ADVENT I

Quietness; examination; expectation; perspective… These are for me the four watchwords of Advent, a season whose silent, reflective core is all too easily missed.

You have to listen in order to hear…

Quietness

I set an introspective tone with a gentle and lyrically flowing fugue from Gerald Near, the American composer who now resides in New Mexico.

Examination

Both the Introit and Anthem suggest that we will be looking into our hearts and minds and offering both to be led, not by our senses and our will, but by faith that God will lead the way…

Expectation

As with any of the mini-dramas incorporated into the Liturgical Year, we all know, going into it, the end of the story, and so even here at the outset of Advent it is difficult to restrain the joy...

And so, mezzo-soprano Faith Sherman offers the rousing and barely-contained exultation of joy from the ‘Gloria in Excelsis’ movement of the Mozart ‘Mass in C Minor,’ the solo Laudamus te… Notice the shades of musical color at each of the four phrases of the text.

Faith, originally from Wilton, CT, holds both an Artists’ Diploma from the Juilliard School and an undergraduate Music degree from Eastman. A life-long Presbyterian whose home church is now First Presbyterian in Sarasota, FL, she has been making St. Philip her “home away from home,” and has been a regular visitor during her time here as a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio. Please tell Faith how grateful you are for her offering of music today…!

Perspective

The ‘Nunc Dimittis’ or ‘Song of Simeon,’ is a canticle based on the story in the second chapter of Luke where Simeon [a devout Jew who had been promised by God that he would not die before seeing the Savior] takes the infant Jesus in his arms and articulates the eternity-encompassing perspective he has just achieved…

This Gibbons setting seems perfectly apt.

-Keith Weber