Sunday Playlist - 11/29/2020

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1MJLJhG6Gf9kcHVon4axAZc

Playlist for the First Sunday of Advent

November 29, 2020

The seasons of Advent and Christmas are too short for all of the music that I’m eager to share. I’ve always had a weakness for the season’s music—high brow, low brow, and every brow between—so to help me make decisions, I’ve decided to focus principally on my favorite compilations and (sorry purists) to start Christmas during Advent (though not this Sunday!) In 1993, Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata compiled a remarkable album, An American Christmas, in which they brought to light many hymns from the colonial and early Republic eras. It’s been a staple for me each year since, and I’ll include a few of my favorite tracks in the Sundays ahead, including the two for this week, Kingsbridge and Bozrah. Less well-known, the Gregorian Singers, directed by Monte Mason, perform my two favorites from this week’s list: a setting of “Softly and Tenderly,” and the Advent hymn, “Ah, Think Not The Lord Delayeth.” The second verse of that piece is worth quoting:

Not for us to find the reasons,

Or to know the times and seasons,

Comes the Lord when strikes the hour.

Ours to bear the faithful witness

Which can shape the world to fitness;

Thine, O God, to give the power.

We cannot fully understand the year we’ve experienced. I cannot accept that, as some would have it, there is a larger purpose to such misery, that it’s part of a grand design. Rather, I’m persuaded by the message in those final lines. What we can do in the midst of such times, perhaps what we must do, is bear witness to acts of love and care that will “shape the world to fitness.”

I round out this week’s list with an up-tempo rendering of Bach’s “Sleeper’s Awake,” performed by the legendary Dutch organist and conductor, Ton Koopman.