"O" Antiphons for Advent
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I am looking for English settings of the "O" antiphons for Advent. Last year, we sang a different verse of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" each week during Advent. My choir members said they liked the words, but were sick of the tune by the time Christmas arrived and don't want to repeat it this year. I found another hymn tune setting by Gounod, but that's all I have found. Does anyone know of any English settings, chant or otherwise?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Charles -
    I have the O Antiphons translated into English & set to chant of the Sarum Antiphonale. If you wish to give your address here, I could mail you a copy. As they are public domain, you could reproduce them as needed. Also, I believe Fr Columba Kelly at St Meinrad's Archabbey has arranged these antiphons into English. You could check with him if you wish. His version is, in fact, on one of the CDs of the St Meinrad's schola. The version I have is in 'Tudor' English. When sung with sober care and with clean vowels, these are as beautiful in English as in Latin.
    Jackson
    Houston
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Many thanks. Contact me at waldencf@infionline.net and I will give you my mailing address. I will even reimburse you for the postage.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    I was unable to attach the .pdf document to this message; so I am sending my English adaptations of the Great "O" antiphons to you at your e-mail address.

    If you are able to load the .pdf to this forum, feel free.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Bruce, try now. the PDF upload works.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    This is my second attempt to upload the .pdf document containing the Great "O" antiphons.
    Great O Antiphons.pdf
    106K
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    It worked!
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    Thanks for this! It looks great. I do have two questions about these:

    1) Any problem with singing them out of sequence? Our schola has been asked to sing Morning Prayer at the Cathedral on Tue/Wed/Thu the first three weeks of advent. This would be a beautiful way to tie together the nine mornings.

    2) I have to presume that these started out as Latin chant, but they are not in the Liber Hymnarius. Is there a web source somewhere that might have them? We can leave it up to the ladies which language they would like to learn.

    Thanks.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    I don't mean to state the obvious, but aren't the "Great Antiphons" intended to be chanted with the Magnificat at Vespers beginning Dec. 17 and ending Dec. 23?

    Although there are strong associations with the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," this hymn (text and tune) as we know it doesn't seem to be included in either the Liber hymnarius or the Liber usualis.

    If I'm going to use the hymn at Sunday Mass, I try to reserve it for Advent III or IV.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    My pastor tries to educate our folks on the antiphons each Advent, since that's the only time they see or hear them. The parish only has Vespers twice a year, sad to say. So he preaches on them and we sing them. Thankfully, this year we will be able to sing them to something besides the "O Come,..." tune. For whatever reason, that hymn doesn't wear well if we overuse it.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    Oh, ok. Sounds like a great idea. And, you're right, the tune doesn't wear well, which is why I only tried using it over the entire season of Advent once.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    ah yes, I shall never forget that Advent of some years ago when every single song in the Ordinary of the Mass was set to O Come, even the Great Amen, for the entire season. It was more like Purgatory than anything else.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Veni, veni, Emmanuel is not in Liber Hymnarius or Liber U because it is not an office hymn, but is, rather, an extra-liturgical 'hymn' probably early XVIIIth century in origin. The tune we know first appeared as late as the mid-XIXth century, and is said to have been copied by John Mason Neale from a now-lost French missal, its origin rumoured to have been Lisbon. The antiphons themselves are proper to Magnificat at vespers of late Advent. They are probably not Roman in origin, but appeared in the Roman rite as early as the VIIIth century and were known possibly by Boethius. There is an extra antiphon, O Virgo virginum, which by the late mediaeval period disappeared from Roman usage but survived in the Sarum rite.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Interestingly, Mary Berry found a 15th century source but it is also good to remind ourselves that this dating thing is not a science since music is passed orally and could be far more ancient. Just because someone wrote it down somewhere doesn't mean that it was composed then.

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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Fascinating, Jeffrey!! From where did you take the above quote? I shall copy it and insert it in my Hymns A&M companion.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Well, it was sent to me from Jeffrey Morse, from Early Music or something like that. i need to find out soon because we are republishing it in Sacred Music!
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    We make all kinds of incorrect assumptions about the origins of hymns and other pieces of music.

    I just got caught with my musicological pants down when I in error perpetuated the rumor that "How Can I Keep from Singing?" was an old Quaker tune and text. It's actually by a New York Baptist, and was composed in the late 1800's!

    The other is the old story about how the Fugue in E-flat of J.S. Bach got the nickname "St. Anne", because it quotes the hymn tune. Well . . . the tune wasn't even composed until closer to Bach's death, and at any rate it doesn't have a relation to the tune or it's anticedents.

    So, there you have it!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    Actually, Croft's ST ANNE is from 1708 or so, Clavierübung III from 1739. The resemblance (but surely not the nickname!) may be coincidental or not. Malcolm Boyd (Cambridge Composer Companions) is at some pains to assert a complete lack of evidence that any German composer (well, in Germany at any rate) knew the tune; I on the contrary find it suggestive that Handel uses it for the gapped-chorale opening movement of the Chandos anthem "O praise the Lord with one consent", written in 1717 or 1718.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I think it unlikely that Bach was quoting ST ANNE in this fugue. The tune, or subject, was not original to Bach (or Croft). If anything, It has always seemed to me more likely that, IF Bach were quoting anyone consciously, it was Buxtehude, who uses this subject in his E-Major Praeludium. I think that there are, as well, other previous fugal uses of this subject. And, yes, your point about the Chandos anthem is cogent... this may or may not be an intentional quote.
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