The thoughts below were prepared for the “Devotions on the Hymn of the Day” project of the Center for Church Music at Concordia University, Chicago. This devotion is on “O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair,” the Hymn of the Day for the Transfiguration of Our Lord on Sunday, February 15, 2015. For a downloadable PDF version of this devotion, click… Read More »
Stuck in the recesses of the Old Testament is a story that every musician should know. It comes from the book of Nehemiah, which might seem an unlikely place for a musician to venture. In Nehemiah 12, however, there is a highly descriptive account of the role that musicians played in the dedication walls of Jerusalem after they… Read More »
The thoughts below were prepared for the “Devotions on the Hymn of the Day” project of the Center for Church Music at Concordia University, Chicago. This devotion is on “Son of God, Eternal Savior,” the Hymn of the Day for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany on Sunday, February 1, 2015. For a downloadable PDF version of this devotion,… Read More »
Many of you may be familiar with the great choral work “This Little Babe” from Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. The driving rhythm, the compelling tune with its unique canonic treatment, and the dramatic shift at the very end from a minor key to its parallel major all make for a memorable and powerful setting of the text. The text explores the paradoxes… Read More »
In a previous post I offered a literal translation of all seven stanzas of the German Advent/Christmas Carol “Maria Walked Amid the Thorn” (see Thoughts on “Maria Walks Amid the Thorn”). With this post I offer a new metrical translation of the carol. Interestingly, singing the full version makes the carol a song that can be sung at other points… Read More »
Of all Christmas carols, “O Holy Night” has one of the most fascinating stories. It is a rather unlikely carol in that the poem was written by an avowed atheist (albeit one well-versed in Christian theology) and the tune composed by a practicing Jew who did not observe Christmas. It was first sung by a Parisian opera singer, but soon… Read More »
For the Eighth Day of Christmas, let us look at the wonderful but relatively unknown German Christmas carol “Maria Walks Amid the Thorn” (“Maria durch ein’n Dornwald ging”). It is one that I sang as part of several Christmas programs when I was a child, but have rarely heard since. The carol was published as an Advent song in Maria von Trapp’s… Read More »
Previously I published a new literal English translation of the Christmas carol “Silent Night” (see www.jubalslyre.com/thoughts-on-silent-night). The interest was overwhelming and several people requested a metrical translation of the original text. Here is a metrical translation that I have crafted and recrafted over many years. The intent has been to keep as much of the deep and rich theology of the… Read More »
There is another great Robert Southwell poem in Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols (for the first, see the post The Paradoxes of “This Little Babe”). Although this movement is entitled “In Freezing Winter Night,” the poem’s original title was “New Prince, New Pomp.” Interestingly, Southwell’s original title parallels the title of the poem from which “This Little Babe” is taken: “New Heaven, New… Read More »
Did you know that the beloved Christmas carol “Silent Night” originally had six stanzas and not three? We know this from an autograph manuscript submitted by the composer Franz Gruber (1787-1863) when an official investigation was held in 1854 on the origins of the carol. Other autographs have been discovered over the years, the most recent being by… Read More »