Fourth Sunday in Advent

Gradual for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him: yea, all such as call upon him faithfully.
V. My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord: and let all flesh give thanks unto his holy name.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
V. Come, O Lord, and tarry not: forgive the misdeeds of thy people.
R. Alleluia

Manual of Catholic Devotion
For Members of the Church of England (Revised 1969)

As the final candle is lit  on the Advent wreath - unless there is a Christmas candle - we approach the final days of Advent.  The much anticipated day is not far off and the Introit for the day tells us that very soon we will hear: the heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handy-work.

A Child This Day is Born, the last carol that I've chosen from Bramley and Stainers' Christmas Carols New and Old is one with more obscure origins than many of the others.  The words first appeared in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, by William Sandys (London 1833).  Sandy's collection was in three parts with a length introduction.  The first part contained 34 carols which he maintained were from the early part of the 15th to the end of the 17th century.  The Second Part was a selection of 40 carols "still used in the West of England".  And the third were six French carols from Provence. There were 80 carols in all without music. There has been some suggestion that perhaps a few of the carols were not quite as old or traditional as Mr Sandys claimed but may have been of his own creation; though that is only rumour.

In the 136 page introduction, which makes for fascinating reading as a history of Christmas in England, he says that the carols (including A Child This Day is Born) are:

..... selected from upwards of one hundred obtained in different parts of the West of Cornwall, many of which, including those now published, are still in use.  Some few of them are printed occasionally in the country, and also in London, Birmingham, and other places, as broadside carols; others have appeared, with some variation, in Mr Gilbert's collection, having been derived from similar sources; but a large portion, including some of the more curious, have, I believe, never been printed before.

When it was published in Christmas Carols New and Old Stainer used a tune referred to as "Bailey" however in other carol collections both the words and music are shown as "traditional" or "anonymous".  Often when the author or authors of a hymn tune were not known publishers would create an "artificial person" to give the credit to rather than our old friend Anon.

The rather fearsome angel, I gather he/she is delivering the message to the waiting world, in the engraving that accompanied the carol in the 1871 edition was by W. J. Wiegand.  He was known for his illustrations for Wonderful Stories from Northern Lands and an edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales.  But much like the origins of this lovely carol I could find out almost nothing about him.

It was also difficult to find an acceptable version of the carol on YouTube so I created one using a very fine recording of the carol by the Choir of Magdelan College and matched it with photographs from the glorious Nativity Façade of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona which I took on our recent visit to that marvellous city.  I Gaudi's incredible design traces the story of Mary and Joseph from their wedding to Christ leaving his family as a young man.
It is a complex and multi-layered panorama and the details are numerous.    You may want to take a look in the expanded version to catch some of those detail.

22 December - 1890: Cornwallis Valley Railway begins operation between Kentville and Kingsport, Nova Scotia.

Second Sunday in Advent

Offertory for the Second Sunday in Advent

Wilt thou not turn again, O God, and quicken us, that they people may rejoice in thee; show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.

A Manual of Catholic Devotion

For Members of the Church of England (Revised 1969)

In 2011 and I posted a series on Christmas carols and included several of the carols that Sir John Stainer and Henry Ramsden Bramley had compiled in their Christmas Carols Old and New.   Published in 1871 that slim volume contained twenty carols, many that are sung today - by the last edition in 1878 it had expanded to over seventy. As we approach Christmastide I thought I'd celebrate the Sunday's in Advent by seeing if I could find versions of some of the lesser known carols in their collection and sharing them with you.

Though better known than some of the other carols, A Virgin Unspotted is heard more often these days performed by choirs in concert than as a congregational hymn.  Perhaps it is feared that its jaunty tune will lead to dancing in the pews ... or worse!


Its melody is certainly in the style of the old carole and could have just as easily served for a country dance.    It was a particular favourite in Gloucestershire and the first known printings of a text was in 1661.  Samuel Harward (b1740 - d1809), a local ballad printer, published a set of the words in Tewekesbury in the late 18th century. 

It is possible that it derived from A Virgin Pure that appears in several collections prior to the Stainer-Bramley collaboration.  In his introduction to this earlier carol in his Songs of the Nativity William Henry Husk notes that this version was first printed by Rev. Arthur Bedford around 1734.  He finds the Reverend gentleman rather suspect in his knowledge of Christmas music or language:

Mr. Bedford, in the title of the carol, has given us a singular etymological derivation of the word carol from Carolus; viz. "A Christmas carol, so called because such were in use in K. Charles I. Reign."! The reader of the present volume will not, it is feared, entertain a very high opinion of Mr. Bedford's antiquarian learning, at least on the subject of Christmas carols.

Until recent times both variations were sung at Christmas in various Gloucestershire villages though A Virgin Pure was often set to the tune of Admiral Benbow, a popular ballad.  The tune most commonly used and included by Stainer and Bramley is Herefordshire.

This version of Herefordshire by the Riga Dom Cathedral Boys Choir  brings out the dance like rhythm of the carol.  The choir's recordings of Christmas music is quite enjoyable and features both the sacred and secular - including a rollicking Jolly Old St Nicholas.

 Many carols were brought to the New World and sung in community celebrations at Christmastide.  A Virgin Unspotted was a well known carol in colonial America and there are variations recorded as far as Appalachia.   The tune was also used in a variation known under the title  In Bethlehem City.
 

 In 1778 William Billings published his The Singing Master's Variations and included the carol set to a new tune:  Judea.  The carol was to appear in various forms in at least four other collections of shape-note song books however of the American settings Billing's remains the favoured.

No matter the version used the refrain always exhorts us: 

Therefore be merry
Set sorrow away!
For Jesus our Savour
Was  born on this day!

December 8 - 1596: Luis de Carabajal the younger, one of the first Jewish authors in the Americas, died in an auto-da-fé in Mexico City.