Manifesting the Manifestation Again
  • Hugh
    Posts: 199
    Amping up the Manifestation (Epiphany) : tenete traditiones!

    Does anyone know the Epiphany “Carol of the Kings” (Marcho di Rei)? Bizet famously used it as incidental music in L’Arlésienne. One of my favourite pieces of music I learned from the Australian Broadcasting Commission “Childrens’ Hour” all those years ago. (There you go, the ABC is (or was) good for something, courtesy of your generous tax dollars.)

    Let’s recover Epiphany! After the Three Days of Darkness, of course, when sanity has returned. (Actually I’ve put it to God that things are so bad it should be at least FIVE days. The matter is under negotiation.)
    But let’s really recover it. Here’s the great “New Oxford Book of Carols” on the matter:
    It is quite likely the carol (Marcho di Rei) was created specifically for performance at the processions of the three kings that made their way into the major Provençal towns on the eve of the Epiphany, of which it became an essential part. The march itself must already have been a feature of these processions, played by the military companies, and the text must surely have been inspired by the sight of the kings and their legions of attendants, camels and banners, wending their way into the ancient towns. The Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral (1830-1914) recalls seeing a procession in his boyhood at Maillane:

    A joyful shout rang from every throat as the magnificence of the royal pageant dazzled our sight. A flash of splendour and gorgeous colour shone in the rays of the setting sun, while the blazing torches showed the gleams of gold on crowns set with rubies and precious stones. The kings! The kings! See their mantles, their flags, and the procession of camels and horses which are coming …
    We ran to the church. It was crowded, and, as we entered, the voices of the people, accompanied by the organ, burst forth into the superbly majestic Christmas hymn: ‘De matin ai rescountra lou trin’.
    We children, fascinated, threaded our way between the women, (N.B.! Separation of women and men in the congregation! Hmmm! HH.) till we reached the Chapel of the Nativity. There, suspended above the altar, was the beautiful star, and bowing the knee in adoration before the Holy Child we beheld at last the three kings: Gaspard, with his crimson mantle, offering a casket of gold; Melchior, arrayed in yellow, bearing in his hands a gift of incense; and Balthazar, with his cloak of blue, presenting a vase of the sadly prophetic myrrh. How we admired the finely dressed pages who upheld the kings’ flowing mantles, and the great humped camels whose heads rose high above the sacred ass and ox; also the Holy Virgin and St Joseph besides all the wonderful background, a little mountain in painted paper with shepherds and shepherdesses bringing hearth-cakes, baskets of eggs, swaddling clothes, the miller with a sack of corn, the old woman spinning, the knife-grinder at his wheel, the astonished innkeeper at his window, in short, all the traditional crowd who figure in the Nativity, and, above and beyond all, the Moorish king.

    Glorious. Let’s do it. In Canberra, Australia, (e.g.) we can have a procession from Parliament House to St Christopher’s Cathedral (about a mile away). Three Bactrian (two-humped) camels (from all dealers) and their leaders (dressed as pages), Celebrant, Deacon and Subdeacon mounted in robes under which are their vestments (or they could dismount and vest at the Cathedral) and in their train candle bearers, and representatives from all the embassies, dressed in their wonderful national costumes, military bands blaring out tunes, assorted dumb animals in witness, plus all of us hoi polloi, joyfully singing Epiphany hymns and carols from all countries.

    And then Solemn Mass! And a jolly good feast afterward!
    What a joy! What’s not to like? Christ is King!

    Ecce! Bring on the Three (or Five) Days! I can't wait!
  • I learned it as a boy in a (not very good) arrangement by Roy Ringwald, in his collection Praise Him. I also had a carol book from Junior Scholastic that had a better version. A Wreath of Carols. https://www.amazon.com/Wreath-Carols-47-Christmas-Stongs/dp/B005CDXKA2
  • This is adequate. There is a possibility for some canonic imitation.

    https://hymnary.org/text/this_highway_beheld_at_break_of_day