Monday, December 15, 2003
Music of the Day
Maybe it would be the social justice song Lauryn Hill sang in Rome.
Just kidding.
I was going to post yesterday of my admiration for Paul Tate's "You Will Draw Water Joyfully," but though it is a setting of the assigned "canticle" for the third Sunday of Advent, cycle C, alas, it has no refrain appropriate for Advent. I think you could cram in yesterday's antiphon into the existing music, if you really wanted to. Anyway, Paul Tate is a good composer and has quite a few nice pieces out there. Check him out, if LifeTeen music is to your liking. By the way, at the parish Sunday night Mass, I chose Bob Hurd's "To You O Lord."
Seeing as how we're on the verge of "O Antiphon" country, I should probably mention "Veni Emmanuel," which I have sung in Latin and in English at Mass. I tend to not want to use it in early Advent, but people ask for it. I also prefer to use it during Communion when I can get all seven verses sung, but the clergy like it as a processional. It's a great song, for it adapts well to any number of instruments and voice combinations. I have a jazz arrangement of it I did several years ago. Just plain plainsong is cool, too.
I should also mention "My Soul In Stillness Waits" while I'm in the neighborhood. This is an easy piece to butcher -- and too many church musicians do this. I think there's a clear and present danger in taking this song too fast so as to obliterate the text and mood. My only criticism of it: I wish Marty Haugen had taken the time (or been given the time) to compose a verse parallel to each of the O Antiphons instead of just four. The two-verse adaptation of Psalm 95 is pretty nice, though.
