Christmas Vigil Mass Hymns
  • opus2080
    Posts: 15
    So I know it's still August, but I'm planning ahead to our Christmas masses, and the vigil has me stumped. It was always treated in our parish the same as the Christmas day mass (didn't have midnight mass) but that wasn't appropriate. Last year we added a midnight mass, and made the early mass the vigil with its appropriate readings and music.
    My dilemma is a recessional hymn. Last year we sang Silent Night, but this year our choir will be singing that as a prelude. What would you use?

    Entrance hymn will be Once in Royal David's City
    Offertory hymn Of the Father's Love Begotten
    Communion Lo How A Rose and O Little Town of Bethlehem

    What would you do for a recessional?
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    If you're not going to treat the end of the Vigil still as a historical reenactment by treating the Nativity as strictly-yet-to-happen, you can use an emphatic sung recessional of a kind that people expect at Christmas Masses; there are two heavyweights in the USA in that regard, and a middleweight that is the most likely next choice after them. I strongly prefer the middleweight: that is, Angels We Have Heard on High, over the two heavyweights (1) Hark The Herald Angels Sing or (2) Joy to The World. (The last thing I ever want to hear is Silent Night done like a huge recessional anyway.)

    There are many wonderful hymns that would suit if something less so emphatic were desired, but I am not sure they are things American Catholic congregations would be as likely to join.

    If someone had written a clearly Christ-centric version of It Came Upon The Midnight Clear, that would been perfect for this.

  • opus2080
    Posts: 15
    They traditionally used Joy to the World. My first year we used Angels We Have Heard on High (that year we used the readings for the mass at Midnight). Last year we used the vigil readings and ended quietly with Silent Night, a suggestion from the pastor. Looking now to see what others do! But Liam, I definitely appreciate your thoughts and comments.
  • I've thought long and hard about carols at Christmas Masses, but I have to say the Vigil is difficult. In short, I agree with Liam and would go with one of the popular choices he suggested.

    When it comes to hymns appropriate for the Vigil, the following hymns and carols come to mind:

    For the Vigil specifically (a mix of late Advent, early Christmas, and hymns related to both):
    Lo How a Rose Ere Blooming
    Alma Redemptoris Mater
    Come Thou Redeemer of the Earth (Veni Redemptor Gentium)
    (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus)
    (O Come Divine Messiah)
    (O Come O Come Emmanuel)

    For when the Vigil becomes the "Children's" or "Family" Mass:
    Once in Royal David's City
    Infant Holy Infant Lowly
    Silent Night
    (Away in a Manger - only if compelled)

    For night-time:
    O Little Town of Bethlehem
    Sussex Carol

    Popular carols, and those that should be more popular:
    O Come All Ye Faithful
    Joy to the World
    Hark the Herald
    Angels we have Heard on High
    In Dulci Jubilo
    A Great and Mighty Wonder
    Of the Father's Love Begotten (Corde natus ex parentis)

    When it comes to recessionals, given you haven't included any of the 4 most popular carols for Christmas Mass (those Liam mentioned, along with O Come All Ye Faithful), I'd go with one of those three. But if you're looking for something different, possibly In Dulci Jubilo or Sussex Carol. And you can't go wrong with the Marian antiphon.

    [EDIT: To be clear, I do not recommend "O Come All Ye Faithful" as a recessional; I only mention it as being common, and popular, and good.]
  • If someone had written a clearly Christ-centric version of It Came Upon The Midnight Clear, that would been perfect for this.


    This is not what you were looking for, but I like to sing this (in private - given some concerns about copyright and liturgical appropriateness) to the tune of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear":

    https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Noel

    I'm sure many will disagree with me, but personally I prefer to merge vs 1 and 2 by cutting out the end of 1 and the start of 2.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    That's lovely! Thank you for sharing it.

    I have this thing about doing processional texts as recessionals: please don't. Please don't do texts whose first verse says COME to the altar as ... people are about to leave. (The Old Hundredth with usual first verse, and Praise to The Lord The Almighty, et cet.) I've encountered DMs who don't appear to care about this, but there's a reason I didn't mention OCAYF for a recessional. Yes, it's the super-heavyweight metrical hymn for Christmas; it's lovely when English and Latin verses are alternated when you have the opportunity for a very long procession.

    If I were not familiar with American Catholics' typical repertoire, I'd be able to recommend hymns like Sussex Carol, Ding Dong Merrily on High, Infant Holy Infant Lowly, See Amid The Winter's Snow, In The Bleak Midwinter (Holst or Darke, preferably both over the course of Christmastide, thank you kindly), et cet. With each passing generation, fewer American Catholics have a solid memory of religious Christmas hymns sung as hymns; religious Christmas greeting cards (well greeting cards in general) are where Easter greeting cards were 30 years ago.

    I have a special place in my heart for an American classic, I Wonder As I Wander, but realize it's place is not at the processional or recessional.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    PS: I wish the hymn descants of Richard Marlow (Director of Music of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1968-2006) were as well known as Willcocks, Ledger, et at.

    Americans labor under the impression that King's College Cambridge has always been the benchmark (though I believe Daniel Hyde has refreshed King's beautifully thus far from what I've heard), whereas King's is better likened to the Boston Pops as a crack musical organization that had the foresight to conquer the recording and broadcast commercial terrain early and obtain/retain brand recognition. (King's did a fabulous job flooding the zone in the early CD era.)
  • (As an aside: Singing "See, Amid the Winter's Snow" for the first time at an Episcopal church in Champaign, Illinois---Heath will know exactly where---was one of those moments on which I look back and think that there was God calling me into the Catholic Church. This experience is one of the reasons why I do not stop working when other Catholics imply that the Catholic Church does not need or cannot sing my work. Other churches use Catholic material.)
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    Anna

    I am a bit confused: do you object to "See, Amid the Winter's Snow"? (As you were singing it in an Episcopal church but are giving thanks for being called into the Catholic church...so it makes me wonder about a text issue I had neglected to notice!)
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    PS: For folks unfamiliar with Richard Marlow's way with descants*:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6NXeX7P5Io

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8T2p53-bwY

    * Btw, hymn descants as we have come to know them in the past century are a fruit of . . . World War I, when church choirs in the British Isles lost a lot of male singers to military service and injury/death, and composers/arrangers took a trick out of the bag of 16th century practice to make something of the reduced choral forces.
  • No, not at all, Liam---I wasn't clear---sorry. "See, Amid the Winter's Snow" is, of course, of an unearthly beauty. I wondered at the time why I had not heard it before. I was led into asking questions about Anglo-Catholicism. Et cetera.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    Ah, all good. Thanks for the clarification. I love the hymn, and know I will likely never hear it at a Catholic parish in the USA. Sad.
    Thanked by 1Anna_Bendiksen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,367
    I adapted the Latin from the Liber Hymnarius to the usual melody for Of the Father’s Love Begotten, and I have it in gabc on my computer. I found that the beautiful melody really outweighed authenticity.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,912
    Liam, im so intrigued. Cannot find scores anywhere, even used. They are all out of print, sadly.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,116
    Yes, sadly of print. They are exquisite.

    Tangent to tangent:

    For folks unfamiliar with the original setting for the tune used today for Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:

    https://youtu.be/UuaqyKA2-MU?feature=shared&t=117

    Gutenburg, der Grosse Mann!
  • I’m with @Liam on this one. Unless you live in an area where people are seeking out traditional and/or English Choral type masses, play it conventional. We all get a boost of CEO (Christmas and Easter Only) Catholics and those specifically going to Mass to sing Christmas carols. Give em what they want. Save the unique music for Christmas Day, the Christmas Octave, or any of the other masses in Christmastide, IMHO.

    That being said, great stuff you picked.

    My money’s on Joy to the World or O Come All Ye Faithful.
  • My *very* conventional Christmas Vigil Mass

    Entrance O Come, All Ye Faithful
    Offertory The First Nowell (I might add a second)
    Communion The Table of Emmanuel-Tony Alonso (The Holy and the Ivy set to a quasi-Eucharistic Text)
    Extra Communion
    Away in a Manger (Table of Emmanuel has the tune as an interlude, I use it as a segue).
    Night of Silence/Silent Night-Kantor (schmaltzy but I love it)
    Recessional Joy to World

    Might experiment with the Last Verse Introit from Antiphon Renewal and adding in a Communion Antiphon in English.

    Done this three years in a row and works for me.
  • Allow me this one grump: Joy to the World does not mention Jesus' birth of the Virgin Mary. I'd prefer Hark! the Herald Angels, even if we haven't heard the angels sing at the Vigil Mass (if father is following the Lectionary and the Missal).