I make no apology for including this piece of music again, even though I include it in my Advent Calendar every year. I’ve sung the alto solo (really a countertenor solo) in The Record of John on the first Sunday of Advent every year for the better part of a decade, and to me, it doesn’t feel like Advent until I hear those opening bars on the piano. The song has a real weight of expectation to it, and the melody is crafted so perfectly to the natural inflections of speech that the lyrics are incredibly easy to sing expressively. I love it dearly.
Very sadly, I won’t be singing this piece in 2015, either as soloist or as choir member, which was one of the reasons I decided to revive the Advent Calendar after a year’s hiatus. It’s a melancholy pleasure listening to it instead of singing it, but this is an excellent recording. I’d love to find a good recording with a female soloist, but so far the internet has failed to provide.
Today’s post was going to be the gorgeous King’s Singers version of The Truth Sent From Above, but then I realised that it might be better to save my crush on the King’s Singers for later in December. Besides, I’m pretty sure I do The Truth Sent From Above every year, and every version misses the verses about eating the apple, leaving one with the progression from ‘woman was made with man to dwell’ to ‘thus we were born to endless woe’, implying a line of causation that I find a little insulting (if nonetheless amusing).
Anyway.
I’ve been vaguely aware for some time that Vaughan Williams did a Fantasia on Christmas Carols that started with a version of the Truth Sent From Above, but for one reason or another, I’ve never got around to listening to it. This year, I have, and it’s rather lovely – and, importantly, doesn’t skip those all important apple-eating verses!
Of course, this is not the only carol in the Fantasia, and Vaughan Williams has pulled together a number of the more obscure and folky Christmas carols in the English tradition into a rather lovely ten minutes of choral music. I especially like the bit when the Sussex Carol keeps on coming in and interposing itself on other carols.
I believe the baritone soloist in this recording is Stephen Roberts – whoever he is, he really has a lovely, effortless sound, which fits this piece very well.
A bit of a change of pace today, because Friday is a day for Frivolity, or at least for taking a break from fruit-themed carols. Though, of course, there is a little bit of fruit in this carol too.
And then you get the really clever stuff, like this gorgeous Twelve Days of Christmas Confusion, in which the choir is arguing with itself, singing entirely different carols, and occasionally forgetting which particular feast it’s celebrating, all in perfect tune.
I believe that this particular piece was composed by Straight No Chaser, but I rather love the version by Angel City Chorale – it’s the girly backing vocals in the last bit that appeal. Though Straight No Chaser has significantly more dreidel. It’s a hard choice, but someone has to make it…
It’s not advent without Adam Lay Y Bounden. This has been a favourite carol of mine for a long time, particularly the version by Boris Ord, with that gorgeous soaring ‘Deo Gracias’ at the end of it.
Admittedly, my initial delight in the carol came from the delightful seeming-illogic of lyrics:
“Adam lay y bounden, bounden in a bond
Four thousand winter thought he not to long
And all for an apple, an apple that he took
As clerkes finden written in their book.
Ne had the apple taken been, the apple taken been
Ne had never Our Lady had been Heavene Queen
Blessed be the time that apple taken was
Therefore we moun singen “Deo Gracias”
Which, abridged, seems to mean “What a good thing that our forebears sinned, because without that, we would never have had Jesus.” (I’ve seen a similar sentiment expressed rather more crudely in graffiti, but I’m not going to share that here.)
Anyway, giggling choristers aside, I’m informed that this isn’t just the kind of theology you get when the Bible is only available in Latin and your local non-Latin-reading peasantry decides to write songs about it anyway (but stay tuned for that sort of theology later in December), but is actually really explaining the idea that “Sin has separated us from God, but grace has brought us nearer to God than we ever were before sin divided us from him.” (From a sermon by Spurgeon, with thanks to my friend Virginia)
(A little part of me strongly suspects that Spurgeon was just trying to deal with the thoroughly ingrained terrible Adam Lay Y Bounden logic as best he could – and doing so really quite admirably – but that is probably just me being a wicked and frivolous person).
OK, that’s far more theology than anyone really needs at this hour of the morning, so to compensate, you are getting not one, but TWO settings of these lyrics!
I was looking for the Boris Ord played at a more decorous speed than that favoured by King’s College, when I found this lovely performance of both the Ord and the Ireland settings. I didn’t even know that Ireland had written a setting of this, so that’s another delightful YouTube discovery. I think I still prefer Ord, but I love having both of them to choose from.
If this is all way too serious and classical for you, you’ll be glad to know that several contemporary Medieval-themed bands have had a good play with this song too. The Mediaeval Baebes have a very simple unison version that has somewhat ear-wormy properties, and the German group, Faun, have a gloriously bouncy version with the verses mixed up in a manner that completely clouds any theological argument at all, but is nonetheless good fun to listen to. Enjoy!
I am in the midst of a fairly intense obsession with Bach’s oratorios and cantatas, which is currently manifesting itself in me learning every alto (and sometimes soprano) aria I can get my hands on from any Bach aria (it turns out I can get my hands on quite a bit), and badgering any choir directors I have dealings with to do some Bach.
I thought I was going to get my wish this week, with this lovely (and, admittedly somewhat frenetic) opening movement of Bach’s Cantata 70 “Wachet betet, betet wachet”, which means “Watch and pray, pray and watch”. But alas, it was not to be. Since I had already spent some quality time with Youtube and various recordings of this cantata and bonded with it, I wasn’t going to let go quite so easily… which is one reason you are getting a musical advent calendar from me this year, as it happens.
The word ‘wachet’ here really means ‘watch’ in the sense of ‘stay awake’, and it can also mean ‘awaken!’ (see also ‘Wachet auf!’ for a cantata in which it gets this meaning). Listening to the extremely lively pace of this piece, I’m pretty sure Bach was thinking about this when he wrote it. From a choir perspective, you need to be very wide awake and on the ball to sing this music – and from the congregation’s point of view, I’m pretty sure the trumpet would do a good job of finishing anything the alarm clock left undone.
This piece also continues the theme of waiting that is fitting to this early part of Advent.
Hello! It’s been a long time since I last posted here, and this blog is being a bit dodgy at the moment, but today is the first Sunday in Advent, which means it’s Musical Advent Calendar Time!
(And yes, I know it isn’t December yet, but it *is* Advent nonetheless, so there you go)
I’ve always liked posting Palestrina’s Matin Responsory at the start of Advent, because the text ‘I look from afar’, and the dynamics (which suggest a choir slowly approaching from a distance) to me reflect the feeling that we are only at the start of the journey through advent, with Christmas in the distance.
This year, though, when I went to find my favourite recording of the Palestrina, I discovered that it was no longer available on YouTube except in a sadly truncated version (here, if you are interested), and I just couldn’t fall in love with any of the other recordings.
And then I found this Advent Responsory, by Zachary Wadsworth.
Edited December 2017: Alas, this YouTube clip is no longer available, but you can listen to a recording of this on Wadsworth’s website.
Wadsworth’s setting of the lyrics uses quite a lot of the same chant in the solo sections, but the choral bits are a whole other story, and completely new to me. I can’t decide whether I love it as much as the Palestrina, but it is something new, and something beautiful, and certainly a worthy beginning to the Advent Season.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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!
