The Advent

Music and Performance Notes "The Advent" sets a poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) to music. The poet asks us to recognize that God comes to us and is present in everything around us, in the things we see, experience and feel. God ever comes and touches us with joy. We recognize God in our songs, in our moods, in sorrow, in joy, in our daily lives. This music is scored for SATB choir and viola. If a violist is not available, a violin can substitute. A piano reduction of the choral parts can be used just for rehearsal, or also in the performance if necessary. If no string player is available, the pipe organ can be used for the string part. Note on the text Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter during the age of Bengal Renaissance. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of "Gitanjali," he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Poem Song Offering/Gitanjali 45 Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes. Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes. Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, but all their notes have always proclaimed, "He comes, comes, ever comes." In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, comes, ever comes. In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes. In sorrow after sorrow, it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine. Rabindranath Tagore