Monthly Archives: December 2013

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Advent Calendar Day 25: In the Bleak Midwinter (Holst), plus a few more

It’s always so difficult to come up with the perfect carol for Christmas Day, because there are so many gorgeous ones.  So today, in the spirit of giving (or perhaps of over-indulgence), I present three.

In the Bleak Midwinter is really one of the more beautiful carols out there, and shows what can happen when you let a poet write your lyrics for you.  (What happens is that every subsequent composer misses out my favourite verse, in fact.  Including this arrangement, but it’s pretty enough that I’ll forgive it.)  I love the word-painting, and the harmonies and the solo in the middle.  Just lovely.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjRXIiZ8bs0&w=420&h=315]

But this is Australia, and it can’t all be about snow and ice, so here’s a carol I learned in Grade 2, I believe. It was written in 1948 by John Wheeler and William G. James, and it’s kind of anachronistic, but we aren’t going to worry about that because any carol that includes black swans ought to be encouraged, in my book.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wqoFg6Vabo&w=420&h=315]

The third carol today was going to be a crazed mashup of the Carol of the Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by the Piano Guys, but then I said three and giving and thought of three gifts and three kings and then of course I had no choice but to present you with Cornelius’s stunning piece ‘The Three Kings’, which really is, I think, the most gorgeous piece of Christmas music ever written, even if it does, strictly speaking, belong at Ephiphany.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2dNKv48WJQ&w=420&h=315]

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a relaxing break!

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Advent Calendar Day 24 part 2: O Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen)

A bonus carol for your Christmas Vigil!  I love the lyrics to this piece of music – they are perfect for Christmas night, translating “O great mystery and wonderful sacrament, that the animals see the Lord born, lying in a manger.  Blessed virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Lord Christ. Alleluia!”

The hard part is choosing a setting, because everyone has done one.  There’s this gorgeous one by Victoria, or you could try Byrd, straight or with jazz piano, or you could have some spooky Poulenc, or then there’s this one, by contemporary American composer Morten Lauridsen.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5ken3RJBo&w=420&h=315]

I love the reflectiveness of this setting and its stillness, and the way the alleluias come out of the darkness at the end.  For all its modernity, it would be a beautiful thing to hear in an old Roman or Gothic church, with only a brazier for light, as we await the coming of midnight and the lighting of candles to celebrate the holy birth.

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Advent Calendar Day 24: The Holly and the Ivy (Trad. Arranged Shaw)

The Holly and the Ivy has been one of my favourite Christmas Carols since I was quite young – I think I first heard it when my family stayed for a few months in England when I was six, and I rather imprinted on it because there was *actual holly* near where we lived and that was pretty exciting.  Australia doesn’t really run much to holly, especially around Christmas.

This is one of those carols which tends to show its Pagan roots, while simultaneously being very very Christian and going, ‘no, really, the holly is totally all about being a symbol of Christ’s passion and has nothing to do with Yule, honest!’.  So it always sits just a little oddly with me, even though I love both the melody and the words, with their vivid visual imagery.  There are a lot of arrangements doing the rounds – I’m also fond of the Mediaeval Baebes version, and if you ever wondered what Annie Lennox does with it, wonder no longer!  I especially like her jazz harmonies in the later verses.  Gorgeous.

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Advent Calendar Day 23: Rorate Coeli (Rheinberger)

Today’s carol is a very different interpretation of yesterday’s text – it’s romantic to the point of swooniness, and sweet to the point where it narrowly escapes being cloying.  (Actually, when we sang this in choir a few weeks ago, opinions differed as to whether it did, in fact, escape cloyingness.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sn9jet6daM&w=560&h=315]

To me, this is like fairy floss for the voice – it’s sweet and easy on the ear, and it’s a heap of fun to sing, but one suspects that a steady diet of it over time wouldn’t be terribly good for you.  Best to alternate it with a good, bracing dose of Baroque music, I think.

Joseph Rheinberger himself was a German composer of the late 18th century, and he seems to be a bit elusive, or perhaps just not terribly well known, because I had an awful lot of trouble finding him on YouTube, and everyone seems to be spelling his name differently.  I’d never heard of him before, but apparently he was born in Liechtenstein, and married a poetess eight years his senior, with whom he lived very happily, both of which definitely fall into the category of random cool facts that incline me to like him.  Apparently, he was quite prolific, but if YouTube is anything to go by, he has rather fallen out of fashion – not many of his works seem to be available, which is a bit of a pity.  After all, fairy floss may not be the healthiest sort of music, but it does make a delicious little treat from time to time.  I’d like to sing more of his work.

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Advent Calendar Day 22: Rorate Coeli (Schütz)

The text for the fourth Sunday in Advent is ‘Rorate coeli de super, et nubes pluvant justum’, which roughly translated means ‘Let the heavens open, and the clouds rain down justice’.

OK, Melbournites, look at the weather forecast, now look at this text, now back at the weather forecasts, now back at this text…

Sadly, Melbourne seems to think that ‘justum’ translates as ‘cats and dogs’, but on the whole, I feel it’s safe to say that this is the text your city could precipitate like.

(And people say that Melbourne’s weather is unseasonable…)

Yeah, OK, that got a little weird.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmoOvtFuds&w=420&h=315]

Anyway.  I’m not sure there’s much I can say about this particularly gorgeous setting of the Rorate Coeli that I haven’t said before.  It fills me with absolute delight – I’ve just sat here and listened to it from start to finish twice in a row, without being able to think about or write anything else.  It is, when it comes down to it, quite simply a beautiful piece of music.  Does anything else need to be said?

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Advent Calendar Day 21: O Holy Night (Adolphe-Charles Adam)

This is one of those carols that I feel a bit guilty for liking, because I suspect I only really like it because I can now hit that top A effortlessly.  When I couldn’t, I hated it.  And I don’t think that it’s the carol that changed.

I do, most definitely, feel that it gets played far too often around Christmas, and generally in versions that make me grind my teeth because I’m sorry but I just *do not like* pop ballads, and you shouldn’t do that to a Christmas carol, even this one.

Which is why I unreservedly adore Christina Bianco’s version of this carol.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_3y0F-toSM?rel=0]

Christina Bianco is a very talented and very wicked woman who has vocal colour down to an art form.  She mimics the vocal styles of well-known singers with an accuracy that makes my evil little heart beat with glee, and it’s truly fascinating to watch her face as she does so, because it’s practically a tutorial in the way you shift your face to create different sounds.  (Obviously, you have to shift a fair number of other things, too, but it’s fascinating to see her do it, and to realise that some of the facial mannerisms of well-known singers are probably actually a product of the way they use their voices.)

Anyway, on the last Saturday before Christmas, when last-minute Christmas shopping is at its height, I felt a little bit of silliness was called for.  Enjoy!

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Advent Calendar Day 20: Magnificat (Telemann / Ensemble Planeta)

I seem to come back to this one every year, but there’s something compelling about the combination of the Book of Hours illustrations and the almost ethereal sound of the Ensemble Planeta’s voices.  And I do love the way they sing all the accompaniment bits in bell-like voices.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbjixX93pcw&w=560&h=315]

The Magnificat is Mary’s song from the Gospel of Luke when she is told by the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and give birth to the Son of God.  The full lyrics and translation can be found here, but the Magnificat takes its name from the first line ‘Magnificat anima mea Dominum’ (My soul shall magnify the Lord).

I honestly do not know *what* lyrics the Ensemble Planeta are singing here.  I can tell you that they are riffing on Telemann’s German Magnificat (which you can here some of here), but they definitely are not singing in German, and the few words I can pick out sound more like Italian than anything else.  They definitely are not singing the Latin words.  It’s a mystery.  But it’s also very beautiful, so I can live with it quite happily.

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Advent Calendar Day 19: The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came (Trad. Basque)

Today’s carol is a very special one, because it is sung by a very dear friend of mine, Shakira Searle, with whom I used to sing regularly before she and her partner moved to Portland, Oregon.  After that, singing regularly became a bit more of a challenging.  But we still sing together in spirit, because she has a regular series of gigs at The Grotto, which is a Catholic shrine and sanctuary in Portland that sounds absolutely gorgeous, not least because of all the singing they have there during their Festival of Lights in December.  And meanwhile, I, too, am singing carols and Catholic music at every possible opportunity during December, so we may be singing at different times, but we are definitely singing from the same songbook!

Given that I’m doing a bit of an Annunciation series this week, it was irresistible to use Shakira’s recording of ‘Gabriel’s Message’ (also known as ‘The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came’), recorded at the Grotto last year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q1-X8dIKLM&w=560&h=315]

Isn’t she gorgeous?  I really do miss singing with her.  I’ve always loved this carol, which I first encountered in primary school (where we invariably sang ‘most highly flavoured lady’, and thought this was *hilarious*), and there are some very lovely harmonised versions of it around too (this one, by All Angels, is another favourite of mine).  But I can’t help suspecting it would sound even better if one was listening to it in a candle-lit garden.  If you are anywhere near Portland, I would certainly recommend this festival to your attention.

On another note, I can’t express how strange it is to see someone I have carolled with regularly performing a Christmas carol all rugged up in a woolly jumper.  I know, of course, that everyone else in the world gets Christmas in winter (and it isn’t as though Melbourne Christmases are reliably hot, either), and I’m quite used to seeing other people carolling in heavy coats, but I feel a real sense of cognitive dissonance seeing Shakira carolling in what is obviously the middle of winter!

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Advent Calendar Day 18: Dixit Maria (Hassler)

I was going to do Ne Timeas Maria for today’s carol, since I’m in a bit of an Annunciation frame of mind this week, but then I finished the novel I was reading and felt moved to go on an extended rant about sexist assumptions and lazy authorial choices which I *could not do* because Andrew hasn’t finished the series yet, and after all that, I decided I wanted an Annunciation text in which Mary got a bit more agency.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd7s40s-Ltw&w=560&h=315]

And I mean, yes, she is saying ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord, be it with me as you have said’, but at least she is speaking for herself and consenting, rather than just having things told to her by the Angel Gabriel (who is, I’m sure, a perfectly good Angel with modern views on gender equity, but today he is also the patriarchy, so I’m afraid he is out of luck).

I have no idea where I am going with this.  If I’m honest, I’ll admit that the Victoria is a better piece of music.  But the Hassler is cheery and surprisingly challenging to sing, and most of all it doesn’t make me cranky, and some days, that’s just the best you can do.

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Advent Calendar Day 17: Rejoice Greatly (Handel)

I know, I know, I’m really milking this Rejoice business now, aren’t I?  But you see, I went looking for a Magnificat, and then fell down an internet rabbit hole and found myself listening to Patricia Petibon singing Der Hölle Rache, as well as a whole lot of other entirely un-Adventy things, because she is an utterly addictive singer to watch, and then I remembered seeing a recording of a very young Patricia Petibon (with dark hair!) singing Rejoice Greatly, and *clearly* that had to be the next thing I posted here, because it’s gorgeous.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWsgdS-p4g&w=420&h=315]

I love this aria, and I just adore the way Petibon sings it – she is so very expressive, with those huge eyes and wild hair, and I do find it hilarious when she goes all sopranolicious on those cadenzas.  I didn’t think that baroque ornaments normally went into the stratosphere like that, but that’s not going to stop her, and nor should it, because she sounds amazing.

Honestly, I can’t think of anything to add to this, except that you really should go and find more videos of Patricia Petibon singing.  I love her CDs – her choice of music is superb and diverse – but really, watching her sing is something else again.