Joy to the World an American Christmas
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CORO THE MOZART TRILOGY CORO Mozart: Mass in C minor Harry Christophers & “…a commanding and compelling reading Handel and Haydn Society of an important if often overlooked cor16084 Gillian Keith, Tove Dahlberg, monument in Mozart’s musical Thomas Cooley, Nathan Berg development.” gramophone recommended Joy to the World Mozart: Requiem Harry Christophers & “A Requiem full of life … An American Christmas Handel and Haydn Society Mozart’s final masterpiece has cor16093 Elizabeth Watts, Phyllis Pancella, never sounded so exciting.” Andrew Kennedy, Eric Owens classic fm magazine Mozart: Coronation Mass Haydn: Symphony No. 85 La Reine cor16104 Harry Christophers & “This disc captures the vitality and theatricality Handel and Haydn Society Christophers has made a hallmark of Teresa Wakim, Paula Murrihy, his work with the H&H chorus.” Thomas Cooley, Sumner Thompson the boston globe Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 6 Le matin and 82 L’ours Violin Concerto in G major cor16113 The first disc in H&H’s new Haydn series on CORO showcases two of Haydn’s symphonies. Completing the album is Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G major performed by Handel and Haydn’s fiery and expressive Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky. Harry Christophers Handel and Haydn Society To find out more about CORO and to buy CDs visit www.thesixteen.com cor16117 hen putting together this collection of music for Christmas, I canvassed many Weminent people in the US, and in particular Boston, as to which carols were the most popular. I was surprised to find that It came upon the midnight clear ranked amongst Joy to the World the top three, beautiful though it is. When I came to rehearse it, I expressed my surprise 1 Traditional I wonder as I wander 2.33 to the singers only for them to respond “but Harry, this isn’t the tune we know!” That was 2 also their reaction to O little town of Bethlehem, the words of which incidentally were Morten Lauridsen O magnum mysterium 6.05 written by Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts. I had also asked notable organists and 3 Traditional Joy to the world 2.25 choirmasters what were the most frequently performed Christmas anthems only to be told 4 Traditional It came upon the midnight clear 2.46 that they were undoubtedly works by Rutter and Howells. 5 Gustav Holst In the bleak midwinter 4.36 6 William Billings Shepherds, rejoice! 1.52 Thus what I have presented is a sort of survey of the most popular carols sung in the US, 7 occasionally alongside their English counterparts, as well as a selection of American Traditional In dulci jubilo (original English) 3.07 and English anthems for the festive season. I was particularly delighted to come 8 Bob Chilcott The Shepherd’s Carol 3.28 across Charles Ives’ wonderfully simple but so effective carol, equally simply entitled 9 Charles Ives A Christmas Carol 2.23 A Christmas Carol and James Bassi’s setting of Quem pastores laudavere with its blend bl John Rutter There is a flower 4.34 of barbershop and sensual harmonies, and then there is, of course, the ever popular bm Traditional O little town of Bethlehem (American) 3.25 Carol of the Bells, which every lover of Christmas films (and that includes me!) knows bn from Home Alone and The Santa Clause. Traditional Angels we have heard on high 2.55 bo Herbert Howells A spotless Rose 3.18 But I have also returned to the origins of Handel and Haydn Society and the carols bp Hieronymous Praetorius In dulci jubilo (German) 3.43 of William Billings. In fact one of the reasons that H&H was founded in 1815 was as bq James Bassi Quem pastores laudavere 4.25 a reaction to these earthily rugged and syllabic, dare I say rough-hewn, carol hymns. br William Billings A virgin unspotted 2.50 H&H were desperate to bring quality music back to the ears of the Boston public. bs Methinks they have succeeded. R. L. Pearsall In dulci jubilo 3.35 bt Traditional O little town of Bethlehem (traditional) 3.29 bu Mykola Leontovich Carol of the Bells 1.25 Total running time: 63.02 2 3 what would be called the Great Awakening. Each American region has its particular Christmas in America In 1774, Boston composer William Billings practices associated with Christmas, most Most Americans are astonished to realise warm-hearted, nostalgic images of family established a famous singing school in often stemming from Old World religious that their favourite holiday celebration and friends gathered around a hearth come Stoughton, bringing congregational and traditions. Today, across the American was outlawed in colonial America, in from the imaginative pen of Washington choral singing to rural areas, giving rise mid-west, December is a busy time for the particular by both the Plymouth Pilgrims Irving’s The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, to a group of composers now known as many Lutheran colleges in preparation for and the neighbouring Boston Puritans. It gent., published in 1819. the First New England School. Some annual Christmas performances, school was not until 1870 that Congress declared years later, Medford, MA banker Lowell and community-wide celebrations of Christmas a federal holiday. But the Perhaps more directly, Christmas Mason (elected president of the Handel the season. Collegiate chapels all across emergence of Christmas as both a cherished symbolised the age-old rift between and Haydn Society in 1827) would become America light candles toward the end of religious observance and America’s most Catholics and Protestants, and in Boston, the father of music education in America. term each December in their own versions successful commercial season mirror the Puritans and anyone else. The Handel and Through his later efforts at building of the famous King’s College, Cambridge, growth and development of America, both Haydn Society gave its first performance congregational singing at Fifth Avenue Service of Lessons and Carols. As with in practice and in concept. on Christmas Day 1815, and later Presbyterian in New York, this style of King’s, all of these Christmas traditions, premiered Handel’s Messiah in the United corporate hymn singing would become the civic and congregational, have provided More than most holidays, Christmas has States on December 25, 1818. That public musical hallmark of Protestant churches a framework for new music and creative become about family and the sharing of performances took place on a holiday now throughout America. aspiration, a continuing and living tradition. What the Puritans so despised so associated with family indicates both American Christmas tradition. about Christmas was driven in part by the that December 25 was a regular working Each of these musical prophets published festival’s pagan associations, the seemingly day, but, at the same time, points to his own hymnal furthering the spread © Scott Allen Jarrett, Boston, 2013 arbitrary date for the birth of Christ, and, society’s broader interest in transforming a of singing in America, both in churches perhaps more than anything, the public controversial religious festival to a peaceful and schools. With the broader societal and drunken debauchery it occasioned in and ecumenical civic observance. acceptance of Christmas, American hymns the working classes. In the 19th century, to honour the day and the birth of Christ Joy to the World the legend of Santa Claus grew out of Dutch In the American South, the singing appeared more openly. Lowell Mason’s Joy Christmas was one of many cherished traditions in New York, and Protestants traditions of Moravians in both to the World is a product of this period, institutions to catch the full force of the there sought to shift Christmas’s observance Pennsylvania and North Carolina as is the American carol O Little Town Protestant Reformation. In the early 1560s from public indulgence to an emphasis on reinforced the spread of a new evangelism of Bethlehem and the lyrical tune for the the Scottish Kirk, the recently established peaceful civic and family celebration. The from brothers John and Charles Wesley, in popular It came upon a midnight clear. national church of Scotland, excluded 4 5 Christmas and all other evangelical throughout Massachusetts], and those attention from the overt Christmas themes carefully recorded in my notes, I had only feasts from its worship books. English who refused to go to work on Christmas of his book’s carol compositions. three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of Puritans likewise regarded Christmas day were often dismissed. In New England melodic material… and a magnificent idea. as an abhorrence, a dangerous remnant today [1952] there are many who remember Many of the works on this album arose With the writing of additional verses and of Catholic idolatry to be uprooted and their grandparents telling them that in from the ground of religious reform: some the development of the original melodic destroyed. In the summer of 1647 England’s some instances factory owners would were inspired by it, others created despite material, I wonder as I wander came so-called Long Parliament, informed change the starting hours on Christmas day it. Their joyful collective essence runs into being. I sang it for five years in my by the Directory of Public Worship, to five o’clock or some equally early hour in contrary to common caricatures of New concerts before it caught on.’ Ever since, he passed a law banning Christmas and order that workers who wanted to attend England Puritans and their hostility to concluded, the piece has been performed other ‘superstitiously used’ church feasts. church services would have to forego, or be Christmas; rather, it captures the potent ‘by soloists and choral groups wherever the Although pro-Christmas riots broke out dismissed for being late for work.