Tag: Joanna Forbes L’Estrange

“Love is patient…”: Ten songs based on 1 Corinthians 13

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

This Sunday’s lectionary reading from the Epistles is 1 Corinthians 13:1–13, the famous “love” passage. Here are ten songs that set that text or are based on it. And there are many more besides!

1. “1 Corinthians 13:1–8,” chanted in Romanian by Maria Coman, 2023:

2. “Love Will Never Fail” by Leslie Jordan, Orlando Palmer, Isaac Wardell, and Paul Zach of The Porter’s Gate, from Neighbor Songs, 2019:

For a cover by the Good Shepherd Collective, featuring Jayne Sugg and Son of Cloud (Jonathan Seale) (his is one of my favorite male singing voices), see here. They add as an outro the refrain of Martin Smith’s “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever.”

3. “Tell Him” by Lauryn Hill, 1998, performed by Esperanza Spalding, 2009:

The neo-soul/R&B album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998), Hill’s solo debut, is one of the most widely acclaimed albums of the nineties. At an evening of jazz and spoken word hosted at the White House on May 19, 2009, by then president Barack Obama, upright bass player, singer, and composer Esperanza Spalding performed her gorgeous arrangement of Hill’s “Tell Him.” The object pronoun “him” used throughout has been interpreted by listening publics as either a romantic partner or God, and the ambiguity is probably intentional. As for me, I hear the song as religious, especially given the line “the love that was shown when our lives were spared,” which I take to be a reference to Christ’s saving sacrifice. [HT]

4. “1 Corinthians 13:8–11” (excerpt) from Uganda, 2021:

This video was uploaded by Bwire Isaac, the founder of Alpha Worship Connection, a registered nonprofit that trains and equips worship leaders in Uganda. It was filmed at one of his Discipleship Training Weeks, and features a pastor named Muwanguzi playing the adungu (bow harp). I believe the language is Luganda. [HT]

5. “Love (1 Corinthians 13)” by Joni Mitchell, from Wild Things Run Fast, 1982:

The song also appears, re-recorded and in new arrangement, on Mitchell’s Travelogue (2002). Hear her speak about how the apostle Paul’s words inspired her in this two-minute video.

(Related post: “The Greatest of These,” a poem by Tania Runyan)

6. “Faith, Hope and Love” by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, performed by London Voices, dir. Ben Parry, from Heaven to Earth, 2024:

7. “El Amor (1 Corintios 13)” by Michelle Matius, 2023:

Matius is a Christian singer-songwriter and recording artist from the Dominican Republic. Like all her songs, this one is in Spanish.

8. “Live for Love” by Eric Lige, 2022:

9. “The Gift of Love” by Hal Hopson, 1972, performed by Koiné on Gesanbuch, 2008:

The music of this one is adapted from a traditional English folk tune.

10. “Kanoo” (Love) by Elfi Bohl, aka Mariyama Suso, from Suukuu Kutoo / A New Song, 1999:

Bohl’s “Kanoo” is an original setting of 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 in the Mandinka language of West Africa, which she sings to a kora self-accompaniment. She wrote and recorded it while living in The Gambia. To learn more about Bohl and her kora songs, see my previous blog post from December.

Advent, Day 17: O!

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: Untitled by Kiki Smith

Smith, Kiki_Untitled bronze
Kiki Smith (American, 1954–), Untitled, 1992. Bronze with patina, 19 1/2 × 51 × 25 in. (49.5 × 129.5 × 63.5 cm). Edition of 2 + 1 AP. © Kiki Smith, courtesy The Pace Gallery.

LISTEN: “Advent ‘O’ Carol” by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, 2018 | Performed by London Voices, dir. Ben Parry, on Winter Light, 2024

Refrain:
O, O, O, O, O, O, O
O, O, O, O, O, O, O

We long for your coming, O Wisdom;
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come and teach us the way of understanding;
you are the living Word. [Refrain]

We long for you, O Lord and Ruler;
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come and stretch out your arms and redeem us;
you are the living Word. [Refrain]

We long for you, O Root of Jesse;
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come to deliver us and do not tarry;
you are the living Word. [Refrain]

We long for you, O Key of David;
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come and bring forth the captive from his prison,
who sits in the shadow of death. [Refrain]

Dawn of the East,
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come and lighten those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death. [Refrain]

We long for you, O King of the Gentiles;
we long for your coming, O Lord.
Come and deliver man, whom you formed
out of the dust of the earth. [Refrain]

O Emmanuel!
When will you come?
Come to save us, O Lord our God. [Refrain]

Tomorrow I will come.

Revealing different titles of the Messiah based on Isaiah’s prophecies, the seven so-called O Antiphons have been sung, one each from December 17 to 23, since at least as far back as the eighth century. For Christians outside the Roman Catholic Church, these antiphons are probably most familiar as the basis of the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

The British composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange has lightly adapted them and set them to music for unaccompanied SATB choir. She offers the following note:

“Advent ‘O’ Carol” is inspired by the text and chants of the seven “O” Antiphons which traditionally would have been sung in the days immediately preceding Christmas (known as the Greater Ferias). The “O” refrain, which opens the piece and reoccurs between each of the seven verses, is based on the opening melodic chant of the Medieval antiphons, its 7/8 time signature reinforcing the piece’s connection to the number seven.

Ignoring the “O,” the first letter of each verse forms an acrostic which, when reversed, spells ERO CRAS, Latin for “I shall be (with you) tomorrow.” I have reworded this as “Tomorrow I will come” for the final resolution of the piece.

  1. Sapientia (Wisdom)
  2. Adonai (Lord and Ruler)
  3. Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
  4. Clavis David (Key of David)
  5. Oriens (Dawn of the East)
  6. Rex Gentium (King of the Gentiles)
  7. Emmanuel

Five new Advent/Christmas albums

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Every fall a number of new holiday albums hit the market. Here are five from this year that I’ve been enjoying. I’ve included one or two sample tracks from each.

2024 Holiday Albums

Winter Light by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange

A smorgasbord of choral works by the British composer Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, plus a few written or cowritten by her husband, Alexander, and one by her son Harry, all performed by Ben Parry’s London Voices. I learned about this album from Angier Brock, who wrote the anthem text for the title track. One of my favorite pieces is the “Advent ‘O’ Carol,” which I’ll be featuring in a devotional post on December 17. Below is a retune of “In the Bleak Midwinter” (risky, since Holst’s beautiful tune is so iconic, but I love what L’Estrange does with Rossetti’s poem), followed by an original jazzy carol about “The Three Wise Women” of Christmas—Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna.

O Antiphons Series by Elise Massa

Elise Massa is a singer-songwriter and music minister currently living in Durham, England, where she works for United Adoration, a global nonprofit that seeks to empower local artists to create music and art rooted in Christ and meaningful to their particular context, culture, and language. This quiet, understated album consists of seven original songs based on the O Antiphons, refrains sung during evening prayer on the seven last days of Advent preceding Christmas Eve. Here’s the first one, “O Wisdom (O Sapientia)”:

Halfway Through the Night by the Hedgerow Folk

Named after a phrase from a C. S. Lewis poem, The Hedgerow Folk is an Alabama-based acoustic Americana trio: Jon Myles, Amanda Hammett, and Bryant Hains. “Halfway through the night” is a through line that weaves through this their first Christmas album as a declaration of hope. My two favorite tracks: their reharmonized rendition of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and their bluegrass arrangement of “Oh Come, Divine Messiah” (which I knew previously only from an a cappella choir of nuns). Also available on vinyl.

As Foretold: Part 1 by Poor Bishop Hooper

As Foretold is a trilogy of albums that takes its subject matter from the prophetic fulfillment passages in Matthew’s Gospel. Part 1, released this week, covers the first two chapters of the book—Jesus’s birth, his flight to Egypt, Herod’s slaughter of innocents, and Jesus’s return to Nazareth. Three of the tracks deal with Joseph’s three dreams—a rarity in music! In his first dream, an angel appears to tell him that Mary is telling the truth, that the son inside her was indeed conceived by the Holy Spirit. In the second dream, treated in the “Out of Egypt” song below, the angel tells Joseph to take his family and flee Bethlehem to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, and in the third, the angel informs him it’s safe to return to their homeland.

Poor Bishop Hooper is offering the album for free download from their website! Parts 2 and 3 will release in early 2025.

I Saw Three Ships by Dan Damon

Daniel Charles Damon is a jazz pianist, hymn writer, and retired Methodist pastor from San Francisco, who also works as associate editor of hymnody at Hope Publishing Company. His latest jazz Christmas album features a combination of classics and originals, including two hymns he wrote both the words and music for (“Like a Child” and “Winter’s Child”); “Hunger Carol” by Shirley Erena Murray (words) and Saya Ojiri (tune), which Damon has freshly arranged; and “Peace Child,” another Murray hymn, for which Damon wrote a tune.

It’s difficult to choose a favorite track, as I love this album through and through! I’ll highlight first the nineties hymn “Peace Child,” a pensive reflection on how Christ comes to us “in the silence of stars, in the violence of wars,” “through the hate and the hurt, through the hunger and dirt.” Second, a lively medieval carol whose Latin refrain, “Id-e-o-o-o, id-e-o-o-o, id-e-o, gloria in excelsis Deo!,” translates to “Therefore, glory to God in the highest!”

The vocalist on the album is the award-winning Sheilani Alix. She is accompanied by Damon on piano, Kurt Ribak on acoustic bass, Carrie Jahde on drums, and Lincoln Adler on tenor saxophone and soprano sax.

If you like this album, be sure to also check out Damon’s 2022 Christmas album, No Obvious Angels.

What 2024 holiday albums have you been enjoying?