Scoring: SATB choir and organ
Date: 2017
This setting of the traditional Advent plainchant is based around a harmonized refrain using the original Latin words: "Rorate coeli de super et nubes pluant justum" ("Drop down, O heavens, from above and let the skies pour down *justice".) The music and the words express the Advent theme of a cry for justice and salvation in the midst of despair. The traditional verses making up the Advent Prose, based on various parts of scripture, are sung in English unison plainchant, and they express the feelings of one living through a disaster (specifically the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century BC.) The third and fourth stanzas become more hopeful in their words, especially the famous words (from Isaiah 40) "Comfort, O comfort my people," Here the setting introduces some gentle harmonization, leading to a final return of the "Rorate" chorus in unison and a harmonized hope-filled coda.
Words:
Rorate coeli de super et nubes pluant justum
1.
Turn your fierce anger from us, O Lord,
and remember not our sins for ever.
Your holy cities have become a desert,
Zion a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation;
our holy and beautiful house,
where our ancestors praised you.
2.
We have sinned and become like one who is unclean;
we have all withered like a leaf,
and our iniquities like the wind have swept us away.
You have hidden your face from us,
and abandoned us to our iniquities.
3.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know me and believe me.
I myself am the Lord,
and none but I can deliver;
what my hand holds, none can snatch away.
4.
Comfort, O comfort my people,
my salvation shall not be delayed.
I have swept your offences away like a cloud;
fear not for I will save you.
I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,your redeemer.
Turn your fierce anger from us, O Lord,
and remember not our sins for ever.
Your holy cities have become a desert,
Zion a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation;
our holy and beautiful house,
where our ancestors praised you.
2.
We have sinned and become like one who is unclean;
we have all withered like a leaf,
and our iniquities like the wind have swept us away.
You have hidden your face from us,
and abandoned us to our iniquities.
3.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know me and believe me.
I myself am the Lord,
and none but I can deliver;
what my hand holds, none can snatch away.
4.
Comfort, O comfort my people,
my salvation shall not be delayed.
I have swept your offences away like a cloud;
fear not for I will save you.
I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,your redeemer.
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