{"id":188,"date":"2012-12-17T07:30:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T20:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catesings.org\/?p=188"},"modified":"2012-12-17T07:30:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-16T20:30:14","slug":"advent-calendar-day-17-o-come-o-come-emmanuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/2012\/12\/17\/advent-calendar-day-17-o-come-o-come-emmanuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent Calendar Day 17: O Come, O Come Emmanuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had our Carol Service at Christ Church today, which means I am feeling thoroughly descanted, always a pleasing feeling, and in a mellow sort of mood.\u00a0 And also as though Christmas really is close, which is definitely where this music fits…<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=r7ktvmY6lTI&w=420&h=315]I had no idea Enya had recorded this piece.\u00a0 I’m slightly bemused by it – it does sound so very Enya, and not at all what I thought I was looking for when I went hunting for a good version of O Come, O Come Emmanual.\u00a0 I was looking for something a lot more plain-chanty, I think.\u00a0 Or like that gorgeous version by the King’s Singers<\/a>, which I feel I can’t use after having one of theirs last weekend, but which is still utterly amazing.<\/p>\n

But I do like this one.\u00a0 It has a stillness and contemplative feel that are absolutely right for this song, and Enya does preserve the feel of plainchant.\u00a0 Though I do find it strange to recognise very Enya-ish chords and instrumentation below it, and the sudden chorus does make me giggle.<\/p>\n

And speaking of giggling, as I looked at the Enya recording, another one caught my eye.\u00a0 “Boys II Men<\/a> did a version of O Come O Come Emmanuel,” I told Andrew, who was sitting next to me, minding his own business.<\/p>\n

“No,” said Andrew, very firmly.<\/p>\n

I contemplated the recording a little further.<\/p>\n

“NO,” said Andrew, with even more conviction.<\/p>\n

I pointed out that I had no idea what it would sound like, and now I really had to know.<\/p>\n

I got a Look.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Andrew likes Boys II Men.\u00a0 To be fair, the recording didn’t do much for me, either.\u00a0 But it would have been wrong to reject it without a fair trial…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had our Carol Service at Christ Church today, which means I am feeling thoroughly descanted, always a pleasing feeling, and in a mellow sort of mood.\u00a0 And also as though Christmas really is close, which is definitely where this music fits… [youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=r7ktvmY6lTI&w=420&h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,83,135,224,409,531],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-boys-ii-men","tag-church-music","tag-enya","tag-kings-singers","tag-o-come-o-come-emmanuel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}