Today is Advent Sunday, and the song I chose from Sing Praise is titled ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’. It’s a phrase often used in Advent, as it sums up what the season is about, not only getting ready for Christmas but also for the final return of Christ in glory, whenever that may be.
But the song, one of the chants from the Taizé community, is actually better known by the start of its refrain or ostinato, ‘Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord, keep watch, take heart’. This also describes the spirit of Advent: waiting for future fulfilment while at the same time being encouraged in the faith (‘take heart’) and making the most of the present time (‘his day is near’).
I made a mistake in sight-reading it at first, wondering why the first line of the ostinato is repeated, then the second, as that’s not how I’ve normally heard it. But then I realised the music staves carry on across the double page spread on each line, which is an odd way of setting it out.
The cantor’s verses, as often with a Taizé chant, don’t follow a fixed metre but fit in and around the ostinato. The phrases are a mixture of familiar Biblical verse (‘Rejoice in the Lord always’, ‘God heard my cry’, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God’) and what I presume are fresh ones (‘Joy and gladness for all who seek the Lord’, ‘O Lord show us your way, Guide us in your truth’). But they all fit in with the atmosphere of this season, when we seek better knowledge of God and ourselves, balancing the sober introspection of a time of penitence with the joy of forgiveness (and of course unless you spend the whole four weeks on retreat it’s not possible to ignore the ramping up of festivities in the world around).
I do think that the way the book sets the music out is very counterintuitive, and I have every sympathy with Stephen for his initial mistake.
I think I wrote earlier in the year that I felt many of these Taize songs, with refrain and cantor parts, should maybe be seen as “subdued jazz” in the sense that the cantor parts could almost be made up and improvised by a singer weaving around the constantly-repeating chord structure of the piece. I certainly felt, whilst recording this piece, that it didn’t really matter whether the Cantor stuck accurately to the printed music or not: an overall impression would do just as well to get the verses across.
Although I do see the point about the Advent theme of waiting and watching, I didn’t feel that this piece of music really fitted with the triumphal feel of Advent as a season of expectation that Christ’s coming will be *in triumph and power and glory*, nor did I really think that the somewhat random popping-up nature of the Cantor verses really enhanced the mood of watching and praying that the chorus was trying to engender. Somehow I felt the piece as a whole was more suited to a “vigil” service than a “praise and worship” service, and I was glad that we have more dynamic hymns in the repertoire for Advent itself.