A Choral Eucharist will be sung by a volunteer choir at 10:00 am on December 28, 2014, the First Sunday after Christmas Day. Readings will be Isaiah 61: 10 to 62: 3, Galatians 4: 4-7 and Luke 2: 22-40 and the principal service music will be: Mass Setting: The Addington Service (Richard Shephard, b. 1949) Gloria: (Richard Dacey) Psalm: Psalm 111 The Lord’s Prayer (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1844-1908) Anthem: Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child (arr. Martin Shaw, 1875-1958) Hymns and tunes will be: From East to West, from Shore to Shore (Puer nobis nascitur) All Poor Folk and Humble (Olwen) The People that in Darkness Sat (Dundee) Away in a Manger (Cradle Song) Good Christians All, Rejoice (In dulce jubilo) The Gospel reading relates the presentation of Jesus in the temple, the basis for the canticle Nunc dimmittis (Song of Simeon). The anthem commemorates the Holy Innocents (transferred from Sunday to December 30th). In Matthew’s gospel, magi from the east seek the newborn king of the Jews. King Herod directs them to Bethlehem and asks them to let him know who this king is when they find him. The magi find Jesus and honour him, but an angel warns them not to alert Herod and they return home by another route. The Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents are related at Matthew 2: 13-18: When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: Out of Egypt I called my son. When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old or under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. The anthem originates from a 16th century Coventry mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The carol is a mothers lament for her doomed child. The oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534 and the oldest known printing of the melody dates from 1591. The video includes images from a number of paintings of the Massacre of the Innocents (including a Rubens from the Art Gallery of Ontario) and of the Madonna and Child, while the audio is from Carols from Kings 2011, No. 12. It is sung only by the choral scholars of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge in an ATB setting, consistent with the earliest known setting for three voices. The mournful text is enhanced by the minor key and the sparing use of dissonant “false relations”, while the end of each stanza resolves to a happier-sounding picardy third.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 18:18:44 +0000
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