Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany, which in Greek means "manifestation". Jesus makes himself known. The feast of the Epiphany has its origins in the Eastern Church. In contrast to Europe, the solstice was celebrated on 6 January in both Egypt and Arabia, celebrating the victorious sun with ancient mythical evocations. It was not until the 4th century that the Church began to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord on this day. Like the feast of Christmas in the West, Epiphany was born at the same time in the East as the Church's response to the pagan solar celebration which they tried to replace. This explains why Epiphany is called in the East: Hagia phota, i.e. the holy light.

While in the East, Epiphany is the feast of the Incarnation, in the West it celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the pagan world, the true Epiphany. The celebration revolves around the adoration of the infant Jesus by the three Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12) as a symbol of the pagan world's recognition that Christ is the Saviour of all mankind.

According to the Church tradition of the 1st century, these Magi are powerful and wise men, possibly kings of nations east of the Mediterranean, men who by their culture and spirituality cultivated their knowledge of man and nature and made a special effort to maintain contact with God. From the Biblical passage we know that they came from the East and brought incense, gold and myrrh as gifts; from the tradition of the first centuries we are told that they were three wise kings: Melchior, Gaspar and Balthazar. Until 474 AD their remains were in Constantinople, the most important Christian capital in the East; then they were moved to the cathedral of Milan (Italy) and in 1164 they were transferred to the city of Cologne (Germany), where they remain to this day.

The giving of gifts to children on the 6th of January corresponds to the commemoration of the generosity that these Magi had in adoring the Child Jesus and giving him gifts, bearing in mind that "whatever you do to one of these little ones, you do to me" (Mt. 25:40); this relates to the children by helping them live beautifully and delicately the fantasy of the event and to the adults as a sign of love and faith in the new-born Christ.

To commemorate this solemnity, we at Neumz have chosen the Entrance Antiphon, Ecce advenit. This text is not in Scripture, although the idea it expresses is found in many places, especially in the book of the prophet Malachi 3, 1; the last of the prophets. The link between the two Testaments is in the words that Matthew recalls of Christ when he applies to the Baptist and to himself the prophecy of Malachi manifested in today's Introit. The prophet's text reads: “Behold, I am sending my angel before me and he will prepare the way … and the ruler will come … the angel of the covenant for whom you wait”. This Introit is the song of the Church welcoming the entry on the scene of Christ the King who will exercise for the first time his royal prerogatives by receiving the homage of the peoples of the universe. But, beyond the historical setting and the splendour of the symbolic rites under which He lives again, the Church sings at the same time of the ever-widening manifestation of Christ's kingship and, beyond time, of the supreme Epiphany, when on the last day He will show Himself Master and Lord, holding all power in His hand and exercising authority and empire, no longer only in law but in fact, over peoples and kings prostrate. 

As for the melody, composed in mode 2, it has the amplitude, the power, the solemn gravity of a royal procession, with shades of restraint appropriate to one who is both priest and king. It has very little melodic development; a few notes that return incessantly to the F, dominant of the mode, which is insisted upon to punctuate, one after the other, the royal attributes. However, there is nothing rigid in this sober order; on the contrary, the movement is admirably flexible. A breath of enthusiasm, restrained as befits a liturgical procession, but powerful, lifts us up from the first intonation. Ecce, behold! The whole of Advent and Christmas was loaded with this expression: Ecce. But they all anticipated this one. The Epiphany is the definitive Ecce; the melodic construction makes of this word a perfect unit that leaves the intonation resting on the D, the fundamental of mode 2, after a melodic ascent from the lowest range of the piece. And, after having bowed in advenit, with respectful reverence, before the One who comes, with a very firm and consistent melodic turn that makes the full sonorous journey of mode 2, from D to F, the melodic movement leads us towards Dominator Dominus: a sovereign Lord, the first attribute of his kingship, underlined by the pretonic bivirga on the F to emphasise the accent of the word even more. The cadence of Dominus is identical to that of the last phrase, imperium, thus establishing a musical link, but also a semantic one: this lordship and empire are clothed in strength and softness, thus manifesting a reign suaviter sed fortiter. Furthermore, dominator, regnum and potestas with similar melodic turns, with splendid accents full of grandeur and pride, proclaim the power of this heavenly King.

In the centre of the composition, the second phrase begins a musical enumeration of attributes headed by the conjunction et, which will be repeated twice more, uniting the attributes of lordship, taking them from the fundamental to the dominant, which becomes the sonorous chord until the end. The first and last et are musically constructed in such a way that, rather than being a simple conjunction, they act as a solemn presentation of the attribute that follows. And the last, the imperium, again evokes what in the Christmas Mass Puer was the melodic summit of the whole: cuius imperium. In this Epiphany Mass the imperium, as the conclusion and final cadence of the piece, is the true crowning, though not the melodic summit, of all that is sung of the heavenly King.