Magnificat - a song of hope, love and revolution

As the Christmas festival continues, Roy Jenkins explores – with the help of a range of guests – the significance of one of the best known seasonal texts.

The Magnificat is an outpouring of joy from Mary, on hearing the news from the Archangel Gabriel that she is to give birth to Jesus. The text, from St Luke’s Gospel, will have been heard in many churches during the past few weeks as part of the telling of the Christmas story.

There have been countless musical settings down the centuries – ranging from single line Gregorian chant to more florid settings from JS Bach and Palestrina, and in the present day from composers such as John Tavener and Arvo Pärt. As the Magnificat has an important place in Roman Catholic and Anglican liturgy, there are numerous settings for singing in the daily round of Vespers and Choral Evensongs in our cathedrals and churches.

On the face of it, the Magnificat or “Mary’s Song” as it’s sometime known, isn’t such good news for the mighty who will be unseated, and the rich who will be sent empty away. The German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed by the Nazis, described the Magnificat as “the most passionate, the wildest… the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.” But after a year during which we have seen the start of a war, a rise in the cost of living, a widening of the gap between rich and poor, continuing pestilence and the ravages of climate change, what hope can we glean from it for 2023?

Our guests:

The Rt Revd Mary Stallard, Assistant Bishop of Bangor.

Andrew Wilson-Dickson, composer and Cardiff-based musician.

Dr Emma Gibbins, Director of Music, St Woolos Cathedral, Newport.

Revd Dr Craig Gardiner, Tutor at South Wales Baptist College and Cardiff University.

Sean Stillman, Minister at Zac's Place, Swansea, and International President of God Squad.

Revd Dr Jennie Hurd, Chair of Wales Synod Cymru of the Methodist Church.

The programme includes extracts of settings of the Magnificat by Sir John Tavener, JS Bach, Charles Villiers Stanford, Richard Shephard, and Margaret Rizza.