The Plough Music Series is a regular selection of music intended to lift the heart to God. It is not a playlist of background music: each installment focuses on a single piece worth pausing to enjoy.

The days between Christmas and Epiphany are a time to reflect on the miracle of Christmas and to look toward the challenges of the coming year. Here’s music from 1646 that does both. Starting and ending with a solemn “Alleluia,” the song describes God’s love in sending his son to the manger to be our friend, and expresses the resolve never to waver from Christ. The end of each verse is overtaken by the chorus, an exuberant repetition of the words “Joy, joy upon joy,” and the song ends with a prayer for a peaceful and blessed new year for all of God’s people. The prayer for peace was as urgent then as today: the Thirty Years’ War had already dragged on for twenty-eight years when composer Andreas Hammerschmidt – who with his family was a refugee during the war – wrote this hope-filled motet.

Listen to this recording:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cWDdAlmAmKY