Sacred Music & History

The anticipation and preparation of Advent have given rise to some of the most beautiful music in the Church’s treasury. Of particular interest are the seven “O” Antiphons – so called because each addresses Jesus by one of his great titles from the Old Testament. The “O” Antiphons date to the earliest years of the Church – Boethius (480-524) refers to them as a tradition already well established.

The titles are: “O Sapientia” – O Wisdom (Isaiah 11:2); “O Adonai” – O Lord (Exodus 3); “O Radix Jesse” – O Root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:10); “O Clavis David” – O Key of David (Isaiah 22:22); “O Oriens” – O Dawn (Isaiah 60:2-3); “O Rex Gentium” – O King of the Nations (Isaiah 9:6); “O Emmanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). Each antiphon expounds on the title, its meaning, and the promise it contains, e.g.: “O clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris.” – “O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel: who opens and none may shut; who shuts, and none may open: come and lead forth from the prison-house those who sit in darkness.”

The ancient writers loved word games: when the titles in the “O” Antiphons are set out in order from last to first - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia – the initials spell out Ero Cras: “I will be (here) tomorrow”.

Traditionally they are chanted as part of the Liturgy of the Hours, before and after the Magnificat at Vespers in the Octave before Christmas. The texts survive, in a translation by John Mason Neale, the “High Church” Anglican medievalist and scholar, as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."