Our last Rorate Caeli brings us into the 20th century, via the early Middle Ages. This setting is by Judith Weir, and was written in 1983. She uses the melody from the Gregorian chant as her base, then adds in…
Tag: advent calendar
Advent Calendar Day 4: Rorate Caeli – Rheinberger
Our survey of Rorate Caeli settings now enters the swoonily romantic (not to say sentimental) territory of the 19th century, with this pensive and occasionally dramatic setting by Josef Rheinberger. Rheinberger was born in Liechtenstein and spent most of his…
Advent Calendar Day 3: Rorate Caeli – Handl
Another Renaissance Rorate Caeli, but the Renaissance in Eastern Europe was clearly a different beast to the Renaissance in Spain! Jacob Handl (also known as Jacobus Gallus and Jacobus Handelius) was born in Montenegro in 1550, making him about 20…
Advent Calendar Day 2: Rorate Caeli – Guerrero
While I was looking for just the right Rorate Coeli/Caeli to share with you yesterday, I fell down a very deep internet rabbit hole where it turns out that pretty much every composer and his cat has written a setting…
Advent Calendar Day 1: Rorate Caeli – Zebrowski
The classic text for Advent 1 is Rorate Coeli Desuper – Let the heavens open and rain down righteousness. The oldest setting for this is this Gregorian chant, which still gets sung today (literally today, actually – I’ll be singing…
Advent Calendar – Christmas Day!
Merry Christmas! Usually this is the point at which I go for all the big descants, but you have the entire internet for that. Instead, I am going to be completely self-indulgent (and hopefully you-indulgent, too), because I was looking…
Advent Calendar Day 26: Oratorio de Noël (Saint Saens)
It’s Christmas Eve, which means that we are nearly at the end of our Advent journey. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be spending the day cooking and baking for tomorrow, probably while listening to music. Will it be…
Advent Calendar Day 25 – Schlafe Mein Liebster (JS Bach)
Oh, you didn’t think we were going to get to Christmas with more Bach, now did you? Of course we weren’t. This is a rather gorgeous alto aria from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, which is basically a lullaby for the baby…
Advent Calendar Day 24: Masters in this Hall
To contrast with the serenity of yesterday’s carol, I couldn’t resist sharing this cheerfully energetic carol, with its little social justice message in the chorus. There are many, many versions of this carol out there, and I am decidedly partial…
Advent Calendar Day 22 – Rorate Coeli
And here we are on the fourth Sunday of Advent, which, according to all the sources I’ve found, means that it is time for a bit of Rorate Coeli. This is a very lovely and very old text, which started…