Music for Advent
The "O" Antiphons
From what I can tell, many, if not most, of my readers here on the BFM aren’t Christian or religious in any explicit way. That’s all fine and good–I am glad to have you, and glad you find what I am writing about worth reading from time to time. Even so, I am stepping out hesitantly to recommend a totally beautiful piece of liturgical music I have been listening to since the beginning of Advent: Arvo Pärt’s Greater Antiphons, otherwise known as the “O” antiphons. An antiphon is a liturgical prayer, usually quite short, that’s shoved in between a longer prayer (like a litany) or a reading from Scripture. If you’ve never heard of the “O” antiphons before, they are a collection of ancient Latin prayers that date to the 5th or early 6th century. Curiously, their earliest attestation is in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (ca. 524AD), a work that is otherwise devoid of all reference to Christianity. One of the few things these prayers share in common is that they all begin with “O.” In fact, the Christmas carol, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel,” is an agglomeration of them. Usually, during the last seven days of Advent (the 17th to the 23rd), a different “O” antiphon is read before and after the Magnificat during compline or evening prayer. You can find the full text of each prayer in English at the end of this post.
There are two odd things about Pärt’s piece. The first is that there are no words. I know of two other musical settings of this group of antiphons. One is by Carlo Gesualdo (early 1600’s) and the other is by Pärt himself, who composed a score for a choir back all the way back in the 1980’s. I am sure there are others, but the two that I know make use of the text of the prayers. Gesualdo based his on the Latin text, and Pärt, who is a devout Eastern Orthodox, worked with the German translation of the Latin. But in 2015, Part went back and re-scored the music for string orchestra. All the words are gone. Once you know this bit of history, it’s difficult to forget. Beginning to end, the newer piece sounds like it could have been sung by a choir. There are long, deep pauses between notes. In these absences–long enough for a breath, it seems–the instruments resonate in surprising and haunting ways. There’s almost no vibrato on the string instruments. Besides a surprisingly wide dynamic range and some harmonics in the first and last antiphon, the instruments are played without much embellishment or fanfare.
The second odd thing is how they come to form a unified whole. Usually, the prayers are separated out for each of the last seven days of Advent. When read or sung, the antiphon lasts just a few seconds before another part of the liturgy takes over. But Pärt obviously intends the seven “O” antiphons to work together as a unified whole. Compositionally, the fulcrum of the piece is antiphon IV (“O Key of David”), which is by far the loudest and most intense of them. There are sudden silences in the middle of the piece that feel jarring–vertiginous, even. But each of the other antiphons mirrors or echoes its numerical counterpart in surprising ways. Listen to them all straight through (it only takes 15 minutes, start to finish), and then go back and listen to the pairs: the first and the last, the second and the sixth, the third and the fifth. Finally, the seventh and last antiphon seems to reach out and encompass each of them, first through sixth, beginning to end. It begins quietly, and melodically, resembling antiphon I. VII then slowly builds to a crescendo, recalling antiphon IV, and then falls away into disappearing patterns of triads. Once again, the harmonics are gorgeous.
Pärt is perhaps the most famous classical composer alive. He’s certainly one of the most performed. I know very little about classical music–I can’t read sheet music–but I first encountered him in college, when my friend Sam, a classically trained pianist, introduced me. At the time, I was working as the music director at the college radio station; I was blown away.
I like Pärt’s avant-garde work best: Für Alina, Spiegel im Spiegel, Fratres. These can be challenging to listen to, but there’s something deeply intuitive about how the compositions unfold as you listen along. I want to say that they sound arithmetically naive–almost childlike–but that makes them sound simpler than they are. Pärt has described his compositional method as tintinnabuli (“little bells,” in Latin). Pärt has also said that this method feels to him like “spiritual fasting” or “an escape into voluntary poverty.” According to Elena Tokun, a musicologist, tintinnabuli “seeks to reduce all possible parameters of musical means to a certain basic level, to the primordial elements of the language of sound.” As far as I can tell, that “basic level” usually consists in the slow elaboration of notes played in patterns of 3. The patterns are often recursive, but the intervals between notes stretch in unexpected directions. It can sometimes sound like Gregorian chant or Renaissance polyphony.
At any rate: give Pärt a listen, follow along with the text of the “O” antiphons, and let me know what you think.
“O” Antiphons (sometimes called the Greater Antiphons)
1. O Wisdom, proceeding from the mouth of the Almighty, you encompass the world from one end to the other with power and moderation you ordain all things: O come and show us the way of wisdom and of understanding.
2. O Adonai, Lord and leader of the house of Israel, in the flaming thorn bush were you revealed to Moses, and on the mountain did you give him your law: O come and free us with your strong arms.
3. O Root of the stem of Jesse, stand forward as a sign for the people, before you the lords of the earth are struck dumb, the people cry out to you: O come and help us, stir yourself, delay no longer.
4. O key of David, sceptre of the house of Israel, you open something, no one can close it, you close something and no might will open it: O come and open the prison of darkness and the chain of death.
5. O Morning Star, gleam of immutable light: shining sun of righteousness: O come and lighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
6. O King of all people, their expectations and desire, cornerstone, which holds together the edifice, O come and help mankind which you constructed on earth!
7. O Emmanuel, our King and teacher, you hope and saviour of the people: O come, hurry and bring us help, you our lord and our God.