Christmas Music! (Part 2)

And now, some of my favorite music in the Christmas carol genre. Again, I would love to hear favorites from others as well. I fear this genre is so broad that I can only cover a fraction of it, but I will do so anyway.

Of all the music in this genre, I think my heart is closest to the a cappella choral recordings of the Robert Shaw Chorale. There are some classic recordings from the ’50s (here is an original LP) that were re-released on CD several years ago, but I cannot locate them online anymore. But the Songs of Angels CD contains newer performances of many of these great pieces, and these two CDs also add to the collection. The great thing about these arrangements is that they add musical interest and vitality to the carols with minimal distortion to their character and harmonic feel (e.g., no “strange” harmonic twists). These arrangements mostly represent the collaboration between Shaw and Alice Parker, which has given the world so much beautiful shorter choral music.

Now, if you actually like unusual harmonic twists on familiar carols, then you can branch out to the Dale Warland Singers in Minnesota with these two reissues of memorable recordings. To pick one example of what these CDs contain: Alfred Burt’s carols are hardly masterworks, but they are worthwhile enough to deserve a decent recording, and many of them get that treatment on these CDs.

But I can’t go any farther without mentioning all the wonderful Christmas music from English choirs, much of which comes from the Carols for Choirs books and The Oxford Book of Carols (which also has a newer, more academic, version). There are countless recordings here, but here are a few that are readily available. And, if you don’t find the recordings of John Rutter to be too treacly for a self-respecting musician to take seriously, there are several recordings by him as well. (I do like some of his music, but I wish I could pretend that, for example, “Donkey Carol” never happened.)

I want to mention the Christmas with Chanticleer recording because, beyond featuring their legendary flawless blend and the lovely voice of Dawn Upshaw, it features a rare recording of a multi-movement version of Distler’s arrangement of “Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen” (”Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”). I suspect it would be viewed by many readers as heresy for me to suggest that Praetorius’ original could actually be improved upon. I won’t, but I will be so bold as to suggest that Distler’s version approaches Praetorius’.

Finally, if you are fed up with traditional carols arrangements (and yet still reading this post) and looking for something more invigorating than sentimental, I recommend recordings the Tallis Scholars and Joel Cohen’s Boston Camerata. You may well find new vitality from ages past.

What musical riches we have, inspired by the humble but cosmically-significant birth in Bethlehem so many years ago!

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Christmas Music! (Part 1)

It’s almost a cliche (and perhaps not “almost”), but Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. Although the added busyness & stress can sometimes be frustrating, there is so much to like. And, for me, following the rich American tradition of only allowing Christmas music to be played between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, it is a time when a certain not insubstantial section of my family’s personal CD collection comes alive. For you, too, perhaps?

So, just for fun, I thought I’d share some of my favorite Christmas music. I’d love to hear favorites from other readers of this blog as well. For this post, I will focus on fine arts music related to Christmas. I hope to devote a separate post to Christmas carols.

Note: I have at times included links to sample recordings online. Please understand that this is simply a convenient way to show sample recordings and neither an advertisement for a music store nor a true review of any recording.

The first thing that comes to mind for me here is Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248). As readers may know, it was not composed as an oratorio, but is rather a collection of six cantatas for performance in the days between Christmas and Epiphany. As the cantatas form a sequence that tell the story of Jesus’ early days, it works reasonably well in collected form.

For me, listening to a John Eliot Gardiner recording of the joyful first movement (I adore every Gardiner recording of Bach I have heard) was love at first hearing. I noticed there is a brand new recording of this piece with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting who has also done so many wonderful Bach recordings.

If you consider Handel’s Messiah to be a Christmas piece, you’re probably not paying close enough attention to it. Or, to be more cordial: you might also include it on this list. Certainly, Messiah performances, both amateur and professional, are widespread Christmas traditions for Christians and even many non-Christians. And the rich collection of Scriptural references brings many Christian truths powerfully to mind in a season of heighten spiritual focus.

I also think of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ smaller oratorio called Hodie, based on Lessons & Carols readings and also English poetry (most notably John Milton’s Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity). I suspect the David Willcocks recording of this work is the classic against which others are judged. The performance is powerful and moving, and I think that Dame Janet Baker’s singing in particular is very memorable. But I see also that there is a new recording with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing.

This work has moments for me that pierce the heart with their beauty and send the soul soaring. The Milton poetry inspires Vaughan Williams to touch on both the fragility and intimacy of the baby in the stable in one tender movement (”It was the Winter wilde”) and the cosmic significance of this momentous birth later in the piece. What a great mystery this juxtaposition is! Vaughan Williams ends the work in triumph with the orchestra going full tilt under these words:

Yea Truth, and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Th’enameld Arras of the Rain-bow wearing,
And Mercy set between,
Thron’d in Celestiall sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,
And Heav’n as at som festivall,
Will open wide the Gates of her high Palace Hall.

May the music and the message of this season bring home the intimacy and the majesty of this birth to you as well!

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Amahl and the Night Visitors Revisited

The 20th century has produced an incredible array of holiday resources, some pretty bizarre. Remember flocked trees, some orange or lavender? Remember stainless-steel Christmas trees? Then there was a reindeer named Rudolph, who permanently nosed his way into Christmas.

Amid awful manifestations of Christmas are other awe-filled representations of this holiday. My personal favorite is Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” This one-act opera in English was commissioned by NBC in 1951 to be aired over the young technology named television. It is the story of an overnight stay by the Magi at Amahl and his mother’s home as they follow the star toward Christ’s birthplace. These Magi, far from plaster figurines found in many crib scenes, are wonderfully human, delightfully eccentric, and faithfully driven people. Amahl, the young crippled boy, is a bit of a space cadet, a daydreamer. His single-parent mother, exhausted from work, has little enthusiasm for her son’s imaginative thoughts. What a great crew of humanity to birth and berth a messiah.

Back in 1951 television transmission was black and white, and confined to a TV screen in most people’s homes no larger than 14 inches. Such was the venue for my first encounter with “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” It intrigued me then, and now, more than 50 years later, this deceptively simple opera still mesmerizes me.

Menotti’s exploration into the birth of Christ is a great example of midrash, a term less familiar to Christians than to Jews who developed this unique form of storytelling.

Midrashic stories enhance biblical stories, imaginatively filling in blank spaces, expanding on underdeveloped of missing events, or casting them in a contemporary situation or language. Midrash explores biblical stories, not through analysis, but through imagination. Menotti is a master at midrash.

It’s been a while since “Amahl and the Night Visitors” has appeared on television, but live performances of Menotti’s opera happen during the Christmas season. I was fortunate to see the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra’s production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” recently in Skokie, Illinois. This production transformed the black and white, small screen, original TV version into a colorful, full-stage, live performance. Once again, I was transfixed by Menotti’s miraculous music and story.

Trash your memories of flocked and stainless-steel trees. Silence the song about a red-nosed reindeer. Reread Matthew and Luke’s birth of Christ stories. Listen to Menotti’s midrashic Christmas story known as “Amahl and the Night Visitors.”

Merry Christmas.

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