More on Christmas
Music for Christmas Eve is always an adventure. We do an extra 8 hours of rehearsal leading up to Christmas in order to prepare 20 minutes of prelude music along with the music for the liturgy. This year we ended our prelude with the chant “A Child is Born in Bethlehem,” sung in unison, in English and straight out of hymnal. The church was packed but totally still; probably a combination of the sacredness of the moment and the trepidation of those who haven’t been to church since Easter and are scared they will do something wrong, sit when they are supposed to kneel, say the wrong thing when receiving communion, etc.
We sang the Victoria “O Magnum Mysterium” before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Text is found here – it’s a gem of a Christmas motet. We had practiced with the organ but managed to do it a capella that night. I’m sure we had the blessing of the baby Jesus assisting us that night.
Christmas Eve in the past has been very showy, and we this year we did a few showy pieces but intermixed were a few chants and a latin motet. I wonder if the combination was effective…