'Tis indeed the season. I really wanted to do a diary on Ralph Vaughan Williams's underperformed Christmas oratorio Hodie but it turns out that had already been done. So I figured the next best thing would be to look at my encounters with Christmas music as a non-Christian, as a purely aesthetic exercise. If you know my work, however, you know I can't treat any creative work without considering its context.
Thus, two issues. First, the more aesthetic consideration of Christmas music I've liked, and second, the more, well, commercial consideration of how much of what we think of as Christmas music here at the beginning of the 21st Century has been written by Jews like Irving Berlin. Since this really strays outside the bounds of what we generally consider "classical" music, look for coverage of the second subject in my Christmas Eve Top Comments diary, where I'll go WAY outside my preferred genres to make a point or two.
Thus, when I say "Christmas Music" in the context of the Thursday classical diary, I mean what Wikipedia refers to as music for the Church celebration of the holiday:
The status of Christmas as an important feast within the church year also means there is a long tradition of music specially composed for celebrating the season.
This encompasses lots and lots of music, as you can see from this
list of classical concerts in Manhattan from the New York Times! So let's start toward the beginning, during the eighteenth century (there's a sixteenth century mass by Thomas Tallis but I don't find it all that interesting). In Leipzig, in fact, where Johann Sebastian Bach had composed a whole slew of music for the three days of Christmas (December 24-26). We REALLY don't associate this with Christmas, but that's precisely what it was written for. So here's Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra with a beautiful sunlit introduction to Christmas Day itself:
Yes, this is the opening section of the Magnificat in D major, scored for five soloists (two sopranos, alto, tenor, bass) and a corresponding five-part choir, three trumpets, timpani, flute, two oboes (also oboe d'amore), two violins, viola, and basso continuo. This was written in 1723 for the second day, and reworked into the version we know ten years later for the Feast of the Visitation in July. The words are taken from the Canticle of Mary from the Gospel according to Luke (1:46-55) and, from the King James version, here it is:
46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, (Magnificat anima mea)
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
So not the birth, but the realization that she is with child by the Holy Spirit. Still, not inappropriate for the celebration of the birth.
Bach also wrote a number of Christmas cantatas. The videos at YouTube.com generally have them in their entirety which means 15-20 minutes, so I'll just give you the link to this one, composed for December 26 1723. Nikolaus Harnoncort and the Concentus Musicus Wien, BWV 40, Darzu ist erschienen der Sohn Gottes(For this the Son of God appeared). It's just beautiful (and you don't have to trust me), and Bach at his lyrical best.
Twenty or so years later, a big crowd in Dublin was treated to this:
We think of Handel's Messiah in connection with Easter,and it was originally an Easter offering (the premiere was April 13, 1742) but, quite obviously, as we're hearing here, the first third of the work is about the prophecy and the birth of Jesus. The Hallelujah Chorus comes at the end of the second part, after the crucifixion and resurrection. Critics have complained about the frequent performances of Messiah (yes, Messiah, not The Messiah) since the nineteenth century. Here's George Bernard Shaw complaining about the overstuffed performances of the 1880s in 1891:
Why does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance … with a chorus of twenty capable artists? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die.
This has worked its way into performance (as you have just seen above), and it's not a bad thing.
There's also Christmas music that began as folk music from this period. I give you a classical pastoral mass by the Czech composer Jakub Jan Ryba, Česká mše vánoční, also known as "Hey, Master" after its opening words, composed in 1796. It's popular in the Czech Republic around Christmas, as you can see by what the orchestra is wearing. The church isn't heated.
According to Radio Prague, the Czech public spends time trying to find the best performance of this mass. It's scored for 4 soloists, choir, organ, flute, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, trumpet, 2 violins, viola, violon-double bass and timpani. Small orchestra, intimate mass.
The Czechs are really devoted to this mass. Here is the ending, from the traditional performance under Charles Bridge on Christmas Eve (this recorded in 2007). There isn't much literature on this but there really doesn't have to be much literature on this. It's fun, and you see how much the Czech people love it!
And then there's Berlioz, and his Christmas oratorio, L'Enfance du Christ. Berlioz introduced the work in three pieces separately, and the whole thing was first performed together in 1854. Unusually for Berlioz, the work was received well from the beginning, and scholars believe this is because it seemed to represent a kinder, gentler Berlioz. This, of course is nonsense, but he really seems interested in the portrayal of the characters he's depicting. The three parts involved are "Herod's Dream," "The Flight into Egypt," and "The Arrival at Sais," following the story as told in Matthew 2: 13-23, and the part I want you to listen to is the beginning of Part III. The really good material begins about eight minutes in, and the amazing flute and harp stuff that Berlioz does so well starts right after this excerpt ends.
Aside from all the other wonderful things about this, it was listening to this section that showed me that I understood spoken French, sort of. It's scored for a mezzo-soprano,2 solo tenors, solo baritone, 2 solo basses, chorus, 2 flutes (2nd = piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd = English horn), 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 cornets, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, harp, organ, and strings. The usual, and nothing excessive.
Of course, Berlioz wasn't the only French composer during the Romantic era to write a Christmas oratorio. Mr. Excess himself, Camille Saint-Saëns, wrote an Oratorio de Noël in 1860 (it wasn't performed until 1868, when Saint-Saëns was 33; the Organ Symphony was still 18 years in his future) which might have foreshadowed some of his later work. Here's a chorus, Quare fremuerunt gentes, from the middle of the oratorio
Modestly scored (organ, strings, harp, chorus) but it's not like we see lots of harps in chorus music, so this is Saint-Saëns in somewhat experimental mode. Sonorous!
So we come to the 20th Century, where we have major Christmas works by Olivier Messiaen, Benjamin Britten, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), who I threatened you with a full diary about at the end of August, is known as an ecstatic and extremely devout Catholic composer. His works cover in one way or another all of the high points in the liturgy. In 1935, already an accomplished composer and the organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Paris, he wrote a nine-section work for organ called La Nativite de Seigneur. It's birth to resurrection, so the performance at Christmas has a faith-confirming element about it.The last section, Dieu Parmi Nous (God among us) is the most performed section at youtube.com. It's about the Resurrection, so when something rather wonderful happens at about the 5:53 mark, I think you can guess what it is. I'd of course prefer to show you an organist sitting at an organ, but this is the great French organist Pierre Cochereau plating the Cavaille-Coll organ at the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, so the music will speak for itself.
The threat still stands. Some of his secular work (yes, there was some) in February.
And now to the British composers of the past century. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), a central figure with Elgar and Vaugan Williams in the twentieth century renaissance of British music (and one of our great gay composers too, having been the partner of the tenor Peter Pears for 43 years), fit a number of traditional carols into his Ceremony of Carols in 1942, and here is the first full carol.
It's scored for boys or female voices and a harp. A harp. In extreme hardship cases, there's a version for piano instead of harp. Medieval pronunciation is preferred, too. This is a conscious evocation of the past, and it shows the same historical sense Britten brought to all his work (see the tip jar in my Top Comments: Senseless Tragedy edition diary for the Kyrie from his 1961 composition War Requiem as an example).
Ralph Vaughan Williams finished Hodie in 1954. I know that there's been a diary on this but here is the first 8:30 because it's some of the best music he ever wrote. Listen especially to the brasses.
Now, imagine that you're on a morning flight from San Francisco to Honolulu, with a Bloody Mary in your hand, and just as the airplane emerges from the marine layer into full sunlight you're hearing that for the first time. Like I said, the aesthetics. It was February, but it really didn't matter. Doesn't this say "Christmas" exceptionally well?
Fri Dec 21, 2012 at 12:16 PM PT: Thanks, Community Spotlight! I had an urn to pick up this morning so I just noticed this.
Fri Dec 21, 2012 at 9:39 PM PT: Also, I'll be taking over the Thursday Night Classical diaries for a while, but my schedule means they'll be once every two weeks, unless someone wants the off weeks!