That time of the year

[crfriend]

Well, the season's upon us so it's time to drag out some familiar music that's been with me in my mind since I was a teenager.

Greg Lake's I Believe in Father Christmas has dwelt quietly in my mind since it was first written, and when it received airplay. Of course, once it actually turned out to be a fairly nasty piece that was actually a protest of the increasing commercialization of the holiday it stopped getting airplay and "went to ground.

Interestingly, and in the spirit of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the use of classical music shines through. A tune that I have so long held to be one of the happy moments of the season actually sprang from the pen and mind of Prokofiev and is called "Trioka" and describes in music a ride in a three-horse sleigh. This is also a piece that I took care to teach myself on the bowed psaltery, albeit with a very interesting bowing technique which classical teachers certainly frown upon.

Sapphire found another version a few days ago, performed a couple of years ago. It's quite different, but yet still mostly true to the original. The newer version is more mature than the original, and a lot softer in tone. However, it's worth a good listen; both have strong merit. The lyrics are identical, but the deliveries diverge -- and that's where the magic is. I cannot now figure out which one I prefer, and suspect that both performances will retain a place in my mind.

Long may music dwell within! Without music, sometimes I think I would be utterly lost.

[Kirbstone]

Hi Carl,
Two lovely tracks and like you say, difficult to 'prefer' one over the other.

This year it has fallen to me to organise and accompany our local U3A Christmas Party musical entertainments on the 16th, lasting about an hour & a bit.
I have strong-armed likely suspects who can be relied upon to entertain for a few minutes each, but the round-up at the end will be a secular Christmas sing-along medley, for which I am preparing hand-out word sheets.

We'll kick-off with 'White Christmas' and progress through various including 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland' and 'Santa Claus is coming to Town', ending with 'We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy N.Y.', whereupon Muggins here will take them all off on Leroy Anderson's original 'Sleigh Ride', delivered at speed, so if anyone bails out, they'll get a face-full of snow!!

On Nov. 27th. four years ago our temps. plummeted to lows of minus 18deg. Centurion continuous for five whole weeks until Boxing Day. Lots of trees still had some sap in them and were all lost. I'm happy to say that right now it's 2-5 deg. plus out there and our dogs are doing their 'choir practice', howling at the Moon.

Tom

Tom

[Departed Member]

For those in the US and enjoy Handel's Messiah, you might find this of interest, produced by Brigham Young University:

http://www.byutv.org/watch/c981eb70-319 ... a6b70d6946

[crfriend]

That bit on Handel was a good watch, and thank you "Potbelly" (a great moniker that!) for posting it.

The piece Hallelujah is, indeed, one of the immortals. I keep one particular cut of it around, done by Mannheim Steamroller, for use as a reference piece for hi-fi kit and comparing the compression performance of various audio-compression tools. Even at 53 my ears are still good enough to handily detect the difference between a raw-digital version and an MP3, as well as being able to detect the sonic differences between several different MP3 encoders (I've gone over to using FLAC for important stuff, and for really important stuff I don't compress at all).

[Big and Bashful]

There are two, no, three Christmas songs which I do like, most others either deepen my Christmas depression or make me vomit!
Thanks to Carl for reminding me about Greg Lake's masterpiece, I probably like it because it definitely isn't a sickly sweet lovey dovey hateful piece of Christmas trash. I think I need to listen to it again to get it's true meaning, I haven't really sat down and analysed the lyrics, I just liked the melancholy feel of the song.
I also liked Jona Lewie's song (I bet the name is misspelled, sorry) "Stop the Cavalry". It gets a lot of Christmas play but wasn't written for that, being about the trenches in WW1 if my memory serves me right.
Oh yes, the other classic for me is the Pogues "Fairy Tale of New York" which I never tire of hearing. I have listened to Christy Moore's original version, but the Pogues nailled it. I remember seeing that song on a juke box in a pub getting everyone going, just brilliant, and again, not about Chriistmas or sleighbells or robins or any of the other sludge that has stuck to the boots of Christmas, it is just a song which really works at this time of year.

Reading through that, you can probably tell I don't really enjoy Christmas.

P.S. Bah!

P.P.S. Humbug!

[crfriend]

Thanks to Carl for reminding me about Greg Lake's masterpiece, I probably like it because it definitely isn't a sickly sweet lovey dovey hateful piece of Christmas trash. I think I need to listen to it again to get it's true meaning, I haven't really sat down and analysed the lyrics, I just liked the melancholy feel of the song.

You're more than welcome for it. I've cherished that piece since it debuted in the 1970s. (Yes, when I was still young.)

Oh yes, the other classic for me is the Pogues "Fairy Tale of New York" which I never tire of hearing.

Oh, my. That piece is just astonishingly beautiful and agonizing at the same time -- in true Pogues fashion. Thank you for pointing that one up! It's a keeper.

Reading through that, you can probably tell I don't really enjoy Christmas.

Yer a scrooge ye are, and that's all you'll ever be! But we love you anyway.

Humbug or no. (There's a story behind that, perhaps best left for another time.)

[Kirbstone]

I'm afraid my proposed Christmas sing-along content will fall right into the middle of B&B's Xmas slush category, but my audience/fellow revellers are all well over retirement age and still like the old slushy stuff.

Tom

[crfriend]

[... M]y audience/fellow revellers are all well over retirement age and still like the old slushy stuff.

I only have fragmented memories of it, but many, many years ago an old roommate of mine and I worked up a decidedly satirical and entirely raciest derivative of "White Christmas". If memory serves, it started out, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones we had down South/where the chains were a ringing' and slaves were a singing'" and it went decidedly downhill from there and my memory fails, which is probably a good thing.

I am positive that Dr. Kirby's guests will be duly entertained and have an entirely enjoyable evening. I wish I could be there. (And, yes, I'd show up in a skirt and scandalize the place.) 'Tis a pity it's on the wrong side of an ocean.

[skirtyscot]

Ah, The Fairy Tale of New York, what a song! A man and a woman give each other verbal abuse for three minutes and it somehow becomes a big hit. Love it!

The Prokofiev piece is part of his Lieutenant Kijé suite, which has been well plagiarised (or sampled?). Sting used a bit in his song Russians, and the Royal Bank of Scotland lifted another bit fit an advert. Not bad for a piece of music which could have remained in obscurity. It started out as the incidental music for a Soviet film which, apparently without irony, parodied the Tsarist era for its craven kowtowing to the Tsar, who could not be contradicted and always got his way without question.

[crfriend]

The Prokofiev piece is part of his Lieutenant Kijé suite, which has been well plagiarised [... and which] started out as the incidental music for a Soviet film which, apparently without irony, parodied the Tsarist era for its craven kowtowing to the Tsar, who could not be contradicted and always got his way without question.

These are the things that make life interesting (and a bit more fun)! It's in the same vein that I wonder why it's always the 1812 Overture that gets played on Independence Day in the US. It's always a good party, though, and we get to see the 105mm howitzers fire off blanks down by the banks of the River Charles. (... "That's where you'll find me, along with muggers, buggers, and thieves.")

I feel a special pity for those who do not know or appreciate music, for music is the one truly universal language. What other art form has the power to connect across language and culture?

[skirtyscot]

Well, the 1812 Overture celebrated victory in a past war, just like your Independence Day does now. Only difference is one was defence against invasion, but the other was secession. A mere pecadillo!

[crfriend]

Well, the 1812 Overture celebrated victory in a past war, just like your Independence Day does now. Only difference is one was defence against invasion, but the other was secession. A mere pecadillo!

My comment had more to do with the (re-)use of Russian Music on "our" (the US') "big day" instead of any of the truly wonderful music that's been composed here. Why not feature the wonderful work of Aaron Copeland, or if the psyche somehow needs a "furriner", Antonin Dvorak (whose exquisite From the New World composition is one I've used to introduce non-classical listeners into the realm very successfully)?

I cannot be the only one who finds the use of Tchaikovsky slightly funny as a highlight of the US' Independence Day beginning during the years of Détente. Don't get me wrong, the piece does capture the feel, but from a purely political perspective, especially given the timeframe involved, somehow gives me pause. (What torques me off, year to year, is that they abridge it more and more; eventually there's be nothing left but the cannons, and eventually those'll get banned due to "gun control".)

I have a number of recordings of the 1812 Overture, and my favourite remains one that features local church bells pealing at the conclusion of the orchestral performance. That grounds the entire thing so spectacularly that it's my "go-to" version every time (the other one was recorded in the 1950s using authentic brass cannons). Those records (remember those 12-inch platters of vinyl? Oh, and where is Jack Williams when we need his voice!), however, seldom see playing time as I regard them now as precious; I should do a over-sampled digitization run on them...

[Kirbstone]

My earliest intro. to the '1812' was in 1959 when my eldest brother had invested in a new-fangled Stereo radiogram and his recording featured 'the Bells of Harkness' for the final movement. The record featured also an oral explanation of how they recorded the cannons.
They first recorded actual cannons, which cracked off unimpressively, then they ran that recording at half speed, giving those same cannons a prolonged basso-profundo roar, which is what they spliced into the bells &c to produce an impressive finale. I don't know who produced that particular 12" vinyl, though.

Tom

[Kilted_John]

Tom,

Somewhere I have the same LP. Think we also have the CD version of it.

-J

[pelmut]

Well, the 1812 Overture celebrated victory in a past war, just like your Independence Day does now. Only difference is one was defence against invasion, but the other was secession. A mere pecadillo!

[...]
I have a number of recordings of the 1812 Overture, and my favourite remains one that features local church bells pealing at the conclusion of the orchestral performance. That grounds the entire thing so spectacularly that it's my "go-to" version every time (the other one was recorded in the 1950s using authentic brass cannons). Those records (remember those 12-inch platters of vinyl? Oh, and where is Jack Williams when we need his voice!), however, seldom see playing time as I regard them now as precious; I should do a over-sampled digitization run on them...

One of the most entertaining recordings of the 1812 Overture was sold in U.K. Woolworths in 1929 on the "Victory" label. It is a 7" diameter 78 rpm disc and they managed to cram a cut-down version of the work into 2:24 recording time by playing frantically the whole way through. The orchestration includes a xylophone, which I am sure was not in the original score, and omits many of the original instruments - however, this lack of numbers is amply compensated by the enthusiasm of the players; you can almost imagine them cheering and slapping each other on the back when the red light went out in the recording studio. The conductor, George Cathie, was well known at the time for his enthusiasm for educating the masses into an appreciation of classical music and his ability to produce entertaining renderings from the skimpiest of orchestras.

I was so taken by this performance that I re-issued it as part of a CD compilation, despite the dire recording quality of the original (the recording machine looked like the illegitimate offspring of a telephone exchange and a cream separator and the microphones were almost certainly adapted telephone mouthpieces). I must declare a financial interest at this point, as I still sell the CDs, but a free sample is available at: http://www.poppyrecords.co.uk/HXP001/D00132.mp3