December 11, 4 p.m.

St. Dunstan’s traditional Service of Lessons and Carols for Advent.

From Tom Gibbs in The Bellows:

I am particularly pleased with the way our Advent Lessons and Carols service has come together. Steven Schneider will be here to play the organ, and the music will include:

  • An anthem by the contemporary American organist, composer, and arranger, Wayne Wold. Sung by St. Dunstan’s Youth Ensemble, this anthem is a traditional Yiddish folk tune combined with words from Isaiah 40.
  • A setting of a poem by the 18th century poet Christopher Smart, “Where is this stupendous stranger.” Our Youth Ensemble will be joined by the Parish Choir for this piece. This text, also in the Hymnal 1982, No. 491, is particularly appropriate for the season of Advent.
  • Two very different anthem settings of Isaiah 35:1-10. One of these, “Springs in the Desert,” by Arthur B. Jennings, is traditional, with a range of expression moving from smoothly flowing springs to dramatic declaration of “a highway!” and back to a comforting “…sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
  • The other, “Where Once There Lay Dragons,” by Kenton Coe, is upbeat, jazzy, and full of syncopations. In order to make sense out of these “dragons,” we will read the King James Version of the Isaiah passage: “And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.” Judy Guard, our resident pianist, will accompany.
  • A German folk song arrangement by Hugo Distler (German, anti-Nazi, war-time composer); a setting of the Canticle of Zechariah; an anthem by Palestrina; Advent hymns and organ music.

 

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