Advent I

Last year I posted an Advent related YouTube video every Sunday in Advent - and, although two days late, I'm going to try to keep up this tradition.

Today - Veni Veni Emmanuel, set by Zoltán Kodály and sung by L'Accorche-Choeur, Ensemble vocal Fribourg.



Over the course of the day on Sunday, I sang (well played mostly) 18 verses of this carol. We did all seven verses in the morning, an abridged four verse version at the carol service, and then all seven English verses again at the Cathedral's carol service.

Normally I have an aversion to any carol with the English word "Israel". In North America anyway, we seem to pronounce is as it were in Latin, only with an ugly diphthong, even triphthong, for the vowel combination, "Is-rye-el" rather than "Is-ray-el" as it should (the main reason why The First Noel is a carol I try to avoid during this season, if I can), however I just love this plainchant carol - especially as an organist when I can play any harmonization I want during the verses. Maybe next year we'll just sing it in Latin then I won't have to worry about the pronunciation issue at all.

Happy Advent!