I Look From Afar - Music for the Season of Advent

This CD, the first complete disc recorded by the girl choristers and Vicars Choral of Wells Cathedral, contains a variety of music both new and old, familiar and less familiar which is particularly suited to the season of Advent.

Advent is a time for penitential preparation before the coming of Christ. It is a time when Christians not only commemorate the birth of Christ and the witness of St John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary but also a time when individuals make their own preparations in the expectation of the second coming of Christ, the belief in which is one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith. The imagery of moving from darkness to light, of keeping watch and staying awake during darkness is to be found in abundance in the passages of scripture that are read during Advent. In his letter to the Romans, St Paul not only mentions to "behave as befits the day", but also to "remember how critical the moment is. It is time for you to wake out of sleep". The eternal kingdom which will accompany the second coming is described in the 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation: "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." These words And I saw a new heaven are found on track 17.

The items on I Look From Afar, however, are not all settings of biblical texts. Rather, they reflect the variety of ways in which writers and composers have responded to the various strands of the advent theme. In Jesus Christ the apple tree, the composer complements the delicate metaphor of the title with a simple unaccompanied setting. In Lo, he comes, on the other hand, Charles Wesley takes as his inspiration a much more striking image of Christ as found in the Gospel of St. Luke. Other Advent hymns included on this recording are Come Thou long-expected Jesus, Sir David Willcocks' arrangement of an ancient Latin hymn O come, O come Emmanuel, Come thou Redeemer and Wake, O wake with tidings thrilling.

Central to the last of these is the theme of keeping the Watch, of being vigilant through the darkness in order to witness the light of Christ. This image has a particular relevance due to the fact that Advent occurs during the depth of Winter and that the hours of darkness far outnumber those of light. The contrast between darkness and light is symbolic of Judgement and Redemption, Hell and Heaven, also known as The Four Last Things. Matin Responsory, People look East, Out of your sleep and Tomorrow go ye forth all contain allusions to the theme of vigilance and preparation for the future though their respective composers set the words in a variety of different ways. The first of these, an arrangement of the music of Palestrina, has long been a favourite item during Advent services. By contrast, this is the first recording of Tomorrow go ye forth by Gabriel Jackson.

There is no rose is one of the earliest English carols. Dating from the early 15th-century, it is a song of praise to the Virgin Mary in which the anonymous author maintains that no rose bears comparison with the rose which bore Christ. The comparing of the imminent birth of Christ with the fruitfulness of nature which in turn mirrors the miracle of creation is another of the Advent themes. The settings of poems of Blake and Rossetti by John Tavener and Herbert Howells are particularly suitable for Advent though they are not strictly speaking liturgically based. A Tender Shoot, on the other hand, is a meditative text based specifically on one of the most famous Advent readings, Isaiah 11 "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse...".

From the simple, unaccompanied and small scale but none the less effective Remember O thou man by Thomas Ravenscroft via the sophisticated solo writing of Orlando Gibbons' This is the Record of John to the congregational hymns of the 19th-century and the work of contemporary organists and composers, the pieces on I Look From Afar not only convey the full range of the Advent themes but also the variety and richness of the English Cathedral tradition.

Deiniol Morgan, March 1998