Bill’s Midwinter Music – Dec 17; Assorted nativity songs

Playlist:

1. Convidando esta la noche The Rose Ensemble 3:05

2. Silent Night, Hallowéd Night The Heyden Quartet 2:12

3. Christ Was Born on Christmas Morn Frankie Jaxon 3:26

4. Chariots John Kirkpatrick and the cast of Wassail! 6:20

Music notes

Convidando esta la noche (abridged) In the 17^th century Baroque era, the attitude of Spanish and Mexican church authorities to the vivid rhythms and energy of the villancicos (street dancing music) was complicated. Officially, the Catholic Church in Rome was opposed to the use of such music in church services. However, the folk-dance music that African slaves had brought to Spain proved to be extremely popular with the people there, even among high society. Choir masters in Spain found it expedient to include it in the liturgical repertoire, and the Church even introduced villancico religious music to Mexico where it proved to be very appealing to the indigenous people.

In a treatise written in 1613 about church music in Spain the musically conservative Italian singer, priest and music theorist Pietro Cerone wrote this about the villancico music (but not dances):

I would not like to say that villancicos are a bad thing for they are received in all Spanish churches, and were it not for them it would not be possible to reach the heights of solemn celebration. … There are some people so lacking in piety that they attend church but once a year, and miss all the Masses of Obligation … But let it be known that there will be villancicos and there is no one more devout in the whole place, none more vigilant than these people, for there is no church, oratory or shrine that they will not visit, nor do they mind getting up in the middle of the night in the freezing cold just to hear them.

This Mexican religious villancico was composed by the Mexican-born Puebla Cathedral choirmaster Juan Garcia de Zéspedes (1619-1678). Although he was censured by the Cathedral chapter more than once, Zéspedes had a long career as its choirmaster. This performance is by St. Paul, Minnesota’s Rose Ensemble and is from their 2005 album Celebremos el Niño. [Thank you to my high school friend D. Kingsley Hahn for having introduced me to this ensemble: I now have six of their albums!]

Silent Night, Hallowéd Night Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht is undoubtedly the most famous and popular Christmas carol in the world. It has been translated into the local language of every country where Christmas is celebrated. The first of several English translations was written in 1849. These days, we are only familiar with John Freeman Young's 1863 translation, but it took a while for that version to achieve dominance. This is one of the former contenders, and this rendition was recorded in 1905 by the minstrel show and vaudeville super-stars of their day, The Haydn Quartet.

Silent Night, Hallowéd Night
All asleep, nowhere light
Save where watches the Holy Pair
Blessed Infant, so pure and fair
Slumber in heavenly repose
Slumber in heavenly repose

Silent Night, Hallowéd night
Shepherds tell thy delight
Tidings borne by the angel band
Far and wide ring through the land
Jesus, our Savior, is born
Jesus, our Savior, is born

The all-star barbershop group had originally been formed specifically as an all-star ensemble to record for Edison under the name The Edison Quartet. The fame from their recordings, as well as their individual reputations as singers, brought people out in masses to their touring stage performances. But Edison refused to pay them more because of their new-found celebrity status.

Then in 1901 the upstart Victor Talking Machine Company, who had scored a legal patent coup over Edison by recording onto discs rather than cylinders, made another coup by signing the group to record exclusively with them. Despite the fact that it entailed a change in their group’s name, the massive publicity from the move to Victor only made them even more popular.

The recording technology back in the early days was all acoustic; electric microphones and amplification had not yet been invented. The sound of the voices sung into a large recording horn was focussed onto a stylus that cut the vibrations onto a wax master cylinder (or disc.) The wax impression was then used to make a metal pressing master, from which shellac copies could be made and sold.

I got this 1905 recording from a wonderful 1995 compilation album of Christmas songs from the acoustic recording age released by Dawn of Sound called Voices of Christmas Past. Unfortunately the CD is now out-of-print but Dawn of Sound makes all of the tracks on it available online here.

Christ Was Born on Christmas Morn This song, recorded in 1929, was written and is sung here by the gay African American vaudeville performer Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon, backed up by The Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers (which seems to be a made-up name given to the session band that recorded four songs for Brunswick Records.) Besides being a singer, Jaxon was a popular comedian and female impersonator, known for his elaborate shows and risqué hokum. He helped provide the stagecraft for some of Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters' lavish touring musical revues. Other than this song Jaxson is not known to have any other gospel music connections.

I got this from a 2004 Dust-to-Digital archival compilation CD called Where Will You Be Christmas Day? who in turn got it from a Brunswick 10” 78rpm record.

Chariots John Kirkpatrick wrote this song for a 1995 winter pageant called Wassail! that was commissioned by Folkworks, a North of England Development Agency.

The intention of Wassail! was to educate people about the pagan customs that had been absorbed into the celebration of Christmas in that part of England. Kirkpatrick sought to feature songs, tunes and dances that pre-date not only our 20th century commercialized Christmas customs, but are also believed to pre-date the Victorian “Keep Christmas” revival movement. The product was to be a touring show led by Kirkpatrick comprised of both touring and local performers (such as the local Morris dance teams) that would travel around in the North of England during November and December 1995. (The show was reprised in Dec 1997 with minor modifications.)

The focus was on authentic old music but Kirkpatrick was given latitude to write three new songs to help complete the narrative. This is Wassail!’s rousing finale song. With Chariots Kirkpatrick intended to show the tie between Solstice’s ancient thems and the Christian belief that the birth of Jesus marks the beginning of a new hopeful age for humankind.

This recording is from the 1995 Wassail! CD. I can hear no evidence that it includes concert recordings so I suspect that it was recorded before the tour to be sold to attendees after the show.

Here are the lyrics (from here) so you can sing along:

“O Shepherd, O shepherd come leave off your piping
Come listen, come learn, come hear what I say
For now is the time that has long been forespoken
For now is the time there’ll be new tunes to play
For soon there comes one who brings a new music
Of sweetness and clarity none can compare
So open your heart for heavenly harmony
Here on this hill we’ll be filling the air

Chorus (after each verse):
With chariots of cherubim chanting
And seraphim singing Hosanna
And a choir of archangels a-caroling come
Hallelujah Hallelu
All the angels a-trumpeting glory
In praise of the Prince of Peace

See on yon stable the starlight is shimmering
And glimmering and glistening and glowing with glee
In Bethlehem blest this baby of bliss will be
Born here before you as bold as can be
And you’ll be the first to hear the new symphony
Songs full of gladness and glory and light
So learn your tunes well and play your pipes proudly
For the Prince of Paradise plays here tonight

Bring your sheep bleating to this happy meeting
To hear how the lamb with the lion shall lie
It’s mooing and braying you’ll hear the song saying
The humble and lowly will be the most high
Let the horn of the herdsman be heard up in heaven
For the gates are flung open for all who come near
And the simplest of souls shall sing to infinity
Lift up and listen and you shall hear

The warmonger’s charger will thunder for freedom
The gun-maker’s furnace will dwindle and die
And muskets and sabers and swords shall be sundered
Surrendered to the sound that is sweeping the sky
And the shoes of the mighty shall dance to new measures
And the jackboots of generals shall jangle no more
As sister and brother and father and mother
Agree with each other the end to all war

As a candle can conquer the demons of darkness
As a flame can keep frost from the deepest of cold
So a song can give hope in the depths of all danger
And a line of pure melody soar in your soul
So sing your songs well and sing your songs sweetly
And swear that your singing it never shall cease
So the clatter of battle and drums of disaster
Be drowned in the sound of the pipes of peace

Sampler-making recollections

By 2012, after four successive years of a neo-pagan Solstice, my Santa Claus sampler, and two mostly secular ones, it was time for another nativity sampler. This was partly because by then I had an abundance of beautiful music on that side of the nativity/secular Christmas divide, but also because if I go more than a few years without giving adequate attention to the celebration of Jesus’ birth I knew would hear about the oversight from my father, a devout Catholic.

I toyed with the idea of reawakening my angel characters for another narrative about the Nativity story, but I didn’t have enough story ideas for that. Instead I decided to complement the 2009 lullaby compilation, but this time with upbeat rather than relaxing content. I can’t recall that I tried to give it a conscious structure – at least nothing like my common three movements with an intro and outro. I think I just kept shuffling songs around until I liked the way that they flowed together. Even the ending is rather counter-intuitive (but it worked!) Instead of ending with John Kirkpatrick’s rousing Chariots I brought listeners back down to earth from it with the Eaken Piano Trio’s instrumental version of Percy Grainger’s arrangement of the sedate and beautiful Sussex Mummers’ Christmas Carol.

The result was a sampler that revolved around sing-along Christmas carols, but using a definition of that term which was more like when it was first invented in the context of the Victorian era Keep Christmas movement. Thus, in this context “Christmas carols” are songs about the nativity that are suitable for being sung while caroling, which was a mid-19th century re-imagining of a Christianized medieval version of the pagan custom of wassailing (which, as far as I know, never actually occurred in medieval times.)

Wassailing involved groups going from house to house bestowing a traditional good luck ritual upon the householders in exchange for hospitality. Nineteenth century caroling was envisioned to be bringing people blessings by the singing of songs celebrating the birth of Jesus, in exchange of gifts of alms for the poor (or for the visitors themselves.)

The songs for Victorian caroling were envisioned to be Christmas hymns, but if they gained popularity with the people and were sung outside of church, they would become Christmas carol along with new nativity songs that were being written to become Christmas carols. This backstory is why carolers are stereotypically garbed in Victorian dress, although I don’t know how popular caroling ever actually became in the 19th century.

For me, an interesting feature of Christmas carols today is that they are beloved and sung by people who do not necessarily share their theology. They are practically the only pop songs that have religious lyrics. And (until very recently) we return to the same musical heritage of Christmas songs, about half of which are carols, year after year. Christmas gives us both a personal sense of tradition and a shared cultural identity. No other aspect of our popular culture is as conservative, but unfortunately (in my opinion) such music is now being expunged from public listening such as background music in restaurants, stores and public performances in the name of woke “inclusivity.”