Top Banner
Celebration of Christmas Live Arts Maryland
38

Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Jul 06, 2015

Download

Spiritual

newhoudl

Some carols for you this holiday season!
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Page 1: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Celebration of Christmas

Live Arts Maryland

Page 2: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

“I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day, on

Christmas day. . . . On Christmas Day in the morning.”

In the sailing capital of the

world. . .

The tune of this carol is a

traditional English folk song

and the words of this carol (of

which there are several

versions) were written by

wandering minstrels as they

travelled through the country.

Page 3: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!

The melody for this

familiar carol was

composed by the famous

Felix Mendelssohn almost

a hundred years after

Wesley wrote the text.

How did the words and

music come together?

Here’s the scoop behind

the carol…

Page 4: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

The little known fact is that neither

Charles Wesley nor Felix Mendelssohn

would have wanted this music to be

joined with these words. Felix

Mendelssohn, a Jew, had made it very

clear that he wanted his music only to

be used for secular purposes.

Wesley

Mendelssohn

Page 5: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Dr. William Cummings

Long after both Mendelssohn and Wesley were dead, an organist named Dr.

William Cummings, joined the joyous Mendelssohn music with Wesley’s

profound words to create the carol we know and love today!

(By the way, if you hear a slight whirring sound

as you sing this carol…..it is probably just the

sound of both Mendelssohn and Wesley turning

over in their graves as they hear us sing the

words and melody together!)

Page 6: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Jingle Bells

Did you ever wonder

who wrote Jingle Bells?

It‟s one of the first

carols we learn as

children and is so much

a part of our lives that

most of us probably

never even have thought

about the fact that

somebody really did

write it!

Page 7: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

James Pierpont and he wrote both words and music

for the song which was to be part of

a Thanksgiving program at his

church in Boston back in 1857.

Page 8: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

The Christmas SongOne excessively hot

afternoon, I drove out to Bob's

house [Robert Wells] in Toluca

Lake for a work session. The

San Fernando Valley, always

at least ten degrees warmer

than the rest of the town,

blistered in the July sun.... I

opened the front door and

walked in.... I called for Bob.

No answer. I walked over to

the piano. A writing pad rested

on the music board. Written in

pencil on the open page were

four lines of verse:

Chestnuts roasting on an open

fire

Jack frost nipping at your nose

Yuletide carols being sung by

a choir

And folks dressed up like

Eskimos

Page 9: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

When Bob finally appeared,

I asked him about the little

poem.

"I thought I'd write

something to cool myself off.

All I could think of was

Christmas and cold

weather."

I took another look at his

handiwork. "You know," I

said, "this just might make

a song."

We sat down together at the

piano, and, improbable

though it may sound, "The

Christmas Song" was

completed about forty-five

minutes later.

Page 10: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Does this look familiar?

Page 11: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

So. . . Who gets credit? This is difficult to determine. . .

1. We have heard a faint echo in the Winchester Cathedral organ-loft,

thanks to Vincent Novello, who was convinced that the Adeste was

composed there by John Reading about the year 1680.

2. Then came a clear „evocation,‟ like that of a mocking bird, of the

same tune from a Paris theatre in 1744.

3. The next report comes from Dublin a few years later, about the year

1748. Here the Dominican nuns have preserved “a floating tradition”

that the Adeste was sung for the first time in the Channel Row

Dominican Priory, shortly after the 1745 rising in the British Isles in

favor of Bonnie Prince Charlie. http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Images/Stephan/adeste_fideles_a_study_on_its_or.htm

Adeste Fideles

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Page 12: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Whoever receives credit

O Come, All Ye Faithful remains

one of the best beloved carols in

the repertoire

Page 13: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

What do the following have in

common?

1. Rudolph,the Red-Nosed Reindeer a hit

for Gene Autry and others

2. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree a hit

for Brenda Lee

3. A Holly Jolly Christmas recorded by Burl

Ives

4. Silver and Gold

Page 14: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Joh

nny M

arks

The brother-in-law of Robert L. May, who wrote the original

story of "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," it was he who

set the story to music. After failing to sell the song to,

among others, Bing Crosby, Marks eventually found a

enthusiastic listener in the person of singing cowboy Gene

Autry. Autry's Columbia recording of the song, in 1947,

became the biggest hit of his career and made both men (and

May, who owned the rights to the original story) very

wealthy.

Page 15: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

France bans “O Holy Night”

In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure

was the commissionaire of wines in a small

French town. Known more for his poetry

than his church attendance, it probably

shocked Placide when his parish priest

asked the commissionaire to pen a poem for

Christmas mass. Nevertheless, the poet was

honored to share his talents with the church.

Page 16: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Cappeau decided that his "Cantique de Noel"

was not just a poem, but a song in need of a

master musician's hand. The poet turned to

one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams,

for help.

The lyrics that his friend Cappeau gave him

must have challenged the composer in a

fashion unlike anything he received from

London, Berlin, or St. Petersburg...Adam was

Jewish.

The words of "Cantique de Noel" represented

a day he didn't celebrate and a man he did not

view as the son of God. Nevertheless, Adams

quickly went to work, attempting to marry an

original score to Cappeau's beautiful words.

Adams' finished work pleased both poet and

priest. The song was performed just three

weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas

Eve

Page 17: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

So, why was it banned in France?

Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly

accepted by the church in France and the song quickly

found its way into various Catholic Christmas services.

But when Placide Cappeau walked away from the

church and became a part of the socialist movement,

and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was

a Jew, the song--which had quickly grown to be one of

the most beloved Christmas songs in France--was

suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church.

Page 18: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Enter . . John Sullivan Dwight, American

An ardent abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the

third verse:

"Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and

his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our

brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease."

Published in his magazine, Dwight's English translation of "O Holy

Night" quickly found favor in America, especially in the North during

the Civil War.

Page 19: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Both sides stared at the seemingly crazed man. Boldly standing with no weapon in his

hand or at his side, he lifted his eyes to the heavens and sang,

"Minuit, Chretiens, c'est l'heure solennelle ou L'Homme Dieu

descendit jusqu'a nous,"

After completing all three verses, a German infantryman climbed out his hiding place

and answered with,

"Vom Himmel noch, da komm' ich her. Ich bring' euch gute

neue Mar, Der guten Mar bring' ich so viel, Davon ich sing'n

und sagen will," the beginning of Martin Luther's robust "From

Heaven Above to Earth I Come."

Page 20: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

The story goes that

the fighting stopped

for the next twenty-

four hours while the

men on both sides

observed a temporary

peace in honor of

Christmas day.

Perhaps this story

had a part in the

French church once

again embracing

"Cantique de Noel"

in holiday services.

Page 21: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

In the Bleak Midwinter

Christina Rosetti

This exquisitely

melancholy and

evocative carol,

imagining the

Nativity in a snowy

Northern landscape,

was originally written

by Christina Rossetti

as a Christmas poem

for an American

magazine, Scribner‟s

Monthly, in 1872.

Page 22: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Harold Darke

Harold Darke wrote sacred music, organ and piano pieces, and songs.

His setting of In the Bleak Midwinter is still often sung at the service of

Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge, and at similar

services around the world.

Page 23: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Many people mistakenly assume this Christmas

classic has been around for years and that it is of

European origin. But it was written in 1962 during

the Cuban Missile Crisis as a powerful plea for peace

by a man who had experienced the horrors of war.

Page 24: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Noel Regney . . . and the rest of

the story “I had thought I’d never write a

Christmas song,” he recalled.

“Christmas had become so

commercial. But this was the time of

the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the

studio, the producer was listening to

the radio to see if we had been

obliterated.

“En route to my home, I saw two

mothers with their babies in strollers.

The little angels were looking at each

other and smiling. All of a sudden, my

mood was extraordinary.”

Page 25: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

…and his wife. . . Gloria Shayne

Noel wrote a beautiful song,” Gloria said later, “and I wrote the music.

We couldn‟t sing it, through; it broke us up. We cried. Our little song

broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at that

time.”

Page 26: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Pray for peace people

everywhere“Pray for peace, people everywhere” – Do You Hear What I Hear?

Merry Christmas from Live Arts Maryland, the Annapolis Chorale, The

Annapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Annapolis Youth Chorus, and

Cantori.

Page 27: Annapolis Chorale christmas card

Please, support the following

patrons of the arts!

Page 28: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 29: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 30: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 31: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 32: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 33: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 34: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 35: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 36: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 37: Annapolis Chorale christmas card
Page 38: Annapolis Chorale christmas card