A Service for Advent with Carols Sunday, 30th Nov 2014

[Petrushka]

I normally agree with Petrushka, but not today. Both of the broadcast December services from that cold city in the east should end with Bach. Wachet Auf is right for Advent; In DJ is right for Christmas. End of discussion, as far as I am concerned.

We are still in agreement because I fully concur! I was just fishing around on Google to see who else had written pieces incorporating this tune and mentioned a couple as possible alternatives. However, in the end you are right.

Incidentally, the Service concluded with a Prelude and Fugue by Bach but I can't for the life of me remember which one and the Service sheet has frustratingly disappeared from St John's website!!

[Vox Humana]

Wachet Auf is right for Advent

In addition to "the" Wachet auf, there's another setting amongst Bach's opera dubia. This is BWV Anh 66, for organ and trumpet. J. L. Krebs wrote several similar pieces for organ and solo instrument, but whether this is by Krebs too, or is it a genuine Bach piece that gave Krebs the idea, or is by someone else entirely I couldn't possibly judge. It would be worth airing though. I think you could squeeze a trumpeter into the SJC organ loft - but you might have to accompany him on full organ.

[Philip]

Every year I wonder why, apart from the chorale it is based on - after such a blaze of Congregational sound, the final vol is always Bach's Wachet Auf. Lovely piece, but......? Is it just tradition? Are there not other more 'theatrical pieces' on the same theme that might be essayed?

I haven't listed to the broadcast btw, and I think this debate was had last year! They do have a second voluntary at this service which isn't broadcast, like Kings (although there the second voluntary is usually heard on Christmas Day).

I've been to two Cathedral Advent Processions in the past three days and both finished with Dupre's 'Le monde dans l'attente du Sauveur' from his Symphonie-Passion. Perhaps this would fit the bill better? It's certainly not a Christmas piece with the dark organ opening but it's expansive and expressive and reaches a wonderful climax, and the sequence of four chords at the end are quite extraordinary.

In between I played at my own, and (not being able to play the Dupre!) opted for JSB's G minor Fantasia - a little more imposing than Wachet Auf, but still very austere. There's so much good minor key Bach in the Preludes and Fugues, the Dorian, the Wedge, the B minor - all would make a fitting conclusion.

Back on the French theme, the first movement of Widor VI has always struck me as being a piece could work at a service like this.

[VodkaDilc]

We are still in agreement because I fully concur! I was just fishing around on Google to see who else had written pieces incorporating this tune and mentioned a couple as possible alternatives. However, in the end you are right.

Incidentally, the Service concluded with a Prelude and Fugue by Bach but I can't for the life of me remember which one and the Service sheet has frustratingly disappeared from St John's website!!

According to the service sheet I downloaded, the piece after Wachet Auf was Prelude and Fugue in D minor by Buxtehude (no further identification given).

[Petrushka]

According to the service sheet I downloaded, the piece after Wachet Auf was Prelude and Fugue in D minor by Buxtehude (no further identification given).

Thanks. As it didn't form part of the broadcast I gave it a glance only and promptly forgot!

[decantor]

A long way upthread, someone remarked that this Advent celebration had come up fresh: I felt that too. For me, most of the fizz derived from the inclusion of four choir items entirely new to me, all in a more or less contemporary idiom and well worth hearing, plus the ever-exhilarating Tippett Mag. The rest came from listening to a choir, irrespective of its repertoire, that really knows its business: the majestic ATB were generally less dominatingly exuberant than has sometimes been the case of late, and the trebs this year added a richness of timbre to the needle-sharp focus of the Guest tradition.

While the members of the college in attendance no doubt welcomed the chance to have their own shout, my personal view is that congregational hymns are not a satisfactory ingredient in a broadcast – so much noise, such horribly dense textures! Why, with such a choir on hand, is some of the music entrusted to hoi polloi? To me, it always sounds like the closing stages of the Last Night of the Proms. Ah well.... it’s their service, not ours.

There was something strange about the acoustic. In the second lesson, the reader’s voice had a distinct reverb – surely impossible in that chapel when packed to the rafter. Is there a Reverb slider on the BBC’s mixing desk?

[Vile Consort]

I've not heard them but Karg-Elert wrote Choral-Improvisations Op.65 (1909) which includes Wachet Auf and Max Reger wrote a Choral Fantasy on Wachet Auf (op 52) either of which might make a change from the inevitable Bach.

I'm no expert on any of this - I've just googled - but what do the experts think?

The Reger Choralphantasie und Fuge is fine if you have about twenty minutes to spare. As always with Reger, there is every danger of losing the will to live on first hearing.

The Karg-Elert Opus 65 no.33 comes in at about six minutes. I thought it seemed rather contrived.

[Mr Stoat]

Yes, you're probably right. Surely there must be a setting of Wachet Auf that doesn't sound quite so self-deprecatingly antic-climactic? Sorry, that's the OTT in me. And they seem to use exactly the same registration year after year.

Is it the same registration every year? I have heard a number of variations over the years - and this year's was definitely different!

[ardcarp]

Why, with such a choir on hand, is some of the music entrusted to hoi polloi?

...and why not get rid of the clergy too?

[decantor]

...and why not get rid of the clergy too?

Mainly, I suppose, because they provide the excuse for the choir...... and they sometimes foot the bill, too!

[Vox Humana]

...and why not get rid of the clergy too?

Having once had a post in a church with a decent four-part choir, an almost unlimited budget and no priest (I kid you not), I can confirm that it's a scenario that works very nicely, thank you!