So, in Christmas Eve for the past decade or so I've been semi regularly posting this diary in various forms.
We all (I hope) enjoy the music of this Holiday Season. However, while the popular songs are nice to listen to, I personally prefer to listen to Christmas music one doesn't normally hear on the radio stations that switch their format to all Christmas music (Still safe from the Whammageddon). Those stations will play all sorts of different arrangements of the same several "standards" what everyone knows. They'll even play light classical like Leroy Anderson. But join me for some more “serious” Christmas music.
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Christmas Eve for me will always be, after the traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner, a cozy chair, candlelight or firelight, tree and other holiday lights on, a beverage of choice, and listening to music that takes you back back back to days of castles and tapestries, wassailers going through the town, and even though it’s winter, that halfway out of the dark feeling the Solstice brings.
First let us travel to the Byzantine/Arabic world in the 700s:
And now we come to some of the oldest Christmas carols we still sing today, beginning with the Advent Carol. Part of a 9th century Benedictine chant, It had evolved by the 15th century into something sounding like this:
Now let us travel the world during Christmas in the Renaissance: First from England:
Now we visit Spain:
To France, melody based on a17th Century song:
John Mason Neale (24 January 1818 (My Birthday!) – 6 August 1866) made a living finding, translating, and arranging old Christmas music into English. He is where we get the lyrics to “O Come Emmanuel” and “Good King Wenceslas”, based on a 14th century song called “Tempus Adest Floridum”
Now to Germany, with two from Michael Praetorius:
And now a digression based on "The Wassail Song": In "Olden Days", people used to celebrate the season by going door to door singing and wishing each other "waes hael". They would be rewarded with a mulled cider based beverage. This tradition, and the drink, became known as "wassailing". Naturally here follows a recipe for Wassail.
So: Take your largest crock pot. Add one gallon of pure apple cider (the good stuff), or hard cider like Strongbow, or your best ale. Chop up 2 or three apples (Fuji is preferable) and set in the cider. Stud two oranges with cloves (Not too many--they will overpower the other flavors) and add into the pot. Add 1/4 cup honey if desired. Add two whole nutmegs (you can split in two), 2 cinnamon sticks, 1/4 cup or more of candied ginger to your taste and heat. Just before serving, add up to 750 ml of brandy. Drink. Sing. Fall asleep.
This is a long diary, but I’m going on anyway. Here’s a Britten arrangement of the Middle English carol “Wolcum Yole”
I could go on and on posting music, so much so that there’d be over 24 hours of the good stuff. Music by Holst, Respighi, Vaughan Williams, Bach, Saint-Saens, and more. I’ve done many a diary on this subject, most always a repost of my first many many years ago. So long ago that some of the videos are no longer available. But I’ll close out the music portion of the diary with probably THE most performed Christmas music today: The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah”. This recording is special. The choir I sing in, The Apollo Chorus of Chicago, has been performing Messiah EVERY YEAR since 1879. And the Lockdown Year was no different. To honor our tradition, we did a virtual Hallelujah. And you can see me singing in the tenor section.
I hope you have enjoyed our time going back in time with the greatest music for Christmas, and I hope you all are cozy and warm with the ones you love.
Now on to Tops!
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From Northern Pol:
A perfect remark regarding the recent revelations that Trump stinks up the storm troopers.
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