- Composer: Gregorian Chant
- Period: Medieval (1-1449)
Review
The Catholic liturgical season of Advent is the season of expectation, and all its liturgical texts reflect this basic character. Advent begins the Church year, with 40 days of preparation for the coming of the Savior at Christmas. There are 40 days, including four Sundays, to employ texts of aspiration, hope, and joy, as the liturgical church reenacts the desperate state of the world before the coming of the Redeemer. Populus Sion, the Intoit for the second Sunday of Advent, fits directly within this season, as it begins the second stage of that extended reenactment in word and tone.The opening Sunday of Advent has been a day of supplicant prayer. Its Mass Propers -- the Gregorian chants unique to that day of the year -- have included texts such as "To you I lift my spirit," "Do not let the world which expects You to be confounded," and "Alleluia, stretch out, O Lord,thy mercy." The second Sunday in Advent, on the other hand, offers a foretaste of the joy when these prayers will be answered. Thus the text of Populus Sion begins the day's Mass worship with the proclamation, "People of Zion, let the Lord come to save His people, and may he hear the glory of your voice, dressed in robes of joy." The responsory verse from the Psalms echoes the sentiment with "He who rules over Israel will come, He who reigns over the seed of Joseph." This very chant thus sets the tone for the day in which all the music and text celebrates the coming of Messiah to the holy city of Zion; the Gospel lesson speaks of the ministry of John the Baptist and specifies Jesus as the Messiah who comes.
The music for this Advent text, like most Introit chants, is frequently decorated with short melismas. It follows the Responsory form, with an opening section (Populus Sion), the Responsory Psalm verse, a possible recapitulation of the opening, and a Gloria Patri ("glory to the Father"). It adopts the seventh mode, a mode of often uplifting affect, and embodies the mode in a large number of rising intervals of a melodic fourth. ~ All Music Guide
