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First, even as Advent draws nearer and nearer, fix it in your mind to do your online shopping using my search box on the side bar! Time flies. I like to get my shopping done well in advance so I don’t have to think about it during Advent.
And now if you don’t want to play a lot of explicitly Christmasy music before Christmas, try playing Advent music.
There is an album of Advent music available. The wonderful (and award winning) Benedictine Nuns in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph provide it.
Here are a few little samples.
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There are zillions of Christmas music offerings out there. Advent? Not so much.
This disk can help you keep Advent as Advent.
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Though I can’t help to feel – I’ve been brought up that way – that the point of both Advent and Christmas music is actually singing it oneself, more so than with almost any other music during the year.
After all, Amazon began as a book store and our reverend host’s search box can well be used to find some songbooks.
Also, after we have duly and justly complained about the great evils the Protestant Reformation brought, let us now give credit where credit is due, and praise Luther for some good he actually did, which is enrich the Church’s, or at least the German Church’s, hymnals with a tradition of hymn-singing we would not probably otherwise have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02898jfXs-w
[I’d have given it in English, where the translation is “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates”, if not there was apparently a different tune when that hymn is in English. Likewise, I could not link to “Wake awake with tidings thrilling”, because in the Internet you only get either Bach’s version of it, or a very slow but simplified version.]
Imrahil,
Spot on. I have to say that my favorite reformed hymn is that old chestnut “O Come, O Come, Liturgical Blue” by Tim Ferguson.
This is sung to the tune of O Come, O Come Emmanuel:
O come, o come liturgical blue;
out with the old, and in with the new.
Let’s banish purple vestments from here,
the color blue is very HOT this year.
Refrain: Gaudy, gaudy, gaudy chasubles,
in baby, navy, powderpuff and teal.
Since Advent is the Blessed Virgin’s time,
we’ll wear blue, though it’s a canonic crime,
and in the third week, we’ll wear white.
Although it’s wrong, we’ll say that it’s alright.
Refrain
Around the wreath we’ll place blue candlelight,
and in one corner, we will place one white.
We’ll drape blue over our communion rail,
and use blue burses with blue chalice veils.
Refrain
Advent music, excellent.
Well, kidding set aside, my own favorite (dear richidel),
is of course byar the Southern German tune and version of the Rorate caeli topic. (And that is a Catholic song, not a Protestant acceptable song.)
The best youtube version I could find is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l8ByQeodAs
Maybe I’ll arrive in giving an English translation:
‘Pour down, heaven, pour the just one,
clouds, o rain him down to us.’
cried the folk in land without sun
who’d received a promise thus:
once, the Envoy[*] themselves to see-ee
and to enter Heav’n with glee –
for the gate was then still shut
as no Saviour had there bee-en not.
For the gate was then still shut
as no Saviour had there been not!
Full of mercy hears the pleading
God in Heaven’s topmost throne.
All the flesh shall now be seeing
God’s bliss through His Son, His own!
Quick flew Gabriel down the sky-y
and he brought this as reply-y:
‘See I am the Lord’es maid:
Be’t to me as ha-as be-en said.
See I am the Lord’es maid:
Be’t to me a-as has been said.
[We kneel]
And in our flesh’es shelter[**]
enter’d World the Father’s Son.
[We get up].
Life and light and grace’s welter
brought He down where yet was none!
Earth rejoice now full of pleasance
in the rays of God’s own presence:
Soon fulfilled shall be the tide:
Clear your hearts for Hi-im to abide.
Soon fulfill’d shall be the-e tide:
Clear your he-earts for Him to abide.
[* in the orig.: “the Mediator”
** in the orig.: “wrapping”]
There are also a couple of other beautiful stanzas, such as: “Thy obed’yence shall my life be / Virgin, humble, Virgin, chaste”, but these are the three most usually sung.
I just realized an advantage of listening to songs in Latin is I can listen to them at work and no one will likely complain about the nature of the songs.