Title: Savior of the Nations, Come

Composer/Arranger/Text
Timothy Shepard
Tune: NUN KOMM, DER HEIDEN HEILAND
Attr. Ambrose of Milan

Instrumentation
SSSATB or SSAAB Choir (a capella)

Liturgical Use
Advent

Scores Available
Choral Score, 2pp

Description

For each of the four stanzas, the melody is repeated in the bass. With each new stanza, the soprano / alto parts are increasingly embellished with fragments from the chant "O Come, O come Emmanuel" (VENI EMMANUEL). The anthem culminates in the fourth stanza where the tune sung throughout in the bass is doubled in the treble voices and the final chord blossoms into six parts.

This short anthem would work well sung in procession. Between each of the stanzas, the choir would move forward while several handbells are sounded together a number of times in open fifths (G and D). A variation of this would be to use more bells that are rung in random fashion (G, A, Bb, D -- as many of them as you can conjure up).