1 January 2011
Opening voluntary
Prelude on ‘In thee is gladness’
J.S. Bach
Introit hymn 435
w ‘At the Name of Jesus’ stanzas 1–4
Caroline Maria Noel
m ‘King’s Weston’
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Gloria hymn 96
w ‘Angels we have heard on high’
French trad.
tr. James Chadwick
m ‘Gloria’
French trad.
arr. Edward Shippen Barnes
Psalm hymn
w ’Lord, our Lord, thy glorious Name’
Psalm 8
para. The Psalter, 1912
alt. Rejoice in the Lord, 1985
m ‘Salzburg’
mel. Jakob Hintze
harm. Johann Sebastian Bach
Sequence hymn 644
w ‘How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds’
John Newton
m ‘St Peter’
Alexander Robert Reinagle
Offertory hymn 250
w ‘Now greet the swiftly changing year’
Slovak, c.17
tr. Jaroslav J. Vajda
m ‘Sixth Night’
Alfred V. Fedak
Sanctus & Benedictus qui venit S 125
A Community Mass
Richard Proulx
Communion voluntary
Prelude on ‘Salzburg’
Johann Pachelbel
Postcommunion hymn 477
w ‘All praise to thee, for thou, O king divine’
F. Bland Tucker
based on Philippians 2.5–11
m ‘Engelberg’
Charles Villiers Stanford
Several celebrations come together to make 1 January a day rich with meaning. It is, of course, the beginning of the civil year, as it was in Roman times (though in the Middle Ages many European lands began the year on various other days). 1 January is also the Octave (that is, the one-week anniversary, an important interval in ancient times and historically in the Church) of the Feast of the Nativity. Given that Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus, as a Jewish male, was circumcised and named on the eighth day after his birth, this day was connected at least as early as 567, and probably earlier, with that event and kept by Christians in opposition to pagan festivities held at the new year.
The day has thus in various places and times been celebrated as the Octave of the Nativity; the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God; the Feast of the Circumcision; and the Feast of the Holy Name, the last of which is the title given in the current (1979) Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (the Holy Name is and has been celebrated on other days in other times and places as well).
As the Feast of the Circumcision, the day has been explained as a celebration of the occasion when Our Lord first shed his blood for us, a foreshadowing of his Passion, and a demonstration of his full humanity and subjection to (and, by extension, fulfillment of) the Law. As the Feast of the Holy Name, the day emphasizes many of the same things; in addition, however, it celebrates the new knowledge of the Almighty (whose name revealed to Moses – Yahweh – is considered too holy to be spoken, and in any case is somewhat inscrutable, meaning roughly ‘I am who I am’) given in Christ, whose name, Jesus (or, more accurately, Joshua/Yeshua), means ‘God saves’, and the power of which is testified to repeatedly in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles.
Several of Saturday’s hymns treat this subject. ‘At the Name of Jesus’ was written by Caroline Maria Noel, an English hymnist who suffered poor health and wrote verses ‘for the sick and lonely’; it not only celebrates in rather exalted language the Name itself but gathers up many of the themes of Christmastide: Christ’s preexistence as the eternal Word, his humility and subjection to the flesh, his victory over death, his closeness ‘to the Father’s breast’ (as the Prologue to the Gospel of John puts it). It makes a fine effect coupled with Vaughan Williams’s magnificent ‘King’s Weston’, a product of that composer’s study of English folk tunes. ‘Lord, our Lord, thy glorious Name’ is a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 8 (‘O Lord our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world...’), appointed for this day.
‘How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds’ is a fine example of the tender devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus which many Christians through the ages have felt: it soothes, heals, drives away fear, calms, feeds, brings rest. Moreover, the fourth stanza, in a beautiful pouring-forth of piety, consists almost entirely of a list of additional epithets for Jesus: Shepherd, Guardian, Friend, Prophet, Priest, King, Lord, Life, Way, End. Its author was John Newton, an Evangelical Anglican clergyman better known for ‘Amazing grace! How sweet the sound’ and ‘Glorious things of thee are spoken’. Finally, ‘All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine’ is a paraphrase by Bland Tucker (whose name appears often in the Hymnal and this weblog) of the Epistle for the feast, the great hymn of Christ’s humility in Philippians 2.
The occasion of the New Year is not ignored this day, however: ‘Now greet the swiftly changing year’ provides the bridge between Christmas, the celebration of the Holy Name, and the turn of the calendar, calling us to both joy and penitence, and to trust in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Its translator, Jaroslav Vajda (†2008), was an eminent American Lutheran hymnist of Slovak descent. The opening voluntary is based on another New Year’s hymn, ‘In dir ist Freude’ (‘In thee is gladness’), which somewhat similarly speaks of God’s providence. Its text was written by Johann Lindemann, Cantor at Gotha, and published at the end of the sixteenth century; the tune comes from a madrigal by Giovanni Gastoldi. The setting for organ comes from Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (‘Little Organ Book’), an unfinished collection of hymn-tune preludes for the church year and on various subjects; it is perhaps the grandest piece in this collection, breaking the tune down into short phrases repeated many times in a manner reminiscent of a bell-peal. What could be more appropriate for ringing in the new year?
Eric Mellenbruch
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