Listen now | It was back to Nativity music for my 2015 Sampler, and that year had a lot of particularly good songs. Choosing only 15-16 minutes was hard.
I really like all of these selections - lovely. Do you have any CDs left from this year? And by the way, I was singing in the Ensemble Laude piece when they recorded it. Before I started singing with you.
I haven't been making new Bill's Seasonal Music Sampler CDs since 2020. This Bill's Midwinter Music series is a replacement for those.
Stella Maris Nuncuparis is lovely and was on my shortlist for this sampler-of-the- sampler but to fit it in I would have had to drop one of the shape-note songs.
Hi, Bill, You might be interested to know that Mañanitas a la Virgen de Guadalupe uses the same melody used for "Our Cabaña Song" by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Our Cabaña is one of the four world centres for WAGGGS. It is in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
I found that Girl Guide song on YouTube and did some further research. The melody is also used for the common Mexican Happy Birthday song Las Mañanitas which, according to Wikipedia, has a known composer. But I don't necessarily trust Wikipedia for attributions. Frequently people cite people as composers when they just chose the setting from the public domain. But then, I don't usually trust album liner notes when they say something is traditional either.
I suspect that some Mexican folklorist has done a thorough study of the source of that melody, but one would probably have to be able to read Spanish to follow the trail to find him or her.
I'm getting around to your musical offerings much earlier today than i did yesterday, when I was busy mostly with wrapping presents and arranging them under our Christmas tree. In any case, the two of today's seven songs that delighted me most are the first one, with its lyrics from "The Wind in the Willows," and the fourth one, which is sung in the Anishinaabemowin language.
By the way, "The Wind in the Willows" is what I think of as the first book I read during childhood that I considered an adult book. There had been a 30-minute Disney animation about at least part of the story from this book, and I saw that sometime in the 1950s. I was enchanted by it, and my mother told me that there was even more good to be found in the original book. So, I got that book from the library and worked my way through it. I think I was about eight years old and had to ask about the meanings of quite a few words. By the way, also, there is a different and also nice melody to which today's song has been set, and that was used in a BBC animated series that I believe ran in the 1980s.
As for the Anishinaabemowin song, what can I say except that it's deeply moving and stirringly Canadian!
I really like all of these selections - lovely. Do you have any CDs left from this year? And by the way, I was singing in the Ensemble Laude piece when they recorded it. Before I started singing with you.
I haven't been making new Bill's Seasonal Music Sampler CDs since 2020. This Bill's Midwinter Music series is a replacement for those.
Stella Maris Nuncuparis is lovely and was on my shortlist for this sampler-of-the- sampler but to fit it in I would have had to drop one of the shape-note songs.
Hi, Bill, You might be interested to know that Mañanitas a la Virgen de Guadalupe uses the same melody used for "Our Cabaña Song" by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Our Cabaña is one of the four world centres for WAGGGS. It is in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
I found that Girl Guide song on YouTube and did some further research. The melody is also used for the common Mexican Happy Birthday song Las Mañanitas which, according to Wikipedia, has a known composer. But I don't necessarily trust Wikipedia for attributions. Frequently people cite people as composers when they just chose the setting from the public domain. But then, I don't usually trust album liner notes when they say something is traditional either.
I suspect that some Mexican folklorist has done a thorough study of the source of that melody, but one would probably have to be able to read Spanish to follow the trail to find him or her.
I'm getting around to your musical offerings much earlier today than i did yesterday, when I was busy mostly with wrapping presents and arranging them under our Christmas tree. In any case, the two of today's seven songs that delighted me most are the first one, with its lyrics from "The Wind in the Willows," and the fourth one, which is sung in the Anishinaabemowin language.
By the way, "The Wind in the Willows" is what I think of as the first book I read during childhood that I considered an adult book. There had been a 30-minute Disney animation about at least part of the story from this book, and I saw that sometime in the 1950s. I was enchanted by it, and my mother told me that there was even more good to be found in the original book. So, I got that book from the library and worked my way through it. I think I was about eight years old and had to ask about the meanings of quite a few words. By the way, also, there is a different and also nice melody to which today's song has been set, and that was used in a BBC animated series that I believe ran in the 1980s.
As for the Anishinaabemowin song, what can I say except that it's deeply moving and stirringly Canadian!
Love,
Greg