It is impossible to listen to Ralph Vaughan William’s gorgeous and transcendent piece, The Lark Ascending, without imagining a lark climbing, diving, turning, soaring as the violin’s flurry of notes floats above the orchestra below, the lush harmony a forest canopy of green dotted with geographical landforms. Peaceful and picturesque as it is, however, we should not dismiss the piece, or the poem by George Meredith which inspired it, as merely Romantic sentimentality, arousing feelings of nostalgia in listeners.
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“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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As musician and composer, playing Messiah is always one of the highlights of the Christmas season; I look forward to it every year. It is was in the middle of performing a 2018 production of Messiah that it occurred to me that for a work with such depth and popularity, there had never been a sequel, modern, or complementary work written to Messiah.
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