Category: Music

Advent song for December 24: Auld Lang Syne, Scotland/Bedford Falls

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Films, Music1 Comment

I know it’s really a New Year song, but I couldn’t resist the chance to include a clip from the best Christmas film of all, and if they can sing it on Christmas Eve in Bedford Falls, then so can we. Also, I visited Scotland for the first time as an adult this year and fell in love with it, so it feels entirely appropriate to finish up with a little bit of Burns.

If you haven’t seen It’s A Wonderful Life then cancel your plans for the rest of the day and go and watch it immediately. If you have, remember that the following clip will make you cry, so don’t watch it on the train or at the office (and what are you still doing at the office? Go home!).

<A pause while you recompose yourself>

Together, all these songs provide about an hour of music, which as it happens is about how long you’ll need to eat the main course of your Christmas lunch, so as a Christmas present to you, here is a Spotify playlist of them all. Sadly Song’s song from Korea isn’t on Spotify (at least, it probably is, but I have no idea what it’s called so I can’t check), so in its place England finally gets a look-in with the King’s singers rendition of Adam Lay Ybounden. The clip from It’s A Wonderful Life is a bit longer and I’ve had to use different versions of one or two of the songs, but otherwise it’s largely the list you’ve already seen and heard here. Happy Christmas!

(If the embedded version doesn’t work for you, here’s a boring old link.)

Advent song(s) for December 23: An Austrian-German double bill

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I have aways had a few more songs floating around my list than there was strictly going to be time for, and since tomorrow’s song is all tied up and has been since before we started, today is the last chance to sneak in a spare. Also, I feel like today is the last day before Christmas when you might have time to stop and listen to three different songs (I have included two versions of one of them). Tomorrow is a short sharp burst of Christmas goodness, but today let’s wallow in it.

From Austria, here is the lovely Stille Nacht, composed by Father Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber in the early part of the nineteeth century, first performed on Christmas Eve 1818 in Oberndorf bei Salzburg and just about the most famous Christmas song in the world (or maybe the second most famous, but more on that another time). There is almost nobody you can think of who hasn’t recorded a version at some point, but for authenticity’s sake here is the Vienna Boys’ Choir, sounding as good as you’d expect them to:

Today’s second song is O Tannenbaum, which started out as a Silesian folk song, was turned into a tragic love song by Joachim August de Zarnack in 1819 and then, by the addition in 1824 by Ernst Anschütz of two more verses, into a Christmas song, and don’t say I never spoil you because today you are getting two versions: a gorgeous German one sung by the Tölzer Knabenchor, and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s arrangement for A Charlie Brown Christmas, because that’s the one that really makes me feel Christmassy.

(If you object to the Hollywoodification of a traditional and originally non-Christmassy song, incidentally, you might want to exercise caution when visiting tomorrow, and if you think you can guess the final song from that clue let me know and if you’re right I’ll send you a prize.)

Advent song for December 22: W żłobie leży, Poland

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

W żłobie leży is a traditional Polish carol dating from the seventeenth century, and it’s another one which has made it, via various adaptations and translations, into English, as Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. I really like the original, especially in this beautifully crackly 1946 recording made by the Poznań Nightingales, founded in 1939 and taken over in 1945 by the conductor, composer and teacher Stefan Stuligrosz, who was just 19 at the time and who remained associated with the choir until his death in June this year at the age of 92.

Do watch the video (or slide show, really) which “Oliver K” has lovingly put together to accompany the recording:

 

Advent song for December 21: And now for something completely different…

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Nollaig Shona from Dublin, whence I bring you a very special and personally dedicated Christmas song. A few weeks ago when I put out a call for Christmas songs from around the world, Tom (who also featured in this calendar last year) was in Korea, doing something artistic with the Korean National Dance Company, so he thought he’d get them to sing us a Korean Christmas song. As Tom put it:

Only one of them was capable/willing. Unlikely as it sounds, her name IS actually Song.

So here is Song from Korea, singing a song from Korea. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s AMAZING, and if you listen closely you will notice that it is also dedicated to all of you:

Advent song for December 20: Black Christmas, USA

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

It’s a mistake to put a song from the USA so close to a song from Canada, but I slipped up about a week ago and posted the wrong song, and since then my schedule’s gone out of the window and I’ve been making it up as I go along. I’ve also had to ditch the idea of including a song from England because I couldn’t find any good audio or video recordings of the Sheffield carols, which were what I wanted, and I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm to find an alternative. You already know enough English Christmas music anyway, right?

This is yet another song which I can’t tell you much about, even though it only dates from the 1970s. I can’t even tell you who it’s by or when it was written, but it sounds American, and the artist is the Harlem Children’s Chorus, so we can safely assume they are American, at least.

The song was suggested by@shacker and whilst it’s in a different mode from most of the rest of my choices, once I’d heard it I couldn’t not include it. Once you hear it I hope you’ll agree.

Advent song for December 19: Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen, Basque Country

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music5 Comments

You probably know this one better as “Gabriel’s Message”, but this arrangement is intended to replicate the original Basque version of this lovely carol, about the origins of which I have been able to find out almost nothing. And it’s another one whose title I can’t translate – “Birjina” is “virgin”, of course, but then I get stuck. If you should happen to speak Basque, do let me know what the rest of it means.

Something slightly odd happens in the last few seconds of the audio, but if you ignore that, this is a good’un.

Advent song for December 18: Jesous Ahatonhia/Huron Carol, Canada

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

We used to sing the 1926 English translation of this at school, when I had no idea that it was from Canada, or that it was so old, having been written in 1623 by the Jesuit missionary Jean de Brébeuf and based on a French folk tune which is even older. (I also had no idea what a “mighty gitchi manitou” was, but I know now.)

I have chosen this gorgeous version because it uses the original Huron words, but if you have time you should also go and have a listen to this version by the Elora Festival singers, which is just as hauntingly beautiful in a completely different way.

There is a detailed explanation of the Huron-language words, with pronunciation guidelines should you want to sing along, here.

(Sorry this is so late today. I have just started a new job and it’s taking up all my hours.)

Advent song for December 17: Hajej Nynej Jezisku, Bohemia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This Czech carol has made it into English under another name, although we don’t tend to sing it at quite the clip these of these singers. It’s another one I’m going to make you listen to rather than telling you the English words – I was going to give you a clue by providing a direct translation of the title, but it turns out the internet is rubbish at Czech. I can tell you that ‘Jezisku’ means ‘baby Jesus’, but you could probably have worked that out for yourself, and if you can guess the usual English name for it from that, you win a mince pie.

Advent song for December 16: Tu scendi dalle stelle, Italy

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

The history of the Christmas carol is somewhat murky, but sources seem to agree that the first Christmas carols (as distinct from winter celebration songs, which are much older) emerged from Italy from around the second century onwards, and were always sung in Latin. Some early fragments of tunes or words survive (Veni Veni Emmanuel is a version of the Antiphons, which have been around since at least the eighth century), and of course we still sing some Christmas music in Latin, but from the thirteenth century onwards carols started to be sung in the language of the people. Tu scendi dalle stelle (usually translated as From Starry Skies Descending or From Starry Skies Thou Comest) dates from 1744, so it’s a baby compared to some Italian carols. There are versions by Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, among others, but I have gone for a simpler choral version.

Advent song for December 14: Carol of the Birds, Australia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I had a different song in mind for Australia until this week, when I suddenly had a good idea for next year’s advent calendar and realised that I wanted to save my original choice for that. So I went on a search for Australian Christmas songs and I’m glad I did, because it turns out they have some great ones. I was tempted by Aussie Jingle Bells (“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Christmas time is beaut/Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute”), but I’ve gone instead for the less well-known but more charming Carol of the Birds by the 20th century Australian composer William G. James, with words by John Wheeler which are so evocatively Australian that I’m going to break with tradition and include them here, so you can sing along:

Carol of the Birds

Out on the planes the Brolgas are dancing
Lifting their feet like war horses prancing
Up to the sun the wood larks go winging
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas day

Down where the tree ferns grow by the river
There where the waters sparkle and quiver
Deep in the gullies Bell birds are chiming
Softly and sweetly their lyrics notes rhyming
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day

Friar birds sip the nectar of flowers
Currawongs chant in wattle tree bowers
In the blue ranges, Lorikeets calling
Carols of bush birds rising and falling
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day

(“Orana” is an aboriginal word meaning “welcome”.)