Given that I’m coming up with a post a day during Advent, I was going to put my Friday Fun on hiatus… but on reflection, that didn’t sound like much fun at all, so instead, I’m going to devote Fridays in Advent to interpretations of carols that are just plain weird. And what could be weirder than Sting singing medieval Advent Carols?
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Returning to the Church after our foray into folk tradition, here’s some gorgeous polyphony by Tomas Luis de Victoria.
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One of the more fun things about Advent Carols are the ones you get that were written by the people, for the people. And the people sometimes had some pretty unorthodox ideas, largely, one suspects, because services were in Latin, Bibles were for the clergy, and singing was not permitted in church. This left quite a lot of room for people to make things up with the best of intentions. And people were pretty interested in St Joseph, because in some ways, he’s the most relatable character in the Christmas story. I mean, Jesus is divine, Mary is a walking miracle, and then you have Joseph, just an ordinary bloke (indeed, a regular Joe), whose betrothed has just turned up pregnant and is claiming that the baby is the son of God.
You can see why he wouldn’t be too thrilled about this. The people writing carols could see it too, and there are a whole swathe of carols about Joseph being quite grumpy about the whole business. (Incidentally, I’m told that Joseph didn’t get many churches in his honour, especially in Italy, largely because of a feeling that he was a cuckold. Apparently, being cuckolded by God isn’t much better than the regular kind of cuckoldry, at least if you are Italian.) Here’s one of them.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oscp04gjgIY&w=560&h=315] Continue reading
After all that Baroque and Renaissance music, it’s surely time for something a bit older – and it’s definitely time for some good, old-fashioned, medieval theology, and a glimpse of Mary. (You’ll be seeing a lot of her this month. I tend to think that Advent is all about Mary, and nobody has managed to convince me otherwise so far).
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Another piece from our yearly Advent Service, and also from Handel’s Messiah. You’d think I’d be tired of it by now, but some things never grow old…
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Today is our annual Advent Carol Service, and to me, Advent begins with The Record of John. As soon as Geoff plays the first bar of this in rehearsal, I feel that Christmas is coming, and feel, quite simply, happy.
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It’s December, which means it’s time for an Advent Calendar! Since I’m still a church music girl at heart, and since all the very best carols are more about Advent than Christmas itself, we’re going to have an Advent Carol – or something like one – every day from now to Christmas. Strictly no Rudolph allowed. I hope you enjoy!
Some Palestrina to start the season.
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