Merry Christmas, folks! I say that without fear of contradiction on this sixth day of Christmas, which is within the octave, which makes it, liturgic-technically still Christmas.
During the recent holiday, nee Christmas, season I was ready to back the National Rifle Association if it can get Florida -- which hasn't seen an NRA law it doesn't like -- to legalize standing your ground against Muzak. If -- upon hearing the first notes of the macabre "Jingle Bell Rock" or the misbegotten "Feliz Navidad" -- I could open fire at the speakers, I would buy a Glock no later than Nov. 1 next year.
I remember when the Christmas music anachronistically played during Advent occasionally adverted to the birth of Jesus, but those days are over, and now it's aisle-to-aisle jolly holly as lugubriously as imaginable.
However. Advent is over, and I'm in full Christmas mode. (What's wrong with everybody else?) So I thought I would share three presents with you:
First, an English carol that Fr. Imbelli, I think, gifted us with several years ago. I am re-gifting it because it is so incredibly English it makes me want to eat treacle. And I hate treacle, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRobryliBLQ
Here is an older one. These boys also have those impossible collars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlMVzsELjK8
Finally, the 12th day of Christmas is Epiphany, which conveniently lands next Sunday. This gift is the poet (who, I suspect, couldn't sing) reciting his poem about the cold coming the Magi had of it. As only he could. Thanks to BBC for recording it. (You will hear the scratch,)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCVnuEWXQcg
Thanks for the links, Tom. I love both the carols, especially Veni Redemptor Gentium. I love In the Bleak Midwinter, too, except for the times here when we have seen the "water hard as iron" and snow fallen "snow on snow" too often.
ReplyDeleteAnd T.S. Elliott's reading was great. I had read the poem, but hadn't heard him reading it before.
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ReplyDeleteIf Feliz Navidad is a bit overdone, try another Spanish language carol, Los Peces en el Rio. Bad link the first time, hopefully this one works. It doesn't translate into English very intelligibly, so just enjoy it in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks. Sign me up to be a fish in the river.
DeleteWhen I saw the title of the Spanish carol, I thought maybe it would be something they taught us in first-year Spanish back in 1975 or thereabouts, "Brincan y bailan, los peces en el rio". Doesn't seem to be the same, though. Here is what they taught us, complete with the lyrics.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8i7h1vUg2A
That's a pretty one, Jim. But no, not the same one. Hadn't heard that one before. That's part of the fun of the holiday season, to hear the songs of different languages and cultures.
DeleteUgh, Tom, I am SO with you on the Muzak Christmas carols! I decided this year that the only carols I like are the ones that our choirs sing at church.
ReplyDeleteWell, I do like the carols to which you provided links. There is something about that British tradition, with the boy sopranos, that works for those carols. God bless John Rutter and the Oxford Book of Carols for championing them.
I really like the TS Eliot reading. Poetry is meant to be heard, not read.
Tom mentioned the impossible collars; to me they look like cervical collars for someone who has suffered whiplash. I don't know how one could sing wearing them. I am claustrophobic with anything close fitting around my neck.
DeleteI'm with you and Tom on the Muzak carols, especially those belted out in a screechy improvisation by some pop singer or other. I do like the English choirs such as King's College. When I was a kid I used to be offended by the implicit sexism of the boys choirs. My mother explained that it was the purity of tone which the boys could achieve. Of course that just ruffled my feathers further.
I once went to Sunday mass (in English) at the Brompton Oratory in London. It had a children's choir, which was coed. They were pretty well conducted, although in defense of your mom I do have to say that one of the girls' voices stuck out a little. :-)
DeleteThing is, the boys don't keep that pure soprano tone very long. The window before their voice changes is pretty narrow. Whereas the girls don't have that concern. Just a bunch of other ones.
DeleteI do remember my mother getting ticked off about Xmas music in stores "to get everybody all oiled up about buying a lot of crap." We had a Perry Como Christmas record, but that was it.
ReplyDeleteI was raised on Christmas without Jesus. The Unitarians gave a nod to the commemoration of Jesus's birth, and we did packages for the Salvation Army, but there was a lot more talk about yule, holly, trees, bonfires, solstice, and all that.
My brother and I always took our tree out to the back yard and redecorated it with stuff for the birds and squirrels to eat.
"My brother and I always took our tree out to the back yard and redecorated it with stuff for the birds and squirrels to eat."
ReplyDeleteI remember people doing that long ago. Does anyone know anyplace it still goes on?
We did it with The Boy. Then we had to get an artificial tree because of his asthma. Once in awhile I still see a tree in a backyard with bird feed on it here.
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