“On the first day of Christmas………” Yes - I know the words of the song (and so do you, having heard it every year since 1781). But it seems to me that most of us in these United States really don’t know what the twelve days of Christmas are, or indeed when they’re celebrated. I know that I and many of my friends assumed that they were the twelve days leading up to the 25th of December instead of Christmas Day being the first day of the twelve. Since many of the best of the carols (in many languages) focus on Advent, I decided to investigate the music that might tie in to the various ‘labeled’ days of the twelve days of Christmas, especially pieces written by art music composers. What is the music from the time between Christmas day and Epiphany? Most often these are associated with various feasts, most often celebrated in churches with established calendars and saints. Here is a very unofficial sampling with some history and some commentary.
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This December, the Church began praying what are known as the “O Antiphons” each evening during Vespers, or Evening Prayer. Outside of Vespers, the O Antiphons are more familiar in their adapted form as the verses for the quintessential Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
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As believers and nonbelievers alike join in rousing and relentless caroling, they profess at least a basic understanding of the Christmas message. However, the popular litany of carols tends to be one-sided, resounding with Christmas cheer before reckoning with holy fear. Although rejoicing is an appropriate response to Christ’s birth, it is worth remembering the truth of the Psalms: that stillness and reverence beget knowledge (Psalm 111:10, 46:10). For this reason, “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” offers a much-needed text and tune which compel hearers to “be still and know” the One of whom they sing. Other carols may sing of silence, but they rarely evoke silence in response.
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Advent is a strange time for the Christian, who often finds herself caught between two calendars: on the secular calendar, the moment the last bite of Thanksgiving goes down, the Christmas season begins, and will stretch until the magic of Christmas morning, after which it is fairly immediately extinguished. But on the Church calendar, we are in a season of waiting, of expectant longing, right up to the fall on darkness on Christmas Eve, at which point we begin a season og rejoicing too intense to be confined to one morning, and so which stretches through the following twelve days. The soundtrack of this now and not yet double season, controlled as it is by secular concerns, is mostly skewed towards premature celebration. But some of its songs strike the right chord of expectation for the Christian. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is one of those.
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On Christmas Day of 2020, Disney & Pixar premiered “Soul,” a music-focused, Black-led, theologically rich film. The story follows Joe Gardner (played by Jamie Foxx and pianist Jon Batiste), a jazz pianist and music educator in New York on the hunt for his big musical break. But when the opportunity of a lifetime comes, his excitement literally kills him, setting his soul on a conveyor belt for the afterlife, “The Great Beyond.” Our protagonist refuses to accept his fate because he has yet to get his big break, so the movie then follows his relentless efforts to get back to earth and play his dream. Over the course of his search for earthly success, Joe learns about the real meaning of life.
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On November 13, a new album of my music entitled Mysteria Fidei was released worldwide (though physical copies are already available on Innova Recordings’ website). The project is the fruit of a six-year collaboration between me and Far Song, a husband-and-wife art song duo from South Carolina. Featuring three sacred chamber works, Mysteria Fidei explores the notion of “searching amidst life’s many difficulties—searching for understanding, searching for rescue, searching for hope, searching for fulfillment, searching for joy, searching for God.” Along the way, it deconstructs hymns spanning nearly two millennia and recontextualizes them within our polarized, fear-stricken, and increasingly isolated 21st-century milieu.
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