Welcome to Sundays at Home
Good morning and welcome to Trinity! So glad you are tuning in virtually for today’s service. Each week you’ll find Sundays at Home with Trinity Episcopal Church. We feature the full service recording, as well as the sermon and anthem on their own.
In-person services are held at Trinity Church each Sunday at 8:00am & 10:30am and at 12:00noon each Wednesday. And join us for Christmas Events and Services!
Once again, thank you for tuning in and for being faithful with your time, talents, and treasures.
Grace and Peace!
Rev. Jonathan V. Adams
Worship for December 19, 2021
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Please view the embedded video of our service below by clicking on the grey arrow in the middle of the image.
Our Trinity Kids series is currently featuring previously recorded episodes.
About the Music:
The readings for this Sunday, the Fourth and last Sunday of Advent, relate to the annunciation of Christ’s birth, and feature the Magnificat or Song of Mary. This song of praise is from the account in this week’s Gospel of Mary’s visit to her relative Elizabeth. Most of the music for this Sunday also revolves around Mary and the announcement by the Angel Gabriel that she is to be the Mother of God. The choir will sing the Magnificat, Canticle 15, in place of the Psalm. This setting appears in the Hymnal 1982 at S-247 and was written by Betty Pulkingham (1928-2019), a well-known composer and arranger who served on the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Church Music from 1988-1994.
The basis of this week’s Prelude, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” is a Christmas Carol and Marian hymn of German origin. It’s commonly translated in English as “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”. The rose in the German text is symbolic of the Virgin Mary. The hymn also makes reference to the Old Testament prophecies of Isaiah foretelling the birth of Jesus, and of a rose sprouting from the Tree of Jesse (father of David). This hymn first appeared in print in 1599 and is most commonly sung to a melody harmonized by the German composer Michael Praetorius in 1609. The German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) included this setting of this tune in his “Eleven Chorale Preludes” for organ, composed in the summer of 1896 after the death of his dear friend, pianist Clara Schumann.
Another German composer, organist, and teacher, Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), composed a large body of sacred and secular works. Among the finest are a series of 95 fugues based on the Magnificat, covering all eight of the church modes or scales. The Postlude is the first of these fugues, based on the first “tone” or mode.
Jessica Nelson, Organist and Choirmaster of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Jackson, Mississippi and a member of the Standing Commission on Church Music, is a leader among the younger generation of Episcopal Church musicians. The Offertory Anthem, “There is no Rose of Such Virtue”, is her setting of a 15th century text with a new melody and harmonic structure.
Another well-known choral work based on the annunciation is “Dixit Maria” by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), a German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. In 1584, he became the first of many German composers of the time who went to Italy to continue their studies. In Venice, he became friends with Giovanni Gabrieli and together they studied with Giovanni’s uncle Andrea Gabrieli. After returning to his home town of Nuremberg, he became the town’s director of music. This a cappella motet sets a verse from Luke’s account of the annunciation in which Mary gives her consent to the announcement that she would bear God’s son. This motet can be heard on this week’s virtual service video.