Favorite Hymn for Christmas Season
  • kathybot
    Posts: 4
    I always liked O Holy Night, but my mother, who would’ve been 97 this year, told me a story of Christmas 1941 in Osceola Mills, PA. Believe it or not, she and the priest sang O Holy Night before the mass. It went over so well That he asked after her the next year but her mom had to tell him that she was working in Johnstown!
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,100
    Late mention
    “A La Nanita Nana”, men’s voices
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    I like Gaudete, but am tired of hearing it.
    Also, I could do without hearing Riu, Riu ever again.

    Another really fine one is a French carol translated as Torches! Torches! Run with Torches / All the Way to Bethlehem.
    It is especially exciting in an arrangement by John Joubert, which can be heard sung by King's.
    Thanked by 1Jehan_Boutte
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    From King's College, last Tuesday, "In the bleak mid-winter": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTzqMi2AQF8

    I have also found this French carol, "Or nous dites Marie": https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/2019/12/23/henri-de-villiers-harm-or-nous-dites-marie-noel-du-xveme-siecle/
    Thanked by 3mmeladirectress M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen
  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 326
    ^^
    Or nous dites Marie - recording https://youtu.be/b1lERyuYpv0
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen mmeladirectress
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    There is no equal to Lessons and Carols at English cathedrals and collegiate chapels, but, for a very impressive, very different, artful, and impeccable alternative try googling
    'german christmas carols winsbacher knabenchor youtube'.

    There is the most ethereal arrangement of Es ist ein Ros' that one ever will have heard.
    Diction and intonation are almost without parallel.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Jackson,

    Winsbach must be a place in Germany, because "knabenchor" seems to be "cherub choir", in German?
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    I've never seen such a Microphone rood before! Google lets me down on the news article, but a few years ago the opening tune "Ope' wide the gate" was used to summon help by an organist locked in the church at night.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Chris -

    I suppose that knaben could imply 'cherubs' as in small children, but it actually means 'boys'. There used to be a respectable piano called Knabe. This must have been the surname of its maker or was somehow connected to boys.

    The repertory and performance of the Winsbacher knabenchor is remarkable. The boys are complemented by older young men who sing T & B. In most continental boy choirs the boys sing both alto and treble, leaving older young men to sing the lower voices. This results in a distinctively different sound than English choirs in which the boys sing only treble whilst adult male altos sing alto. The one exception to the English norm is Westminster cathedral choir which follows the normal continental practice. The adult male altos of English choirs give them their unique sound.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    A trick for finding cognate words from German is to substitute v for b.
    Thanked by 1m_r_taylor
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Jackson,

    Long years ago I would address my students as "Cherub-Terrorists"... it was in good fun, and one student liked it so much that she made mention of it in her 8th-grade valedictory speech. (That was at a mixed school.)

    You're quite right, though, that Cherub would be attaching meaning to the word which knabe doesn't necessarily imply. (Cherubs are, if I recall, always well-behaved).
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    ...to substitute v for b.
    Ha! Richard. Does that imply that knaben could actually mean 'knaves'?
    Thanked by 1mmeladirectress
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    Well, that might depend ;-) The etymology is here, though.
    Thanked by 2a_f_hawkins M. Jackson Osborn
  • adjpanderson13
    Posts: 23
    So upset I'm seeing this so late!

    Back in March I did something called "Hymn Hysteria" (instead of March Madness) with my choir. I put a bunch of hymns into a bracket, and every day we voted on the match-ups to see which one people liked more, until we finally came to the "best" or most-liked hymn of them all.

    Anyways, we did an Advent/Christmas hymn version called "Advent Absurdity," starting on the First Sunday of Advent and ending on Christmas Eve. Here's the bracket with results!

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiPVJ87eQdyXAcmlgMGtXq7J6cCBOsNR/view?usp=drivesdk
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Not King's, but awfully awfully good just the same!
    For a slight variant on Christmas lessons and carols with some very interesting repertory that is not normally heard at King's google 'carols by candle light magdalen youtube'. This is the choir of the Magdalen college chapel at Oxford. Among the treats are sublime and effortless performances of Jean Mouton's rich Nesciens mater and John Shephard's equally rich Verbum caro. Both are superbly done and are rarely heard elsewhere.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Magdalen College Oxford is great. King's is not an uncontested acme. It's certainly has the best brand and promotion (the very savvy fortune to have carpet-bombed the early CD market four decades ago to establish it in American consumer ears as a benchmark), and is very good (with a glorious chapel - not entirely dissimilar to how the Boston Pops with its acoustically magnificent home became what it became over decades by its recording dominance, the royalties from which have helped create an unrivaled endowment). But it has rivals in other Oxbridge collegiate chapel choirs, with their own vocal traditions. St John's, Trinity, New College, et cet. And, a year ago, Daniel Hyde showed that even King's vocal tradition can be very quickly turned towards a new direction (which itself is a sign of a quality ensemble - just as the best orchestras can quickly modulate their distinctive sound under new skilled leadership).
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    You are certainly right about that, Liam. And, there are some items in King's Christmas repertory that are getting tiresome (as in, I could do without hearing them again), such as, in particular, Rutter's 'Shepherd's Pipe Carol' - you know, 'Going through the hills on a night all starry....... all the way to Beth - - - lehem'. Some of their repertory, while good music, is a little too cute and frilly for what is, ostensibly, a liturgical observance derived from vespers.
    Thanked by 4a_f_hawkins CHGiffen francis mmeladirectress
  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 326
    I have never heard the Shepherd's Pipe Carol till now. Took a listen. I regruttered it.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,415
    Christmas lessons and carols from Durham just a few days ago is nice, without so much of the King's repertory - but, I missed any polyphony.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    I watched an old version of Christmas Carol at King's. Really beautiful and moving. I especially like "O come all ye faithful" at the end of the service.
    I think we all needed it at the end of this year.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • wolffwolff
    Posts: 25
    Largely unknown in the Catholic Church, except for those in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is the marvelous Christmas hymn Boh predvichnyi narodylsia.


    Do they use the "JKS" book there? "Jednotny Katholicky Spevnik" (translated roughly to English it is the "Uniform Catholic songbook" ) by Spolok Vojtecha, 565 pages, it seems to be the hymn book they use in Slovakia and I don't know where else over there.
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