Marian Antiphon for Advent

What are your musical ambitions for Advent? The Marian antiphon for the season seems like a great beginning. The history of the Alma Redemptoris Mater (there are at least 3 versions in the in-print Gregorian repertoire) is most striking, and it has inspired hundreds of motets.

Here is the "solemn" version from the Liber Usualis that is posted here for the first time online. We've started singing this at every rehearsal so that it becomes truly poetic and natural in every way. The hope is that we will come to know it well enough to hum it while working, shopping, or whatever.