- Welcome to University Place Presents.
I'm Norman Gilliland, and we're going to call this hour
"Carols of Christmas Past"
because it's going to be something of a restoration
of these familiar tunes to their state as they
were, if not originally in all cases, at least long ago.
And so some of the titles may not match the tunes that you're
going to be hearing today because that's, in fact,
what these thing originally sounded like if you go back to
the 19th century, or even before.
We have just right instrument for that.
We'll tell you a little bit about that later.
And we have just the right person to guide us through
some of these tunes, and that's Trevor Stephenson.
Welcome back to University Place Presents.
- Thank you. It's my pleasure.
I think, as you said, it is a restoration,
and if we're doing any sense of a time machine in this,
this would probably be the Victorian drawing room
and the way that music was made through the 19th century,
into the early 20th century mostly,
until the radio really began to push this out.
People made their own music,
and the upright piano was the cohesion, you know, for this.
It held it together.
- The instrument of choice. - Yeah.
People gathered around and, again,
we'll talk about this beautiful 1840s instrument
when we get there.
- So, before we hear the first set, the first three pieces,
let's get a little bit of background on them.
Starting with one that was, of course,
a big, big, big, big hit for Bing Crosby,
but that isn't the way it sounded originally.
-Well, in planning this program,
I thought, "Well, there's only one way
"to avoid having "Silent Night" at the end of a concert,
and that's to have it at the beginning." [laughter]
Because you can't put it in the middle.
It really doesn't go.
And there's a good reason for it.
But we're going to be doing the original "Silent Night,"
"Stille Nacht," written by Franz Gruber in 1818
in a little village in Austria.
And of all things, many many years ago,
never mind how many, as Melville would have said,
I was visiting a friend in Austria,
and we were looking at his pianos,
and we took a break out the back door.
He said, "Here's our village,"
and he opened the door and there's a little church.
And on the corner of this church it said Franz Gruber wrote
"Silent Night" here in 1818 in this tiny dorf in Austria.
So I love that everything comes from somewhere.
- That's true.
And point well taken
because even in Gruber's own time,
this piece, this song, was so popular that a lot of people
thought it was a folk song. - Right.
- He said, "No, I wrote it in 1818,
and it was for a specific purpose."
The legend is kind of true about
the mice chewing through the bellows of the organ.
So they needed on short order
something that required the organ.
So, it was actually a guitar. - A guitar, right.
- And a singer or two. - Right.
- But more uptempo than what we're used to.
- Right. - And it's got this wonderful
kind of Austrian Tyrolian lilt to it.
- It does. Right.
You can even hear the way that the voices
are coupled with the type of writing.
There's even a sense of yodeling.
- Yeah, exactly.
- I know, which is a long way from the "Silent Night,"
as it has become fossilized for us.
- Crosby did so little yodeling. - Yeah, right. [laughter]
Anyway, it's very charming.
And we're going to follow that with the old
"Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella."
- French originally.
- We're going to mix it up.
We're going to have one verse in English,
and then two verses in French.
And it ends very quietly.
As you're coming to the place where Jesus is born,
and please be quiet because don't wake him up.
That's the gist of the song. You know?
- Then another one where we're used to a certain tune
from "The Holly and the Ivy," but this isn't that tune.
- This is the old French tune, "The Holly and the Ivy."
It has nothing to do with the tune that usually appears
when you hear "The Holly and the Ivy" is on the program.
It's much darker. It's in a minor key.
It has fantastic Renaissance chord progressions in it
and almost an organ-like style at the piano
and also the way voices create
this really tight Renaissance harmony.
So it's one of my favorites.
Mozart actually wrote a set of variations for violin and piano
on this very tune as well.
So, we'll do those three as a starter.
- And time now to introduce our singers then.
- Yes, I was so thrilled to work with this vocal quartet
on this particular program.
And so, if they'll come on, we'll introduce them.
This is Margaret Fox, alto.
Scott Brunscheen, tenor.
Jim LaBelle is bass.
And Alisa Jordheim will be singing soprano.
Again, this is the way it was done before email.
[laughter] You know?
People gathered around and had a great time.
[piano]
♪ Stille Nacht!
♪ Heilige Nacht!
♪ Alles schlaäft;
♪ einsam wacht
♪ Nur das traute
♪ hoch heilige Paar.
♪ Holder Knab im lockigen Haar,
♪ Schlafe in himmlischer
♪ Ruh!
♪ Schlafe in himmlischer
♪ Ruh!
♪ Silent Night!
♪ Holy Night!
♪ All is calm, all is bright.
♪ Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
♪ Holy infant, so tender and mild,
♪ Sleep in heavenly peace.
♪ Stille Nacht!
♪ Heilige Nacht!
♪ Hirten erst
♪ Kundgemacht
♪ Durch der Engel
♪ Alleluja,
♪ Toönt es laut bei
♪ Ferne und Nah
♪ Jesus der Retter ist da!
♪ ♪
♪ Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella,
♪ Bring a torch,
♪ it is dark in the stall;
♪ Jesus awaits,
♪ good folks of the village,
♪ Run quickly;
♪ I hear Mary's soft call.
♪ Ah!
♪ How radiant the Mother;
♪ Ah!
♪ How angelic the Child.
♪ Un flambeau, Jeanette, Isabelle,
♪ Un flambeau!
♪ Courons au berceau!
♪ C'est Jésus, bonnes gens du hameau.
♪ Le Christ est né;
♪ Marie appelle!
♪ Ah!
Que la Mère est belle,
♪ Ah!
Que l'Enfant est beau!
♪ Doucement, dans l'étable close,
♪ Doucement, venez un moment!
♪ Approchez!
♪ Que Jésus est charmant!
♪ Comme il est blanc!
♪ Comme il est rose!
♪ Do!
Que l'Enfant repose!
♪ Do!
Qu'il rit en dormant!
[piano]
♪ The holly and the ivy,
♪ Now both are full well grown,
♪ Of all the trees that are in the wood,
♪ The holly bears the crown.
♪ O the rising of the sun,
♪ The running of the deer,
♪ The playing of the merry organ,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir.
♪ The holly bears a blossom
♪ As white as the lily flow'r:
♪ And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
♪ To be our sweet Savior.
♪ O the rising of the sun,
♪ The running of the deer,
♪ The playing of the merry organ,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir.
♪ The holly bears a berry,
♪ As red as any blood;
♪ And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ,
♪ To do us sinners good.
♪ O the rising of the sun,
♪ The running of the deer,
♪ The playing of the merry organ,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir,
♪ Sweet singing in the choir.
[applause]
- Well, they do sound different, don't they?
- Yeah.
- I have to say refreshingly so. - Yeah.
- As much as we like and are accustomed to the others,
this gives a whole new slant
on some of these "Carols of Christmas Past."
- Right, I always think
"Silent Night" can be quiet, but not slow.
- There you go. Yeah, yeah.
Fast, but silent.
You haven't introduced Fred yet.
- Fred. I know.
And this piano we call "Fred" for Frederic Chopin
because Frederic Chopin had one of these in his studio.
It was one of his favorite instruments.
In fact, he usually played on an instrument like this
throughout his lessons.
He let the student at the grand,
and he played all of his examples.
And he loved this particular type of English sound in pianos.
And we also know that Chopin had, in the studio,
a piano like this that had this particular type of hammer,
which is hollow.
That is, the hammers that hit the strings here
have no center whatsoever.
It's just a wooden ring covered with a few pieces of leather.
And so, it gives it that other-worldly sound
because there's not crunch when the hammer hits the string.
It's just a kiss.
And so-- And, you know, of course,
you can hear that the treble is very gossamer,
up here like that.
And the bass is really, it's soft but quite low sounding.
There's a great difference in timbre from top to bottom
in the instrument.
Much like the human voice, you know,
going from the soprano to the bass register.
So, the instruments of the 19th century
tend to emulate those vocal qualities,
and you can hear all the other instruments in between,
the other singers in between.
Also in this instrument,
which is nice with this wonderful light here,
you can see that this is a carved front.
It's not a solid front, like many later uprights would be.
As uprights got bigger and louder and all that,
they started putting just a solid piece of wood in the front
to kind of block you from that tidal wave of sound
that was really coming out of there.
But in this more delicately voiced instrument,
they were very careful to make sure that those strings,
like harp-like strings, were accessible to the player.
You could get all the genies and the fairies in the sound.
And so this is an open front.
It's just a carving.
And then that is a cloth batten right there.
That is, it's just two thin layers of cloth
with some silk curlings stuffed between it like that.
And then the sound comes floating through.
And also, this carved thing here is one piece.
It's not stamped. It's carved.
And some master and apprentice
probably spent some very long, long hours.
We always say this is pre-email.
- Very much.
- You can't even-- If you even have email,
you'll never get something like this done.
You know? So, anyway--
And this instrument has also no metal plate in it.
It's all wood.
And that's part of the reason that it has
that incredible warmth of sound.
- Easier to carry too.
- What's that? - Easier to carry.
- It is much easier to carry, as we found out yesterday.
So, but its responsiveness is an entirely wooden structure.
Because the strings are lower tension,
you don't have to have a massive metal plate in here.
So this is very typical of the English design
in the mid-19th century.
This instrument is probably about 1840, something like that.
It is an original.
It's not one that we have built from scratch,
but one that I have rebuilt twice.
And I did all the stringing and the hammer work
and even I made the bass strings over the course of a summer.
So, anyway, we love Fred. [laughter]
- Well, you mentioned a fairy a little while ago.
We'll get to a fairy and an Arabian too, I think.
- Right. We'll do them in reverse order.
We'll start with the hot sands, right?
And then move to the colder north.
- So then, as far as the fairy is concerned,
the story has Tchaikovsky
having just about finished "The Nutcracker."
He was trying to think of an instrument
that would apply to the Sugar Plum Fairy,
and he was just flummoxed.
Could not come up with one,
and the somewhere in his travels he heard a celesta.
And said, "That's it. That's it."
And while this piano obviously is not a celesta,
it has many of those wonderful, as you say,
fairy-like qualities.
- Up in this register, yes. - Especially the upper register.
- "The Nutcracker" is just such an amazing thing.
Tchaikovsky, of course, was a great composer throughout his
career, but "The Nutcracker" is a late in life creation.
He's dead within a couple of years of this.
It's very-- It's a very tightly edited piece.
There's no wasted material in here.
He never goes on too long,
which sometimes he does in the other pieces.
- It could happen to anyone.
- It can happen to anyone. Exactly.
And I just always think of it as a great
kind of late-in-life gift from him.
And he was a wonderful pianist.
He probably wrote "The Nutcracker" at the piano.
And this is, these two dances here,
the "Arabian Dance" and the "Sugar Plum Fairy,"
are his published versions of the piano.
His piano versions of these dances.
They're not transcriptions by somebody else later on.
- The official Tchaikovsky.
- So you get a little bit of a feeling for him sitting down.
Yeah.
[piano]
♪ ♪
[applause]
- Three pieces in this set which
would seem to have relatively little to do with each other
as they span, they hop, they jump a couple of centuries,
among the three of them. - That's right.
- And what ties these three together?
- I mean, as a musician, of course,
they're all tied together by the good key relationships.
And, of course, you know, the Christmas theme.
But the first is Palestrina.
This is a beautiful Renaissance writing for the voice.
"We adore thee, we worship thee," for the baby Jesus.
It's followed by a 20th century Appalachian carol,
"I Wonder as I Wander." Right?
And then that is followed by "O Come, Immanuel,"
which jumps back into the Gregorian Era.
I think they're tied together by great plainchant tunes,
the last two.
Even though the Appalachian carol is modern,
it's still almost like a plainchant type of tune, right?
- And tied into the-- - An antique quality to it.
- I don't know.
I would probably be stretching to really link them together
other than they're just pieces that I like as a group.
And so we just, you know--
- Well, let's say the key word is contrast.
- Right, okay. Exactly.
I have to say before we go, the Sugar Plum Fairy, right,
when I was a child I wore the record grooves out
on that particular piece.
I was convinced that a human being
couldn't have written that piece.
It was so from another-- From another--
- It is ethereal. - Yeah.
And I'm still not quite sure how he did it.
So, anyway, it was my pleasure to play it on "Fred."
And now we'll go to Palestrina.
[piano]
♪ Adoramus
♪ te Christe,
♪ Et benedicimus tibi,
♪ Quia per sanctam crucem tuam,
♪ Redemisti mundum,
♪ Qui passus es pro nobis,
♪ Domine,
♪ miserere nobis.
[piano]
♪ I wonder as I wander
♪ out under the sky
♪ How Jesus the Savior
♪ did come for to die
♪ For por on'ry people
♪ like you and like I;
♪ I wonder as I wander
♪ out under the sky
♪ When Mary birthed Jesus
♪ 'twas in a cow's stall
♪ With wise men and farmers
♪ and shepherds and all
♪ But high from God's heaven,
♪ a star's light did fall
♪ And the promise of ages
♪ it then did recall.
♪ If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
♪ A star in the sky
♪ or a bird on the wing
♪ Or all of God's Angels in heaven
♪ for to sing
♪ He surely could have it,
♪ 'cause he was the King
♪ I wonder as I wander
♪ out under the sky
♪ How Jesus the Savior
♪ did come for to die
♪ For poor on'ry people
♪ like you and like I;
♪ I wonder as I wander
♪ Out under the sky
[piano]
♪ O come, O come, Immanuel,
♪ And ransom captive Israel,
♪ That mourns in lonely exile here
♪ Until the Son of God appear.
♪ Rejoice!
♪ Immanuel
♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel.
♪ O come, Thou Day-Spring,
♪ come and cheer
♪ Our spirits by Thine advent here;
♪ disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
♪ And death's dark shadows put to flight.
♪ Rejoice!
♪ Immanuel
♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel.
♪ O come, Thou Key of David, come,
♪ And open wide our heav'nly home;
♪ Make safe the way that leads on high,
♪ And close the path to misery.
♪ Rejoice!
♪ Immanuel
♪ Shall come to thee, O Israel.
[applause]
- It does get you into the zone, doesn't it?
- I know, right? - That Immanuel.
Multiple things are going on.
- Now listening to it really all glued together, it is,
I think, amazingly related to "I Wonder as I Wander."
I mean, it's modal, but it's a similar type of melodic species.
So we're going to say it's unified.
- Unified, okay. Contrast and unity.
Familiar title at the Christmastime,
has to do with the savior of the heathen coming.
Although, we usually hear it as a German title.
- Right, "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland."
It has a different spin when you say it in German.
- But that's been set by various composers
over the years, has it not? - Right.
Of course, this tune had been around quite a while.
We're doing a 17th century version of it.
And then, of course, Bach does it several times,
and I'm sure dozens of other great German composers as well.
It's just a really-- As you'll hear,
the tune is very very strong.
And many of these tunes--
I don't know if this one had a religious base,
but many of the tunes in the German chorale tradition
did not come from religious settings,
but came from the taverns and alehouses, right?
- Well, it's a technique that's still being used today
by churches.
You know, bring in the pop tunes, bring in the...
whatever will bring people into the church.
And Martin Luther said,
"Why should the devil have all the good tunes?" [laughter]
He actually said that. - Kudos to him.
- But this one I'm not sure.
It's probably a plainchant of some sort.
And this is a harmonization by Vulpius
of a very well-known tune.
- And then "Hail Mary, Queen of the Heavens."
- Then we go to Lassus,
which is just a independent four-part writing
where everyone has their own line completely.
And, again, it's, "Ave Maria Caelorum,"
Hail Mary, queen of the heavens, queen of the universe.
And it has this completely other-worldly sound.
- So taking us back even further than the generation of Bach.
- Right. Right.
And here, I mean, it's quite a contrast with "Nun komm,
der Heiden Heiland," which is, you know,
even though it's about the savior coming,
it's pretty grounded sounding.
Whereas, the Lassus is--
- A little more celestial, as you might expect from the title.
- So, and so we'll do those two as a set.
[piano]
♪ Nun komm,
♪ der Heiden Heiland,
♪ der Jungfrauen Kinderkannt,
♪ dab sich wunder alle Welt,
♪ Gott solch
♪ Geburt ihm bestellt.
♪ Lob sei Gott
♪ dem Vater tan,
♪ Lob sei Gott
♪ seim eingen Sohn,
♪ Lob sei Gott dem Heilgen
♪ Geist
♪ immer und in Ewigkeit.
♪ Ave Regina
♪ caelorum, caelorum,
♪ Ave Domina Angelorum,
♪ ♪
♪ vale, strips sancta.
♪ Per quam mundi lux est orta:
♪ vale, gloriosa,
♪ vale gloriosa,
♪ super omnes speciosa:
♪ salve, valde decora,
♪ ♪
♪ et pro nobis semper,
♪ et pro nobis semper Christum,
♪ et pro nobis semper,
♪ et pro nobis semper
♪ Christum exora.
[applause]
- Well, the Christmas season is one in which even
when you sing fairly cheerful, upbeat words, sometimes
it's with a tune that you would think of as being rather--
- Right.
- What would you say? Serious.
- Yeah. - To say the least.
- Deadly serious.
- But beautifully serious, I guess you would say.
So now you have three songs having to do with joy.
- Yes.
- In particular. - Coming up.
Coming soon.
The second one, "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen"
about the rose blossoming.
- Right. And the lineage.
- Tends usually to have this kind of quiet, very low key joy,
let's say. - Right, yeah.
We're not going to do it springy, but right.
But it will have a bloom to it.
It's about the blooming of the flower, right.
- And the first one about rejoicing.
- Yeah, and it's a 16th century Leonhart Schroöter.
This is rejoice, all Christians, you know.
But again, when you say it in German,
somehow it spins out differently.
"Freut ech, ihr lieben Christen," you know?
I think something about the German language
gives a wonderful spin.
Maybe it's the consonants that are so crisp and fresh.
And we're also doing the [inaudible German] Ros,
we're doing it in the original German for the same reason.
I think it changes the singing.
- And then another song of joy.
- And then, yeah, another song. Then we have two.
"O, How Joyfully," which is known as "O, Sanctissima."
Sometimes it can be sung in Italian or Latin.
And it's a Sicilian hymn.
And then a German hymn from the 19th century,
but we're doing it in English to keep everything mixed up.
- Keep everybody guessing.
- Yeah, we're doing "Beautiful Savior" in English.
You know, just harking back a little bit to the Lassus,
there was a time when, if you really enjoyed a piece of music,
you could not go on YouTubeand hear it again.
You had to get the parts or something.
- Or have a really good memory.
- And go to the piano and slug it out.
But that's the way music was made for so long.
And there was just such a beauty to that, you know?
Even though it was the hard way.
- More of a bonding process maybe.
- Right. Yes, right.
- The process of discovery, rediscovery.
- And so, anyway, we can never go back to that, of course.
Nor probably should we.
But there is--
Just something that always sits dear in my heart about it.
And, you know, the upright was the glue for the family
for a long time.
It was even designed for urban family enjoyment.
The upright was invented to prevent floor space
from being taken up so that the strings go up the wall
instead of eating the room in your small city apartment
as people are moving into the cities.
But it also gives you this wonderful sense of the sound
coming out, and people would have been right on it.
- So we'll get a sense of that too.
- Yeah, so here we go for "Freut euch."
[piano]
♪ Freut euch ihr lieben Christen,
♪ freut euch von Herzen sehr,
♪ euch is geboren Christus,
♪ Recht gute neue Mar!
♪ Es singen uns die Engel
♪ aus Gottes hohem Thron,
♪ gar lieblich tun sie singen
♪ furwahr ein suben Ton,
♪ Also tun sie nun singen,
♪ das Kindlein ist euch hold,
♪ es ist des Vaters Wille,
♪ Der hats also gewollt,
♪ Es ist euch dargegeben,
♪ dadurch ihr sollet han
♪ des Vaters Gunst und Segen,
♪ Sein Gnad ist aufgetan,
♪ des Vaters Gunst und Segen,
♪ Sein Gnad ist aufgetan.
♪ des Vaters Gunst und Segen,
♪ Sein Gnad ist aufgetan,
♪ Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
♪ aus einer Wurzel zart,
♪ wie uns die Alten sungen,
♪ von Jesse kam die Art
♪ und hat ein Blumlein bracht
♪ mitten im kalten Winter,
♪ wohl zuder halben Nacht.
♪ Das Blumelein so kleine,
♪ das duftet uns so sub,
♪ mit seinem hellen Scheine
♪ vertreibt's die Finsternis.
♪ Wahr Mensch und wahrer Gott,
♪ hilft uns aus allem Leide,
♪ rettet von Sund und Tod.
[piano music]
♪ Oh, how joyfully,
♪ Oh, how merrily
♪ Christmas comes with its grace divine!
♪ Grace again is beaming,
♪ Christ the world redeeming;
♪ Hail, ye Christians,
♪ hail the joyous Christmastime!
♪ Oh, how joyfully,
♪ Oh, how merrily
♪ Christmas comes with its peace divine!
♪ Peace on Earth is reigning,
♪ Christ our peace regaining,
♪ Hail, ye Christians,
♪ hail the joyous Christmastime!
[piano]
♪ Beautiful Savior,
♪ King of Creation,
♪ Son of God and Son of Man!
♪ Truly I'd love Thee,
♪ Truly I'd serve Thee,
♪ Light of my soul,
♪ my Joy, my Crown.
♪ Fair are the meadows,
♪ Fair are the woodlands,
♪ Robed in flow'rs of blooming spring;
♪ Jesus is fairer,
♪ Jesus is purer;
♪ He makes our sorr'wing spirit sing.
♪ Beautiful Savior,
♪ Lord of the nations,
♪ Son of God and Son of Man!
♪ Glory and honor,
♪ Praise, adoration,
♪ Now and forevermore be Thine!
[applause]
- Well, this makes me think, Trevor,
that the Victorians certainly did more than their share
to add to the repertoire of hymns and Christmas carols.
- Yes, right. Yes, quite a bit.
Of course, some people argue that Victorians invented
Christmas, which, of course, is a stretch.
- Yeah. Victoria and Prince Albert.
- Maybe Dickens single-handedly.
- Sure. - No, but they did.
They were very inspired by Christmas,
and they really took it to heart.
And I think, you know, they crafted a lot of the familial
feeling that we have with Christmas.
That was partly their invention.
So, yeah, and that last one was written, you know, in the 1840s.
And Felix Mendelssohn didn't write that piece,
but his spirit is in those harmonies as well.
- Very true.
I know these next four we can credit, I think,
pretty solidly to the Victorians.
The first one is by Charles Ives, written around 1920.
Yeah, but in a Victorian sensibility.
And, you know, Ives was a very emotional man.
[laughter]
And he was, at one moment,
railing at governments' faults and airplanes.
He hated airplanes every time they flew over, right?
And another moment he was
sobbing huge tears over a little flower or whatever.
I mean, he was a really cranked up person.
[laughter] But...
Like Van Gogh, he was an ecstatic.
And he catches something in this little one-page Christmas carol,
he calls it.
There's some kind of like regret in it that you can never really,
you can't live up to what it's all about.
And so, anyway, it's in his 121 songs that he published,
and we're thrilled to be doing it.
- And then a very familiar one.
- We're going to move on from that
to "O Little Town of Bethlehem," which is also 19th century.
And then for, you know, the American in us,
"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" written by,
the words are written by Longfellow
during the Civil War in 1863.
And it's about, it's about war, and it's about how peace
is always being pushed out.
And it's about, really, the struggle between war and peace.
And it comes out on the positive side,
but it's really quite in doubt. - It's pro-peace.
- Despair gets a big say in this one.
- Well, speaking of the Civil War, then this last one,
which is going to be very familiar by title,
but it's going to sound a little different
from what you're used to
because this is the way it originally was written
was actually written by a former Confederate clerk.
- Right. - Who was--
- But written before the war though.
J. Pierpont, right? - Yes.
And if that name sounds kind of familiar,
it's because he was the uncle of J.P. Morgan, the financier.
So he had some kind of interesting connections,
Pierpont did.
- But, of course, the beauty is
it's a southerner writing a piece about the snow,
and it's the one-horse open sleigh
and it's the jingle bells.
And the verse is similar to what we know a little bit.
- But the chorus.
- The chorus is completely different.
- Catchy though.
- It's very catchy and beautifully set
for a four-part harmony.
And just the piano part that goes wild and turns into--
Kind there's like
a barroom piano riff at the end of everything.
[laughter] It is. I'm not making it up.
It's what's written. I mean, it's--
- Pass the eggnog. - Pass the eggnog, right.
[laughter]
So, anyway, it really changed my life to hear it.
- Ives and three Victorians. - Yes.
[piano]
♪ Little star of Bethlehem!
♪ Do we see Thee now?
♪ Do we see Thee shining
♪ O'er the tall trees?
♪ Little Child of Bethlehem!
♪ Do we hear thee in our hearts?
♪ Hear the Angels singing:
♪ Peace on earth,
♪ good will to men!
♪ Noel!
♪ O'er the cradle of a King,
♪ Hear the Angels sing:
♪ In Excelsis
♪ Gloria, Gloria!
♪ From his Father's home on high,
♪ Lo!
♪ for us He came to die;
♪ Hear the Angels sing:
♪ Venite adoremus
♪ Dominum.
♪ O little town of Bethlehem,
♪ How still we see thee lie
♪ Above they deep and dreamless sleep
♪ The silent stars go by;
♪ Yet in thy dark street shineth
♪ The everlasting Light;
♪ The hopes and fears of all the years
♪ Are met in thee tonight.
♪ For Christ is born of Mary,
♪ And gathered all above;
♪ While mortals sleep, the angels keep
♪ Their watch of wond'ring love,
♪ O morning stars, together
♪ Proclaim the holy birth
♪ And praises sing to God, the King,
♪ And peace to men on earth.
♪ O holy Child of Bethlehem,
♪ Descend to us, we pray;
♪ Cast out our sin and enter in,
♪ Be born in us today.
♪ We hear the Christmas angels
♪ The great glad tidings tell:
♪ Oh, come to us, abide with us,
♪ Our Lord Emmanuel!
[piano music]
♪ I heard the bells on Christmas day
♪ Their old familiar carols play,
♪ And wild and sweet
♪ the words repeat
♪ Of peace on earth
♪ good will to men.
♪ I thought how, as the day had come,
♪ The belfries of all Christendom
♪ Had roll'd along th'un broken song
♪ Of peace on earth
♪ good will to men.
♪ And in despair I bow'd my head:
♪ "There is no peace on earth," I said,
♪ "For hate is strong
♪ and mocks the song
♪ Of peace on earth
♪ good will to men."
♪ Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
♪ "God is not dead,
♪ nor doth he sleep;
♪ The wrong shall fail,
♪ the right prevail,
♪ With peace on earth
♪ good will to men."
[spirited piano]
♪ Dashing thro' the snow,
♪ In a one horse open sleigh,
♪ O'er the hills we go, Laughing all the way;
♪ Bells on bobtail ring, Making spirits bright,
♪ Oh what sport to ride and sing A sleighing song tonight.
♪ - Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way;
♪ Oh! What joy it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
♪ Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way
♪ Oh! What joy it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
[playing piano at rapid tempo]
♪ A day or two ago I tho't I'd take a ride
♪ And soon Miss Fannie Bright was seated by my side,
♪ The horse was lean and lank
♪ Misfortune seem'd his lot.
♪ He got into adrifted bank And we-we got up sot.
♪ - Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way;
♪ Oh! What joy it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
♪ Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way
♪ Oh! What joy it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
[concludes with barroom riff on piano]
[applause]
- Isn't that a nice ride? - Isn't that a ride?
Just say a little bit about keys in the Victorians Era.
They generally tuned in an unequal fashion.
They still harkened back to the 18th century
where keys like C major had serenity and stillness
and keys closer to the top of the circle of fifths,
G major, D major, the commonly used keys.
The keys at the bottom of the circle of fifths, like A-flat,
like the piece we were just in, in the tuning itself
had more vibrato built right into the sound.
So here's A-flat.
[plays A-flat keys] [vocalizes B-r-r-r-r vibration]
And that's the "Jingle Bells" right there, right?
Whereas C...
[piano plays C]
Here's C. It's low blood pressure.
Right? Like that.
So, you know, they could write loud in C if they wanted to,
but these colors were at their disposal.
Everyone understood them and it's not a coincidence
that the one-horse open sleigh is written
in that very buzzy key of A-flat, and
that the solo that Scott sang, the Ives, was written in F,
which is a pastoral key and
is a very smooth key like that "Little Star of Bethlehem."
This is whole code that was understood
right up until about 1920, and we have the vestiges of it.
We understand that these keys had associations,
but we didn't know until pretty recently that it was actually
put into practice for hundreds of years with the tuning hammer
at the piano by the musicians and by the technicians as well.
So, I just wanted to point that out
because it's a great moment
to hear the contrast between those keys.
- A lot of fun in the treble, though, with the barroom.
- Oh, I know.
I always feel like I should have my beer right here.
- We'll have that for next time, for the sequel.
- Well, if there's any one composer who contributed
his share and then some to the Christmas repertoire,
it would be Bach.
- Johann Sebastian Bach, right.
And we're going to end with four songs that he harmonized,
and then finally a chorale,
which he also inherited and then harmonized.
Somewhere in Bach's life, I can't remember the exact year,
he was asked by another musician friend of his,
whose last name was Schemelli, right,
to harmonize a set of about 50 or so spiritual songs.
They were putting together like aReader's Digestof the day
book of pieces that people could, you know,
take and have a devotional time with.
And they were organized by subject.
There were Easter pieces, Christmas pieces,
pieces for hope, pieces to help you out of despair, whatever.
And so, these are four of the Christmas ones
that we're going to do here.
And the tunes, again Bach probably inherited these,
he might have written a few of the tunes,
but the harmonizations, what I'm playing in the keyboard part,
those are his masterful ideas of ways to harmonize
these great tunes that he had.
I think it you a chance,
when you hear the tune and then what's underneath it,
to maybe hear what Bach heard when he heard
somebody singing a melody.
He could hear all the infinite possibilities that
were being generated by that melody, and they come out in,
basically, the continual part, where I'm at here.
So we're going to do the first one, which is
"Oh, baby Jesus" sweet, "Oh, baby Jesus" mild,
your father's will you have fulfilled,
you've come to Earth to save us all,
and also you've stilled your father's anger.
It's, you know, an interesting sentiment.
[laughter]
But that's where they're coming from.
And then the second one will be sung-- We'll do that in unison.
And then Margaret will sing an alto solo.
The kind of pick yourself up, it's Christmas season feeling.
[speaking German] Ermuntre dich
Rise up, oh heart and have joy for the season.
Then, after that, we'll do a--
This is a soprano solo.
And the soprano is singing
how she will be standing at the cradle,
to watch over the baby Jesus.
This is a very typical 18th century German sentiment
that you, the parishioner, the person singing,
becomes involved in the action.
It's all over the passions and things like that.
So you're not just thinking about what happened
hundreds of years ago, you're participating in it.
And so it's in the first person, and it's active.
And so you're helping care for the baby Jesus.
And then the last one is a tenor solo,
and most interestingly about this one is
it's a complete French minuet.
You know, in Germany in the 18th century,
the highest style you could attain was to be French.
- Oh, yes. Anywhere else in Europe too.
- Oh, how things changed. [laughter]
But nevertheless, at fancy courts they spoke French.
The German court spoke French.
Frederick the Great at court spoke only French.
And everybody else did too, if they wanted to keep their head. [laughter]
So, anyway, this is in the high French style, this minuet.
And then we'll close with a chorale that is actually
the closing chorale in Bach's cantata number one,
"How Brightly Shines the Morning Star."
Nicoli had originally created this tune,
and Bach did a wonderful harmonization of it here.
And so we'll end with that.
[piano]
♪ O Jesulein sus, o Jesulein mild!
♪ Dein's Vaters Will'n hast du erfullt,
♪ bist kommen aus dem Himmelreich,
♪ uns armen Menschen worden gleich,
♪ o Jesulein sus, o Jesulein mild!
♪ O Jesulein sus, o Jesulein mild!
♪ Dein's Vaters Zorn has du gestillt,
♪ du zahlst fur uns all unser Schuld
♪ und bringst uns in dein's Vaters Huld,
♪ o Jesulein sus, o Jesulein mild!
♪ Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist,
♪ und trage gros Verlangen,
♪ ein kleines Kind,
♪ das Vater heist,
♪ mit Freuden zu empfangen;
♪ dies ist die Nacht, darin es kam
♪ und menschlich Wesen an sich nahm,
♪ dadurch die Welt mit Treuen
♪ als seine Braut zu freien.
♪ Lob, Preis und Dank,
♪ Herr Jesu Christ,
♪ sei dir von mir gesungen,
♪ das du mein Bruder worden bist
♪ und hast die Welt bezwungen.
♪ Hilf, das ich deine Guütigkeit
♪ stets preis in dieser Gnadenzeit
♪ und moög hernach dort oben
♪ in Ewigkeit dich loben.
♪ Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier,
♪ o Jesulein, mein Leben,
♪ ich stehe,
♪ bring und schenke dir,
♪ was du mir hast gegeben.
♪ Nimm hin,
♪ es ist mein Geist und Sinn,
♪ Herz, Seel und Mut,
♪ nimm alles hin
♪ und las dir's wohlgefallen.
♪ Ich lag in tiefster Todesnacht,
♪ du wurdest meine Sonne, die Sonne,
♪ die mir zugebracht
♪ Licht, Leben, Freud und Wonne.
♪ O Sonne, die das werte
♪ Licht des Glaubens in mir zugericht,
♪ wie schoön sind deine Strahlen.
[piano]
♪ Ihr Gestirn,
♪ ihr hohen Luüfte
♪ und du lichtes Firmament,
♪ tiefes Rund,
♪ ihr dunklen Kluüfte,
♪ die der Widerschall zertrennt,
♪ jauchzet froöhlich,
♪ lasst das Singen itzt bis durch
♪ die Wolken dringen.
♪ Bis willkommen,
♪ Heil der Erden!
♪ Bis willkommen, Jesulein!
♪ Dass wir moöchten Herren werden,
♪ stellst du als
♪ ein Knecht dich ein.
♪ Du verlaässt die hohen
♪ Thronen
♪ und willst
♪ nun hier
♪ unten wohnen.
♪ How brightly beams the morning star!
♪ What sudden radiance from afar
♪ Doth glad us with its shining?
♪ The ray of God that breaks our night
♪ And fills the darkened souls with light
♪ Who long for truth were pining
♪ Thy word,
♪ Jesus, truly feeds us
♪ Rightly leads us,
♪ life bestowing
♪ Praise, oh praise
♪ such love o'er flowing.
[applause]
- I'm Norman Gilliland.
I hope you enjoyed "Carols of Christmas Past"
and that you'll join me next time around
forUniversity Place Presents.
[applause]