Set I
i. Once in Royal David's City
Text: Cecil Frances Alexander
Music: Henry John Gauntlett
From Alexander's 1848 collection Hymns for Little Children (which also includes the likes of "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "There Is A Green Hill Far Away") the text of "Once in Royal David's City" is a sweet, quite innocent elucidation of a foundational, and complex liturgical moment.
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Since Christmas Eve 1919, when organist Arthur Henry "Daddy" Mann arranged Gauntlett's tune "Irby" as a processional at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, this hymn has traditionally begun with a single, child's voice singing the first first.
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Nothing introduces the Christmas season quite like it. Sing with us!
ii. Wexford Carol
Uncertain; 15th - 16th Century Ireland (Enniscorthy)
Transcribed by: William Henry Grattan Flood (1859-1928)
Arr. Joel Tranquilla
It's not entirely accurate to call this arrangement "Wexford Carol", as Tranquilla has created a fanciful, simultaneous quodlibet (your word for the day) that plays with both melody and meter - interweaving eight well-known carols into a musical conversation between the choral sections.
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Now that we've got our own heads around it, we invite you to listen for each tune as it enters in this delightful Christmas mash up.
iii. Rosa Mystica (I)
Text: Gerard Manley Hopkins
Music: Benjamin Britten
The second movement in Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (1939; posthumously published and unperformed until 1989) is an unmistakable Britten-blend of devotional text and modern composition. A pedal-point ostinato (a repeating, single note rhythmic pattern) from the lower voices is decorated with a waltz-like, hypnotic melody in parallel thirds from the sopranos and altos: The Rose is a Mystery, where is it found? Is it anything true?
Britten's craftsmanship is on full display, and the piece demands confident precision, and emotional dedication. We love it. We know you will, too.
iv. Rosa Mystica (II)
Text: 15th Century Middle English Carol
Music: Andrew Balfour
Balfour's fascination with medieval polyphony is layered in with his venturesome love of shimmering overtones and "natural" sounds in this devotional piece full of tone colour and space.
Like Britten, Balfour employs pedal points and droning, open intervals to create a meditative stability, and floats a melody over top, creating more of an experience than a composition.
Singing what comes out of Balfour's brain can be almost transcendental, but it takes a lot of practice.
v. O Come All Ye Faithful
Commonly attributed to: John Francis Wade
Translated by Frederick Oakeley from Adeste Fideles
Though its origins are up for conjecture (the 18th Century nickname for it was "The Portuguese Hymn") there is no question of this Victorian standard as a rousing, thoroughly singable classic, and when the organ dips into a minor sonority in the penultimate verse, it's impossible not to get goose bumps.
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Don't hold back!
vi. Christus Natus Est
Text: Countee Cullen
Music: Rosephanye Powell
“For bird and beast / He did not come, / But for the least / Of mortal scum.” “Who lies in ditch? Who begs his bread? Who has no stitch for back or head?”
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This setting of Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen's striking contrast between the joy of the Nativity and earthly human suffering, builds a tableau in a repeated litany of "Christus Natus Est" ("Christ is born") - an insistent shout of hope against a backdrop of despair.
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Hope wins in the end, with a final, optimistic Picardy third.
vii. Serenity (O Magnum Mysterium)
Gjeilo is simply delicious, and this lush, SSAATTBB masterpiece is a fitting testament to the awe, reverence and mystery surrounding the legend of Christ's birth. Signature modal shifts and complex harmonies underneath the melodic counterpart of a solo cello create a seamless, pulsing atmosphere.
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We're delighted to have the incomparable Emily Kennedy with us to make this a truly memorable performance.
viii. Seek Him That Maketh
The Seven Stars
Text: Amos 5: 8; Psalm 139
Music: Jonathan Dove
Commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1995, this sweeping work is based on a biblical reference to the Pleiades star cluster, and carries the listener on a journey through awe into joy in both its text and composition. Along with rich, intense choral arrangements, soaring melodies and dramatic shifts in both key and meter, the pipe organ accompaniment is superb; interweaving rhythmic motifs and animating the work with theatrical registration changes and subtle mirroring. The whole thing is like a soundtrack for Carl Sagan's Cosmos Ship of The Imagination.
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Honestly, just sit back and take it in.
ix. Go, Tell It On The Mountain
Spiritual: pre-Civil War Southern U.S.
First Written Version: John Wesley Work Jr.
Arr. Shawn Kirchner
Well, of course we'd include this globally recognized call-and-response spiritual. We figure if everyone from Mahalia Jackson to Peter Paul and Mary can have a stab at it, why not us? And we're asking for your help!
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Shawn Kirchner's romp through this classic ear worm has a touch of jazz, a bundle of colour, and a ton of gospel energy. Merry Christmas!
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(End of Set I)
Set II
x. A Winter Day
Text and Music: Sarah Quartel
Cello: Emily Kennedy
In less than a decade, Sarah Quartel has firmly established herself among Canada's choral elite. The five movement "A Winter Day" sets texts by Sara Teasdale, Lucy Maude Montgomery and Melville Cane, and vividly paints its way from cold, starlit anticipation to the contemplative glow at the end of an identifiably Canadian winter day.
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I. Timid Star
2. A Winter Dawn
3. Into Morning
4. A Winter Day
6. Snow Toward Evening
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xi. Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Let It Snow!
Text: Sammy Cahn
Music: Jule Styne
So it turns out that a lot of of Christmas classics were written by guys from the East Coast living in California: White Christmas; Silver Bells; The Christmas Song; Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas; Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - apparently Santa has a hard time squeezing in next to a window-mounted air conditioner, and it generates sentimentality around the kind of weather that Canadians just sigh and deal with.
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Sing out, but not too enthusiastically - a lot of us have to drive home.
xii. Song For Snow
Text: Elizabeth Coatsworth
Music: Florence Price
From the mind of the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, comes a delicate, surprisingly understated word painting, coloring in the childlike wonder at a blanket of new fallen snow.
You'll find yourself wishing there was more.
xiii. Glorious, Glorious
Text: Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol
Music: Dale Trumbore
Scrooge's revelatory awakening to chiming bells on Christmas morning is joyfully trumpeted out in this clear, direct, evocative and quintessentially festive a cappella piece with the word painting of an English madrigal, and the exuberance of a Dickensian-era drinking song.
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I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel. Oh, glorious, glorious!
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xiv. The Rose / Lo How A Rose
The Rose: Words and music by Amanda McBroom
Lo How A Rose E'er Blooming: Michael Pratorious
Arr. Craig Hella Johnson
We need to get this out of the way: Yes. Amanda McBroom, author of the iconic Bette Midler hit "The Rose" was on Star Trek: The Next Generation (Captain Phillipa Louvois; season 2, episode 9 -The Measure of a Man). And yes, she reportedly penned it after her manager suggested that she write "some Bob Seger-type tunes" in order to get a record deal. And yes, it was a #1 hit on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart. ​
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However.
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Craig Hella Johnson has taken this enduring wedding /memorial service/talent show favorite, and combined it with Michael Praetorius's 1609 arrangement of the English carol Lo How A Rose E'er Blooming to produce something quite unique. The two pieces are blended in a call-and-answer style, allowing the melodies and texts to comment on each other, and emphasize the underlying theme of love and hope. The result is very, very pretty. Like a rose.
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xv. Have Yourself
A Merry Little Christmas
Though there's no direct reference to snow in this one, it's still a couple of expat New Yorkers delivering sehnsucht for something less Californian at Christmastime. And as to whether all our troubles will be out of sight by next year, well, if the fates allow...
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Don't pretend you don't know it. We need you to keep the melody going while the choir mucks about with jazzy chords and stuff.
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