king.
To Christ the king, born God, given to us through Mary, let there resound as is truly fitting praise, honour, and glory.
Anonymous 14th Century Hoenfurth MS.
11 O, my deir hert (Cradle Song)
Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
O, my deir hert, young Jesus sweit, Prepare thy creddil in my spreit, And I sall rock thee in my hert, And never mair from thee depart.
But I sall praise thee evermair, With sangis sweit unto thy gloir;
The knees of my hert sall I bow, And sing that richt Balulalow!
Attrib. James (C. 1495-1533), John (c. 1500-1556) and Robert Wedderburn (c. 1510-c. 1555) from Ane compendious buik of godlie Psalmes
12 I wonder as I wander
Carl Rütti (b. 1949)
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, how Jesus the Saviour did come for to die. for poor on’ry people like you and like I.
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
When Mary birthed Jesus ‘twas in a cow’s stall, with wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from the heaven a star’s light did fall, and promise of ages it then did recall.
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, a star in the sky, or a bird on the wing, or all of God’s angels in heaven for to sing, he surely could have it, ’cause he was the King.
Traditional Appalachian
7 Welcome, Yule!
C. Hubert H. Parry (1848-1918)
Welcome be Thou, heavenly King,
Welcome, born on this morning, Welcome for whom we shall sing, Welcome Yule!
Welcome be ye, Stephen and John, Welcome, Innocents, ev’ry one, Welcome, Thomas, Martyr one, Welcome Yule!
Welcome be ye, good New Year, Welcome, Twelfth-day, both in fere, Welcome, Saints, loved and dear, Welcome Yule!
Welcome be ye, Candlemas, Welcome be ye, Queen of Bliss,
Welcome, both to more and less, Welcome both to more and less,
Welcome Yule!
Welcome be ye that are here, Welcome all, and make good cheer, Welcome all, another year, Welcome Yule!
Anonymous 15th Century
8 There is no rose of such virtue
John Joubert (b. 1927)
There is no rose of such virtue As is the rose that bare Jesu: Alleluia.
For in this rose contained was Heav’n and earth in little space: Res miranda.
By that rose we may well see There be one God in Persons Three: Pares forma.
Then leave we all this worldly mirth And follow we this joyous birth: Transeamus.
Anonymous 15th Century
5 The Kings
Peter Cornelius (1869-1953)
Three Kings had journeyed from lands afar, To Jordan led by a guiding star, In David’s city they ask men to tell Where the newborn King whom they seek doth dwell.
Fine gold and myrrh and incense they bring, An off’ring to the promised newborn King.
The guiding star shining on before, The kings then led to the lowly door, They see the Child in a manger bare, And fall before him in worship there.
Fine gold and myrrh and incense they bring, An off’ring to the promised newborn King.
And still the star, shining bright and clear
To those who seek it doth yet appear;
The star of mercy in peace will bring
The pilgrim who seeketh the heav’nly King;
And failing incense, myrrh and gold,
Bring thou thy heart to the Saviour’s fold,
Give Him thy heart!
Chorale:
How brightly shines the morning star
With mercy, beaming from afar;
The host of heav’n rejoices:
O Righteous Branch, O Jesse’s Rod!
Thou Son of Man and Son of God!
We, too, will lift our voices:
Jesus, Jesus! Holy, holy,
Yet most lowly, draw thou near us; Great Emmanuel, come and hear us!
Peter Cornelius (1824-1874)
English translation by W.G. Rothery Chorale by Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608)
English translation by William Mercer (1811-1873)
6 The Virgin’s Slumber Song
Max Reger (1873-1916)
While amid the treetops sighs the breeze so warm and mild.
And soft and sweetly sings a bird
upon the bough:
Ah, baby, dear one, slumber now!
Happy is Thy laughter, holy is Thy silent rest, Lay Thy head in slumber, fondly on Thy
Mother’s breast!
Ah, baby, dear one, slumber now!
Martin Boelitz (1874-1918)
English translation by Edward Teschemacher (1876-1940)
