Category: Christmas

Yep. This time next week I’ll be on my second day of irritating everyone around me with almost nonstop Xmas music.¹ *heh* Oh, I’m adding to the nearly two days’ worth of nonstop Xmas playlists I have already, so at least folks will have plenty of variety to irritate ’em. 😉

Added so far this year: Another Canadian Brass Xmas album; a 2-hour “fireplace video” playlist featuring pop/Xian Xmas songs sung by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and others (easy YouTube download, that one); And Winter Came (Enya–via Amazon Prime Music); A Family Christmas (The Piano Guys–Amazon Prime Music, again); Gregorian Christmas (APM);
Irish & Celtic Christmas Music: Folk Classics (APM); and, oh, about 20 other albums.

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¹Well, “almost nonstop” if I can get my lips fixed, since I have whistled tunes for years when apart from other instruments or playback devices. For the first time in almost six decades, my “whistling” capability seems to be broken. *shrugs* May have something to do with a low-grade infection I’ve been fighting for a while now, but I can’t get the same flexibility or range–or even fine tuning–I’ve been used to for almost all my life. The tinnitus has pretty well cut out playing other instruments, so whistling was about what I had left. Oh, well. . . so it goes.

Disclaimer: Yes, Dan Fogelberg’s voice was at best an indifferent instrument, and his breath control, etc., was not all that. . . polished, shall we say. But still. This is, despite all that and CRANHAM (not a fav tune), this is very definitely my favorite recording a solo performance of Christina Rossetti’s poem:

Hear that. He really sings the song.

Unfortunately, the only recording of this I have ever found, in an arrangement closest to what I prefer, is really poor quality. There are many other recordings available, but most of them just give me a rash. *heh* This is the Moody Bible Institute choir and symphonic band sometime in the (very) late ’80s/early 90s:

Its a 7MB mp3 file, so it may take abit to buffer, depending on your connection and how you hold your mouth.

Meanwhile, here’s a brief clip from “Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendor”

htt://www.thirdworldcounty.us/audio/Thou_Who_Wast_Rich_Beyond_All_Splendor_clip.mp3

And an instrumental of the tune, with Frank Houghton’s powerful words below:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becomes poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest Man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenward by Thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest Man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what Thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship Thee.

— Frank Houghton (1894-1972)

Cantique De Noel (O Holy Night)–Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YUB4LyuZnA

Jussi Bjørling (in Swedish)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YClcMAn_wg

One of the best performances of The Wexford Carol.

And while I’m at it, the song that follows this one in this year’s third world county central Xmas playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uLaIiP3n2o

By Charles Ives:

Ives rhythms (and the almost requisite accompaniment) make this a wee tad off for carolers going from door-to-door, but the music and lyrics are simply beautiful.

Ian Howell, Countertenor.
Douglas Dickson, Piano.

This isn’t the James Taylor rendition that convinced me CRANHAM could–just–work with the Christina Rossetti words, but it still has enough of the elements of the one that did to make it to this year’s posting:

It’s not CRANHAM (and I don’t know offhand just what the tune is), but Sarah McLachlan offers a really nice treatment:

It’s so very characteristic of McLachlan’s work that, especially since I cannot find any other notation even on her own website, I have to believe the tune could well be her own. Any reader who knows more about the tune, please chime in, mmK?

Both artists, of course, modify the words to suit their selected tunes, but not in ways that are disservice to the Rossetti text, even including McLachlan’s inexplicable–to me–alteration of “the” to “a” in the title and first and fourth lines.

The Rossetti text, of course, follows the Northern Hemispheric, European conceit of a “midwinter” birth of Christ–snow and all that–but that doesn’t detract from the words’ impact:

In the bleak midwinter
By Christina Rossetti

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

This may surprise you. Two of the worst Christmas songs are extremely well-written pieces, and the iconic performances of these songs are extremely well performed. They’re just darned good songs, but NOT as Christmas songs,
because they have nothing to do with anything that’s genuinely about Christmas. That makes them subversive and destructive of genuine Christmas observation.

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