Most attempts to have season relevant carols have failed badly. Of those which haven't, most have failed very badly have failed very badly. An exception to prove the rule is John Wheeler's:
The north wind is tossing the leaves,
The red dust hangs over the town,
The sparrows are under the eaves
And the grass in the paddocks is brown.
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ Child, our Heavenly King
I think one would have to say that, like or not, In the Bleak Midwinter is another that didn’t fail.
(I happen to love it, both the Holst and the Darke settings. But then, it has very personal and sentimental attachments for me.)
As does Wheeler's, which always make me a bit teary. In addition, he shows that you're not limited to changing reindeer into kangaroos.
My apologies. I’m a bit slow on the uptake today. I see now that what you meant was seasonally relevant in the Southern Hemisphere, not seasonally relevant generally.
In the Bleak Midwinter is a rather good poem. Good poems do not automatically become good songs when set to music.
In the case of In the Bleak Midwinter the words, if you speak them, have a no-nonsense simplicity: the lack of emoting is the point. No nonsense simplicity is just about the one mood music cannot do.
No nonsense simplicity is just about the one mood music cannot do.
I don’t know. At the least, I think there are folk tunes that convey no-nonsense simplicity quite well, at least if they’re allowed to be sung or played simply. The Eriskay Love Lilt comes to mind.
"Out on the plains the brolgas are dancing
Lifting their feet like warhorses prancing
Up to the sun the woodlarks go winging
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day."
An Australian student told me about this one at college many years ago. It doesn't really work for me but I'm guessing this strikes quite a chord with people in the relevant locations. The trouble is that Christmas has been northern-hemisphere-, Europe- and winter-related for so many centuries that it's quite hard to shift that perception of cold, snow, ice and general hardship.
As does Wheeler's, which always make me a bit teary. In addition, he shows that you're not limited to changing reindeer into kangaroos.
My apologies. I’m a bit slow on the uptake today. I see now that what you meant was seasonally relevant in the Southern Hemisphere, not seasonally relevant generally.
Yes - Christmas cards of snowy scenes aren't relevant here. The same for carols having their setting in northern Europe.
"Out on the plains the brolgas are dancing
Lifting their feet like warhorses prancing
Up to the sun the woodlarks go winging
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day."
An Australian student told me about this one at college many years ago. It doesn't really work for me but I'm guessing this strikes quite a chord with people in the relevant locations. The trouble is that Christmas has been northern-hemisphere-, Europe- and winter-related for so many centuries that it's quite hard to shift that perception of cold, snow, ice and general hardship.
No, it wouldn't work for you, nor for most posters on the Ship. But it's very relevant for us as more and more realise how inappropriate the snow theme is here. The forecast for Christmas Day in our part of suburban Sydney is a temperature range of 18 to 27, with a 10% chance of rain. Very different to that for much of the UK
Wheeler's scene is easy to imagine in many outback locations. Few people would have seen the wonder of brolgas dancing. These:
A New Zealand colleague once commented, as we made our way to the office carol concert on a miserable, dark, wet December day, "I see why you have Christmas in winter - you need a festival." He wasn't joking.
We are, of course, very used to it but I can see how it would work to celebrate Christmas as a birthday in the summer as a joyful, outgoing sort of event, and have Easter in the autumn, when everything around is on the wane. It would mean, though, at the nadir of winter you don't get that sense of a midwinter festival, unless you're intentionally marking the solstice. That might not be necessary in some countries where the weather is warmer anyway and less prone to snow and ice, but might be hard for some.
From our point of view though it would mean a conscious effort and a bit of a struggle, probably, to adjust.
Anyway, I'm aware this is a digression from the topic, so I'll finish here.
My pet aversion is 'The Cowboy Carol', popularised, I believe, by Sir Malcolm Sargent, AKA 'Flash Harry':
There'll be a new World beginning from tonight,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight,
When I jump into my saddle
Gonna take Him to my heart,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight.
What? Why? and where is the connection to Christmas.
Another one that I can't warm to is 'Mary's Boy-Child', but I can't put my finger on why it doesn't appeal.
My pet aversion is 'The Cowboy Carol', popularised, I believe, by Sir Malcolm Sargent, AKA 'Flash Harry':
There'll be a new World beginning from tonight,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight,
When I jump into my saddle
Gonna take Him to my heart,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight.
My pet aversion is 'The Cowboy Carol', popularised, I believe, by Sir Malcolm Sargent, AKA 'Flash Harry':
There'll be a new World beginning from tonight,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight,
When I jump into my saddle
Gonna take Him to my heart,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight.
I've just felt a memory twitch somewhere.
There's a few Christmas songs/carols that I don't care for, but I don't think there's any I hate. But I'm genuinely shocked by the dislike of O Holy Night (aka Minuit Chretiens expressed on this thread
Unlike some of the other contributors to this thread, I've no aversion to O Holy Night especially when sung well by a good soloist.
HOWEVER
I encountered it yesterday, in a church where I was a visitor, for the first time in my life sung as a congregational hymn for Christmas Day. It really does not work. The fluid, C19 opera style rhythm may enable a soloist to express fervour, but it completely threw the congregation. Several times they got out of synch with each other. It also soars far too high for any normal voices to be able to reach. Once that had happened the first time, each time the high patch recurred one could almost hear the congregation's alarm as it approached again, more so even than in the hymn I cannot tell to Danny Boy. That goes very high, and one can sense the congregational memory as people suddenly realises 'this is the one with the really high note and I can't reach'.
So if it's that experience that has prompted the widespread dislike of O holy night on this thread, I can now see why.
May I share here the legendary news headline: 'Sibelius dies after hearing Fifth Symphony conducted by Sargent'?
Thanks for reminding me of that 😂🤣😂🤣
In return may I offer Beecham's skewering of two musical narcissists in one neat phrase? TB's description of Herbert von Karajan as "... a kind of musical Malcolm Sargent".
Unlike some of the other contributors to this thread, I've no aversion to O Holy Night especially when sung well by a good soloist.
HOWEVER
I encountered it yesterday, in a church where I was a visitor, for the first time in my life sung as a congregational hymn for Christmas Day. It really does not work. The fluid, C19 opera style rhythm may enable a soloist to express fervour, but it completely threw the congregation. Several times they got out of synch with each other. It also soars far too high for any normal voices to be able to reach. Once that had happened the first time, each time the high patch recurred one could almost hear the congregation's alarm as it approached again, more so even than in the hymn I cannot tell to Danny Boy. That goes very high, and one can sense the congregational memory as people suddenly realises 'this is the one with the really high note and I can't reach'.
So if it's that experience that has prompted the widespread dislike of O holy night on this thread, I can now see why.
"I cannot tell" doesn't go higher than many other hymns. The problem with it is it also goes low to accommodate the range and the high note is jumped up to rather than worked up to.
@KarlLB The problem with O, Holy Night, Silent Night and The Londonderry Air is the tessitura or range. One of the consequences of people having easy access to recorded music is that they sing less, particularly as children, so they never stretch or develop their voices's range. The disappearance of poetry recitation from the curriculum hasn't helped.
Having voice-tested children for choirs for nearly 50 years I can say that the average range of a child I test now is roughly an octave (8 notes). In a voice test I can usually get them to widen their range, singing scales and arpeggios, by a note at each end of their range. Voice tests in 1974 (the earliest records I have) show an average range of a twelfth before taking them through scales and arpeggios, and a 14th or 15th after. The older a child gets the longer it takes to widen their range. Of my current crop of juniors, the youngest now has a range of a 17th; the rest all have 2 octaves - that is after one term with training for 2 hours per week.
Silent Night and The Londonderry Air have a range of an 11th, O Holy Night is a twelfth, hence the problem.
Unlike some of the other contributors to this thread, I've no aversion to O Holy Night especially when sung well by a good soloist.
HOWEVER
I encountered it yesterday, in a church where I was a visitor, for the first time in my life sung as a congregational hymn for Christmas Day. It really does not work. The fluid, C19 opera style rhythm may enable a soloist to express fervour, but it completely threw the congregation. Several times they got out of synch with each other. It also soars far too high for any normal voices to be able to reach. Once that had happened the first time, each time the high patch recurred one could almost hear the congregation's alarm as it approached again, more so even than in the hymn I cannot tell to Danny Boy. That goes very high, and one can sense the congregational memory as people suddenly realises 'this is the one with the really high note and I can't reach'.
So if it's that experience that has prompted the widespread dislike of O holy night on this thread, I can now see why.
I had the same experience yesterday, with the same result, and the added hassle of it being in poorly adapted Vietnamese—so we had single syllables being asked to stretch over two notes, which is generally a Thing You Do Not Do in this tonal language.
Do They Know It’s Christmas, especially for that dreadful line “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”
Don't like songs that aren't truthful. "There won't be snow in Africa this winter?" Look at Mt Kilimanjaro you plonker
Ah yes. I've just remembered "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In".
"... The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
Right, well, that's two, who or what was in the third ship?
"...O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
There are actually two Bethlehems in Israel, and you can't actually sail into either of them given how far they both are inland, but never mind, it's the thought that counts, and it's a cheery old tune.
There are actually two Bethlehems in Israel, and you can't actually sail into either of them given how far they both are inland, but never mind, it's the thought that counts, and it's a cheery old tune.
Ah, these are the sort of lyrics I think are fascinating, because however little sense they make if taken literally, they may tell us something about the world of the people who first sang the carol, especially if we remember that the words we know likely aren’t the original version(s).
The lyrics mention the ships sailing into Bethlehem, but the nearest body of water is the Dead Sea about 20 miles (32 km) away. The reference to three ships is thought to originate in the three ships that bore the purported relics of the Biblical magi to Cologne Cathedral in the 12th century. Another possible reference is to Wenceslaus II, King of Bohemia, who bore a coat of arms “Azure three galleys argent.” Another suggestion is that the ships are actually the camels used by the Magi, as camels are frequently referred to as “ships of the desert.”
This site, which is given as a source for the above quote, does suggest that originally it was the Magi on the ships.
Out of interest, where in your experience roughly does that untrained octave generally lie?
No hard-and-fast rule. I have one 9 year old whose lowest note even now if F above middle C but floats up past C2 (2 octaves above) with ease. His brother naturally pitches around G with 7 notes on either side.
Generally speaking the current crop could sing C to C1 or D1 on arrival.
I have found that my clients can develop an increased range by sirening rather than singing scales. Doing gentle vocal stretches in this way means that the vocal use is smoother and less of a strain. I find it helpful myself to always siren before singing.
Out of interest, where in your experience roughly does that untrained octave generally lie?
No hard-and-fast rule. I have one 9 year old whose lowest note even now if F above middle C but floats up past C2 (2 octaves above) with ease. His brother naturally pitches around G with 7 notes on either side.
Generally speaking the current crop could sing C to C1 or D1 on arrival.
That's quite surprising. Primary school choirs around here tend to sing in their boots. Often songs from shows (e.g. Greatest Showman*) that take the tune well below middle C. It's a bit sad because the sound is very lifeless and has no projection. It'd be like me singing bass - yeah, I'd produce the notes but they'd have little value.
*at risk of digression I loathe "A million dreams". Taking a pre-voice break child singer down to the E below middle C is just daft.
I just want to put in a late addition of "Silver Bells" to the hate list--it just seems like hymn to shopping, with a little subliminal nod to the Sally Army, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't help.
I just want to put in a late addition of "Silver Bells" to the hate list--it just seems like hymn to shopping, with a little subliminal nod to the Sally Army, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't help.
I just want to put in a late addition of "Silver Bells" to the hate list--it just seems like hymn to shopping, with a little subliminal nod to the Sally Army, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't help.
I just want to put in a late addition of "Silver Bells" to the hate list--it just seems like hymn to shopping, with a little subliminal nod to the Sally Army, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't help.
I'd regard linking that Bing travesty with the Salvation Army as deeply offensive to the latter. This is the Salvation Army 'bells' version of While Shepherds watched. It's completely different and unrelated. It's also found in the Sheffield repertoire.
I just want to put in a late addition of "Silver Bells" to the hate list--it just seems like hymn to shopping, with a little subliminal nod to the Sally Army, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't help.
I'd regard linking that Bing travesty with the Salvation Army as deeply offensive to the latter. This is the Salvation Army 'bells' version of While Shepherds watched.
@Enoch, in the US, this is what linking bells and the Salvation Army refers to. It’s probably the first thing, and maybe the only thing, the average American associates with the Salvation Army, which here tends to be viewed more as a charitable organization than a church as such. The bell ringers are typically community volunteers, not SA members.
@Enoch's link reminds me that the Vicar of the Church of my Youth introduced us to the chiming bells version of While shepherds watched, and I've liked it ever since.
As per the video, it needs to be taken at a reasonably quick pace.
There are actually two Bethlehems in Israel, and you can't actually sail into either of them given how far they both are inland, but never mind, it's the thought that counts, and it's a cheery old tune.
Ah, these are the sort of lyrics I think are fascinating, because however little sense they make if taken literally, they may tell us something about the world of the people who first sang the carol, especially if we remember that the words we know likely aren’t the original version(s).
The lyrics mention the ships sailing into Bethlehem, but the nearest body of water is the Dead Sea about 20 miles (32 km) away. ...
Btw, thanks a lot for this. Yes, it certainly is an interesting insight into bygone days, when people knew less about the world and didn't travel as much as they do now.
@Enoch, in the US, this is what linking bells and the Salvation Army refers to. It’s probably the first thing, and maybe the only thing, the average American associates with the Salvation Army, which here tends to be viewed more as a charitable organization than a church as such. The bell ringers are typically community volunteers, not SA members.
Though as you can see, the bells aren’t silver.
I didn't know about this thing with Bells and the Salvation Army. At least on this side of the pond you get a nice brass band by the collecting tin
I think Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade should be available to the Magistrates as a Penalty.
'You have been found guilty of shoplifting. As this is not your first offence, you are sentenced to listen to Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade on a loop for eight hours a day for 14 days.'
'No - not that Your Worship! Have mercy! Hang me instead!'
I think Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade should be available to the Magistrates as a Penalty.
'You have been found guilty of shoplifting. As this is not your first offence, you are sentenced to listen to Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade on a loop for eight hours a day for 14 days.'
'No - not that Your Worship! Have mercy! Hang me instead!'
There so much that is so much worse. Cliff Richard's Christmas output for example.
... not to mention There's no-one quite like Grandma by St Winifred's School Choir.
Isn't that the one with dear old Bernard Cribbins sitting in a chair while the little girls of the choir gather round him singing sweetly? Shame on you!
Comments
(I happen to love it, both the Holst and the Darke settings. But then, it has very personal and sentimental attachments for me.)
In the case of In the Bleak Midwinter the words, if you speak them, have a no-nonsense simplicity: the lack of emoting is the point. No nonsense simplicity is just about the one mood music cannot do.
Lifting their feet like warhorses prancing
Up to the sun the woodlarks go winging
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing
Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day."
An Australian student told me about this one at college many years ago. It doesn't really work for me but I'm guessing this strikes quite a chord with people in the relevant locations. The trouble is that Christmas has been northern-hemisphere-, Europe- and winter-related for so many centuries that it's quite hard to shift that perception of cold, snow, ice and general hardship.
Yes - Christmas cards of snowy scenes aren't relevant here. The same for carols having their setting in northern Europe.
No, it wouldn't work for you, nor for most posters on the Ship. But it's very relevant for us as more and more realise how inappropriate the snow theme is here. The forecast for Christmas Day in our part of suburban Sydney is a temperature range of 18 to 27, with a 10% chance of rain. Very different to that for much of the UK
Wheeler's scene is easy to imagine in many outback locations. Few people would have seen the wonder of brolgas dancing. These:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Brolgas+dancing&t=braveed&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/June2001/img/f_balldale.jpg&pn=3
will give you some idea.
We are, of course, very used to it but I can see how it would work to celebrate Christmas as a birthday in the summer as a joyful, outgoing sort of event, and have Easter in the autumn, when everything around is on the wane. It would mean, though, at the nadir of winter you don't get that sense of a midwinter festival, unless you're intentionally marking the solstice. That might not be necessary in some countries where the weather is warmer anyway and less prone to snow and ice, but might be hard for some.
From our point of view though it would mean a conscious effort and a bit of a struggle, probably, to adjust.
Anyway, I'm aware this is a digression from the topic, so I'll finish here.
There'll be a new World beginning from tonight,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight,
When I jump into my saddle
Gonna take Him to my heart,
There'll be a new world beginning from tonight.
What? Why? and where is the connection to Christmas.
Another one that I can't warm to is 'Mary's Boy-Child', but I can't put my finger on why it doesn't appeal.
Nope. Never heard that one, thanks be to God.
I learned the other day that "Mary's Boy Child" only dates from the 1950s. I always thought of it as by that well known writer 'Trad Anon'.
In the same vein, I don't mind the Little Drummer Boy sung by children, but I'm not keen on renditions by barrel-chested middle aged tenors.
I've just felt a memory twitch somewhere.
There's a few Christmas songs/carols that I don't care for, but I don't think there's any I hate. But I'm genuinely shocked by the dislike of O Holy Night (aka Minuit Chretiens expressed on this thread
HOWEVER
I encountered it yesterday, in a church where I was a visitor, for the first time in my life sung as a congregational hymn for Christmas Day. It really does not work. The fluid, C19 opera style rhythm may enable a soloist to express fervour, but it completely threw the congregation. Several times they got out of synch with each other. It also soars far too high for any normal voices to be able to reach. Once that had happened the first time, each time the high patch recurred one could almost hear the congregation's alarm as it approached again, more so even than in the hymn I cannot tell to Danny Boy. That goes very high, and one can sense the congregational memory as people suddenly realises 'this is the one with the really high note and I can't reach'.
So if it's that experience that has prompted the widespread dislike of O holy night on this thread, I can now see why.
Thanks for reminding me of that 😂🤣😂🤣
In return may I offer Beecham's skewering of two musical narcissists in one neat phrase? TB's description of Herbert von Karajan as "... a kind of musical Malcolm Sargent".
"I cannot tell" doesn't go higher than many other hymns. The problem with it is it also goes low to accommodate the range and the high note is jumped up to rather than worked up to.
Having voice-tested children for choirs for nearly 50 years I can say that the average range of a child I test now is roughly an octave (8 notes). In a voice test I can usually get them to widen their range, singing scales and arpeggios, by a note at each end of their range. Voice tests in 1974 (the earliest records I have) show an average range of a twelfth before taking them through scales and arpeggios, and a 14th or 15th after. The older a child gets the longer it takes to widen their range. Of my current crop of juniors, the youngest now has a range of a 17th; the rest all have 2 octaves - that is after one term with training for 2 hours per week.
Silent Night and The Londonderry Air have a range of an 11th, O Holy Night is a twelfth, hence the problem.
I had the same experience yesterday, with the same result, and the added hassle of it being in poorly adapted Vietnamese—so we had single syllables being asked to stretch over two notes, which is generally a Thing You Do Not Do in this tonal language.
Ah yes. I've just remembered "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In".
"... The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
Right, well, that's two, who or what was in the third ship?
"...O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
There are actually two Bethlehems in Israel, and you can't actually sail into either of them given how far they both are inland, but never mind, it's the thought that counts, and it's a cheery old tune.
FWIW, The Wiki says: This site, which is given as a source for the above quote, does suggest that originally it was the Magi on the ships.
No hard-and-fast rule. I have one 9 year old whose lowest note even now if F above middle C but floats up past C2 (2 octaves above) with ease. His brother naturally pitches around G with 7 notes on either side.
Generally speaking the current crop could sing C to C1 or D1 on arrival.
That's quite surprising. Primary school choirs around here tend to sing in their boots. Often songs from shows (e.g. Greatest Showman*) that take the tune well below middle C. It's a bit sad because the sound is very lifeless and has no projection. It'd be like me singing bass - yeah, I'd produce the notes but they'd have little value.
*at risk of digression I loathe "A million dreams". Taking a pre-voice break child singer down to the E below middle C is just daft.
C-1
Can’t say I know that one
Thanks. I lasted about 30 seconds.
You're not missing much!
That long?
Though as you can see, the bells aren’t silver.
As per the video, it needs to be taken at a reasonably quick pace.
That's still one up on our local elementary schools, who seem to each field a choir that sings mostly in shout.
'You have been found guilty of shoplifting. As this is not your first offence, you are sentenced to listen to Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade on a loop for eight hours a day for 14 days.'
'No - not that Your Worship! Have mercy! Hang me instead!'
There so much that is so much worse. Cliff Richard's Christmas output for example.
Oh cr*p - that is going to be going round my head for a good while!
Isn't that the one with dear old Bernard Cribbins sitting in a chair while the little girls of the choir gather round him singing sweetly? Shame on you!