Vulc, O sapientia
In this Advent season, I plan to feature various settings of the O Antiphons for our Friday Performance Picks.
The seven “Great O Antiphons” represent some of the most enduring texts of Advent. Composers have turned to these texts from at least as far back as the Sixth Century, but I plan to focus on settings by living composers.
The O Antiphons are part of the Office of Vespers during the last days of Advent, December 17 through 23. The English-speaking world is, of course, very familiar with at least one of them: the Christmas Carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
- 17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
- 18 December: O Adonai
- 19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
- 20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
- 21 December: O Oriens (O Dawn of the East)
- 22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
- 23 December: O Emmanuel
Each of these titles represents one of the prophetic names for Christ found in the Book of Isaiah. They also form an acronym SARCORE. Read backwards, that becomes ero cras, which in Latin means “Tomorrow I come” or “Tomorrow I shall be.”
Most people recognize the last one from the familiar Christmas Carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel. In fact, that Carol by John Mason Neale (1818-1866) has seven verses, each one beginning with one of the O Antiphons.
We will begin with a striking O Sapientia by the Slovenian composer Tadeja Vulc (b. 1978). Vulc focuses primarily on choral works although she writes instrumental works as well. Choral music offers some of the most fertile ground for musical innovations partly because of the versatility of the human voice. I also think that audiences more readily accept new and surprising forms and sonorities when they are generated by human voices as opposed to instruments.
But that is not to say you should prepare yourself for a jarring experience. While Vulc brings certain modern elements into this work, it is firmly grounded in medieval chant and traditional harmonies.
| O Sapientia, quae ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae. | O Wisdom, Who didst come out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence. |