Second Week of Advent Music

This is the second week of Advent 

Carols announcing the actual birth of Christ start on Christmas — or Christmas Eve at the earliest! — so I have to find appropriate music that does not cross over into the heart of Christmas themes  too early - quite a challenge..... are you tired of waiting ..?

Music is the sound of the human heart, shaped and guided by the mind. 
It is the sounding of the human consciousness in all its possible states of being. -George Rochberg

So these two pieces stay with Mary and the baby she is carrying and in the second one I can relate to the aching restless longing and pleas for God to come and sort us all out.! The best part is that there is an answer from God ...............

Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) - Videte miraculum: Behold The Miracle

The crane in heraldry stood for watchfulness





Videte miraculum matris Domini:
concepit virgo virilis ignara consortii,
stans onerata nobili onere Maria;
et matrem se laetam cognosci,
quae se nescit uxorem.
Haec speciosum forma prae filiis hominum
castis concepit visceribus,
et benedicta in aeternum
Deum nobis protulit et hominem.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.

English Translation
Behold the miracle of the mother of the Lord:
a virgin has conceived though she knows not a man,
Mary, who stands laden with her noble burden;
knowing not that she is a wife,
she rejoices to be a mother.
She has conceived in her chaste womb
one who is beautiful beyond the sons of men,
and blessed for ever,
she has brought forth God and man for us.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.



Heinrich Isaac: Rorate caeli
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Lyrics 


Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity : behold the city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert. Jerusalem is desolate, the house of our holiness and of thy glory, where our fathers praised thee. 

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One. 

We have sinned, and we are become as one unclean, and we have all fallen as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us by the hand of our iniquity. 

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One. 

See, O Lord, the affliction of thy people, and send him whom thou hast promised to send. Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion, that he himself may take off the yoke of our captivity. 

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One. 

Be comforted, be comforted, my people; thy salvation shall speedily come. Why wilt thou waste away in sadness? why hath sorrow seized thee? I will save thee; fear not: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer. 

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

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