Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!



John the Baptist’s call in the desert, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” resounds with its simplicity in the hearts of all who listen.  It’s a familiar message and for many evokes a memory of some musical passage, be it a Broadway tune, a hymn, or a famous oratorio. Perhaps this is because of the simplicity of the statement.  Perhaps it is because of the emotion poured into the admonition. Regardless, we react with a visceral response when we hear it. For this second week of Advent, the liturgical lessons speak to us about the coming of our saviour, cautioning us prepare. It is not your typical and ordinary statement of an upcoming event—this is a warning! This warning is reiterated again and again in the music of the Advent season.

If you grew up in the 60’s and 70’s (or are a child of parents of that time), you will no doubt have heard and even chanted the opening theme of Godspell[1].  The elegant phrase is set to an equally elegant and haunting tune of 10 notes repeated over a number of keys and tempos. The song opens with attention-grabbing blasts on a shofar (very loud instrument made from a ram’s horn) and slides into the tune sung by one single voice. The tune is then taken up by additional voices until the whole world is singing it! Stephen Schwartz composed the music for Godspell in 1971, when he was just 23.  He won a number of awards for it including two Grammys (best producer and best composer). Yet the original productions did not begin with “Prepare Ye the Wayof the Lord”.  In fact, two other openers were tried and found to be ineffective to the producers’ intent.  For what they wanted was a powerful device to get people on the edge of their seats and to understand instinctively that the message coming is BIG NEWS.  Eventually, show designers realized that audiences thought of John the Baptist’s cry in the wilderness as the beginning of the story and they simply dropped the other opening tunes and began the show with a great (and often comedic) baptism.  And the sound advice to prepare the way of the Lord. The text of the score is based mostly on the Gospel of Matthew, although three of the parables are found only in Luke. Most of the lyrics not composed by Schwartz are taken from hymns found in the Episcopal Church Hymnal (the one used in the early 70’s). Around the same time that Stephen Schwartz composed the Godspell rendition of “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord,” there was another very popular song in the contemporary Christian music scene. Does anyone remember “I Hear a Sound Coming from the Mountain”?

A number of Advent hymns in our 1982 Hymnal are also specific to John’s cry in the wilderness. One such hymn is #67—Comfort, comfort ye my people.  Claude Goudimel composed the meditative Psalm 42 whose second stanza directly refers to John’s cry in the desert, rebuking us to repent. Claude Goudimel[2] was a French music theorist from the 16th century whose most well-known work was to compose four-part settings of chant psalms for the Genevan Psalter. During the renaissance, generally the melody was sung by the tenor voice. Since most choral works were sung exclusively by men and boys, the more powerful man’s voice would be tasked with carrying the tune.  However, in one of Goudimel’s volumes, he set the melody of his hymns in the top line usually given to the sopranos. This method of hymnody has prevailed, and today almost all hymns have the melody set in the top line. Of course, there are a number of other familiar “voice in the wilderness” hymns as well: # 75—There’s a voice in the wilderness crying (the tune is called “Ascension” and was composed by Henry Hugh Bancroft), and #76—On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry (this particular hymn setting uses William Henry Monk’s “Winchester New” tune which is used for a number of different hymns). The words for this hymn were written by Charles Coffin and set to a very popular Early American tune by William Billings. Billings, who was born and died in Boston, spent much of his time in Vermont and loved the people and mountains of the area.  Thus, many of his tunes are named after favorite places in Vermont, i.e. Chester, his most famous tune, a Revolutionary War tune.

Arguably, the most famous musical setting for this week’s Advent message of preparation is part one of G. F. Handel’s Messiah. While the first part of the oratorio deals with Jesus’ incarnation, it takes its text (compiled by Charles Jennens—poor, underappreciated man) from prophesy of the messiah.  The actual birth is of little consequence; it is his death and resurrection that are important. In fact, Charles Jennens’ intention when he compiled the libretto was to acclaim the “mystery of Christ’s divinity” rather than to dramatize his life and teachings. Jennens was a supporter of the Stuart line of monarchy and became a “non-juror”, that is, he refused to swear an oath of allegiance to William and Mary and aligned himself with the Episcopal Church in Scotland.  His work as a librettist gave him an avenue by which to express his views as an anti-deist and Jacobite.

The Old Testament selection for this year’s second week of Advent is taken from the book of the prophet Malachi—“Who can endure the day of his coming….for he is like a refiner’s fire and will purify the descendants of Levi.” The passage, however, begins with the announcement that a messenger will be sent to prepare the way of the Lord, thus modeling for us that we do the same. With the liturgy of the week being repeated in so many varied and beautiful musical renditions (something to appeal to everyone), it is to our own shame that we don’t get the message!


[1] The word godspell is an old English word meaning “good news” and is the derivation of the word “gospel”.
[2] Goudimel composed the bulk of his work as a Roman Catholic.  But he converted to Protestantism in 1557, and as a Huguenot, composed his most popular tunes for the Genevan Psalter, a Protestant hymnal (Geneva being the center of the Calvinist movement).  He was killed in 1572 during the aftermath of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

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