Category: Arts

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”.)

Advent song for December 13: Nu tändas tusen juleljus, Sweden

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

Today’s post is going up a little later than usual, because yesterday was my last day at my old job and now I have a long weekend off before I start the new one, so instead of hurriedly posting from the office I am sitting in my pyjamas in front of the Christmas tree, with a cup of tea and a crumpet, watching a terrible movie about two neighbours in a deadly vendetta over who has the most extravagant Christmas lights. I am enjoying it a lot.

I had a lovely last day at work, and on my way home I was thinking how great my old colleagues were, and how I will miss them, and as I was thinking it I came up the escalator from the tube into London Bridge station, and the Salvation Army brass band were in the concourse playing The First Nowell, and I got ever so slightly tearful (in a good, Richard Curtis sort of a way). And listening to this performance of Nu tändas tusen juleljus, or “Now are lit a thousand Christmas candles” has had the same effect. It’s just so pretty! It was composed in Sweden in 1898 and is a popular carol there, and this is just a lovely video, even though it’s amateur and shaky. Enjoy.

Advent song for December 12: The Wexford Carol, Ireland

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

I could, as the beloved pointed out, have chosen for my Irish carol Once in Royal David’s City, whose words were written by the Irish poet and hymn writer Cecil Alexander (who was, despite what you might assume, a woman, and incidentally don’t you think Cecil is a super-cool name for a girl? I do), also known for All Things Bright and Beautiful and There Is A Green Hill Far Away.

But the Wexford Carol (or Carúl Loch Garman, or Carúl Inis Córthaidh) is more obviously Irish, and is also several hundred years older, having originated in the county for which it is named sometime around the twelfth century – making it, incidentally, one of the oldest carols in Europe and certainly, I think, the oldest on my list.

And it is very beautiful. This is a five-minutes-plus version by the Palestrina choir of St Mary’s in Dublin, so instead of sitting hunched over your screen looking at the not-very-interesting video I suggest you turn up the volume and go and do something else while you listen to it.

Advent song for December 11: Inkanyezi Nezazi, South Africa

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Thanks to Donna for suggesting this lovely song, which I vaguely remember from that time it was used in a Heinz baked beans ad back in 1997. This is the full-length version, first recorded in 1992, and the video I’ve chosen features lyrics in both Zulu and English, in which language the song is called “The Star and the Wiseman”.

You already know all about Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the isicathamiya (traditional Zulu music) choir founded by Joseph Shabalala in the 1960s after he heard their voices in a series of dreams, and if you are lucky you’ll have seen them performing on one of their many international tours. They are almost more of a brand than a band these days, but the gorgeous sound they make is as spine-tingling as ever: