Christmas Cantata December 18, 2011; FPC, Troy; 3rd Advent
Richard: “o Come, O come Emmanuel classic Advent hymn.
Traces its origin back to at least the 9th Century when a series of Advent antiphons were sung each day the week of Christmas. Each antiphon began with “O” and were followed with a biblical title for the Messiah.
The current hymn rendition in our hymnal has three of those titles: “Emmanuel, Dayspring, and Desire of Nations. This classic Advent hymn not only calls for God to come, but explores the breadth and depth of that God who comes and will come again.
But enough about Advent. This morning we are going to take a break from Advent and Christmas.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that after Mary heard the shepherds' story talking about being sent to find the Christ-child in Bethlehem, she “treasured their words and pondered them in her heart.”
The birth of Christ creates a sense of wonder. Imagine, God choosing to come down to earth in the flesh.
John Jacob Niles captures that sense of wonder in the folk song “i Wonder As I Wander”
Bill sings first two verses of “I Wonder and I Wander”
Stephanie: John Jacob Niles grew up in Louisville, KY and was first exposed to folk songs by an African-American field worker. His love for folk songs led to his writing his first folk song at age 25.
Niles served as a fighter pilot in WWI. He reportedly asked every soldier he met in Europe to share a folk song they knew, which Niles then catalogued, wrote down the lyrics and memorized the tune.
AT the end of the war, Niles continued his music training at the Cincinnati conservatory. From there he became a star opera singer performing to standing ovations on the stage in New York City.
Niles felt the urge, however, to become a music historian, who would discover and document songs that were quickly being lost in the world of radio and the booming music industry.
Niles began traveling the Appalachian mountains in pursuit of more folk songs. The library of music he uncovered has an important place in music history. One of those songs he discovered was “I Wonder As I Wander.”
As the story goes, on a cold December day in North Carolina, Niles found himself in a small, mountain town. No holiday music was blaring from car radios or from the stores. The holiday season was being celebrated in silence.
A silence that was broken by the lone voice of a young girl who softly sang a song Niles had never hear. When Niles asked her where she had learned the song, she told him that her mother had taught it to her and her grandmother had taught it to her mother. Niles had the young girl sing it again and again as he scribbled the words and memorized the tune. For Niles, it seemed to be part spiritual, part Irish ballad.
As Niles shared that song with the musical world, he sought to discover more about its origins, but he never learned saw the girl again or learned more about its origin.
A gift from a child, who sings about the gift of a child.
Bill finishes the next two verses.
Richard: The next song our choir sings will be the familiar “Away in the Manger” sung by most of us since we were kids.
At the heart of the song is a very simple tune and three short verses. Of course, the tune you know for the song depends on the what tradition was followed by the person who sang you the song.
The most familiar tune to us was how the American hymn writer James Murray presented “Away in the Manger” in his 1887 children's songbook. He also attributed the hymn to the great Reformer Martin Luther, even noting that he had sung the song at night to his children, which led to vision of German mothers singing the hymn to their children at night. In fact, German mothers had never heard “Away in the Manger” until songbooks from the United States made their way to Germany. If you are familiar with Johann Strauss Waltz #4, you will recognize it (transposed down a fourth) in the first half of this melody.
The second tune associated with “Away in the Manger” has its origins in the late 19th Century as well. It was written in 1895 by William J. Kirkpatrick for the musical Around the World with Christmas(1895). Kirkpatrick, too, attributed the words to Luther.
The anthem the choir will sing combines both tunes that historically have been used for this song.
Listen as an author we do not know tells us a story about the God we come to know in birth of Jesus Christ.
Choir sings “Away in the Manger”
stephanie: When Christ comes into the world, he revolutionizes our understanding of what it means to say that God is all-powerful and God is love.
“God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen” revolutionized church music. Through the 15th century, church music was written in Latin and had dark, somber melodies. In response, many church members wrote church songs, that is songs that told God's story, to upbeat tunes that were light. Lively and written in the common language of the people.
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” became one of those popular church songs that was not allowed to be sung in the church until the 19th century when the Anglican church, in part because Queen Victoria loved this type of song, began allowing it to be sung in church.
In our time, we do not quite understand what the original writer meant because our English is far different from English spoken in the Middle Ages. To best understand this song, we must know that “Rest” means “make,” 'merry” means “Mighty” and that there should be a comma after “merry.” In other words, the title of the song in our language would read something like “God make you mighty, gentlemen” as a comment on what God will do for us.
Jazz band plays “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
Richard: The Christ-child we welcome at Bethlehem grows into the one who calls us to give up our old lives and become new creations.
James Montgomery, the author of “Angels, from the Realms of Glory,” knew what it was like to make changes to his life. He was born the son of Irish Moravian missionaries. While his parents served in the West Indies, he was raised in a Moravian community in Ireland. His parents died in the mission fields.
James flunked out of seminary and bounced from job to job, often unemployed and homeless. His became a writer with an editorial zeal for the issues of Irish independence from English rule and opposition to slavery government.
On December 24, 1816, however, his editorial ire gave way to a poetic sharing of the birth of Christ as told through the eyes of the shepherds. This poem became the basis for the hymn “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” This shift in writing material reflected a shift that took place in his life. He went from Irish revolutionary back to the Moravian church and mission work.
Ironically, an English composer, Henry Smart, took Montgomery's poem and put it to the the tune “regent Square.” Smart was a self-taught organist who composed and played the last 15 years of his life blind. He composed this tune during the period of blindness. Smart's harmonic melodies became part of the church music revolution in England that add beautiful melodies to songs so that congregations could sing them.
As Presbyterians, we should have a special interest in this tune because it was specially composed for Dr. Hamilton, who was putting together a hymnal. Dr. Hamilton served as pastor of London's Regent Square Presbyterian Church, also known as the “Cathedral of Presbyterianism.”
Choir sings “Angels, from the Realms of Glory”
Stephanie: Our final song of the cantata is the African-American spiritual, “go Tell It on the Mountain.” As we know, our church hymnody has been greatly influenced by the songs sung among the slaves in America. What a witness to the saving power of God that we discover in Christ to realize that from the oppression of slavery came such beautiful and powerful songs that speak of God's saving power.
Shortly after the Civil War, John Wesley Work, and African-American choir director in Nashville, TN decided that the new generation of African-American southerners who were not slaves could best claim the spirituality of their ancestors by learning the music they sang. He began a quest that continued with his son and grandson (both of whom became accomplished singers and music historians) to discover, save and add harmonies to the spirituals first sung in the fields by slaves.
“Got Tell It on the Mountain's” lyrics were untouched, but the music was rearranged into anthem style,w which allowed the Fisk Jubilee Singers (from the historical black college Fisk) to introduce the song to our country and the indeed the world as they traveled performing concerts in the late 19th century. It now stands as both a powerful witness to the African-American spirituals and Christmas songs that tell the story of the birth of Christ.
Jazz band plays “Go Tell It on the Mountain”
Richard: We have the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ sung, now go and tell it by word and by deed.
Information found in Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas, Ace Collins, 2001 (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, Michigan) and various sections of wikipedia
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