2023 carol competition - yuk

[Ein Heldenleben]

That rang a bell, f f, but I was too slow to respond. I was trying to think of the poem(s) which referred to Hardy's band - never found one yet - but in the course of . . . found this, among other things:


West Gallery music | Bristol Harmony

This is one . The woman is his mother Jemima . The viol player his future father.

A Church Romance

She turned in the high pew, until her sight
Swept the west gallery, and caught its row
Of music-men with viol, book, and bow
Against the sinking sad tower-window light.

She turned again; and in her pride's despite
One strenuous viol's inspirer seemed to throw
A message from his string to her below,
Which said: "I claim thee as my own forthright!"

Thus their hearts' bond began, in due time signed.
And long years thence, when Age had scared Romance,
At some old attitude of his or glance
That gallery-scene would break upon her mind,
With him as minstrel, ardent, young, and trim,
Bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim.

interesting Hardy Soc background article ..

https://www.hardysociety.org/media/bin/commentaries/1532429023.pdf

[Padraig]

This is one . The woman is his mother Jemima . The viol player his future father.

A Church Romance

Thanks E H. Yes I remember that one now! And a model lesson to go with it. Thomas Hardy - he was a good man and did good things.

[Simon Biazeck]

This is one . The woman is his mother Jemima . The viol player his future father.

A Church Romance

She turned in the high pew, until her sight
Swept the west gallery, and caught its row
Of music-men with viol, book, and bow
Against the sinking sad tower-window light.

She turned again; and in her pride's despite
One strenuous viol's inspirer seemed to throw
A message from his string to her below,
Which said: "I claim thee as my own forthright!"

Thus their hearts' bond began, in due time signed.
And long years thence, when Age had scared Romance,
At some old attitude of his or glance
That gallery-scene would break upon her mind,
With him as minstrel, ardent, young, and trim,
Bowing "New Sabbath" or "Mount Ephraim.

interesting Hardy Soc background article ..

https://www.hardysociety.org/media/b...1532429023.pdf

Wonderful, especially the Hardy Society article. I can hear a Finzi or Britten-like setting in my head. Thank you!

[Frances_iom]

To throw a very different reading of some well known carols see article by Bennett Zon in this weeks Tablet pp6-7 that Adeste Fideles is actually a Jacobite protest song! Comments from those more knowledgable than myself would be appreciated.

[oddoneout]

To throw a very different reading of some well known carols see article by Bennett Zon in this weeks Tablet pp6-7 that Adeste Fideles is actually a Jacobite protest song! Comments from those more knowledgable than myself would be appreciated.

Don't know about Zon's article(can't access it), but the idea has been around for some time it would seem - don't know what this item says but it dates from 2008

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1096974/Christmas-carol-really-rebel-song-celebration-Bonnie-Prince-Charlie-claims-expert.html

Is this the Tablet article?
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A18378884&v=2. 1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=ad6de08b

The last sentence in this paragraph amused me

https://oursubversivevoice.com/song/12074/

Apologies about being such a chunky post - it wasn't that big when I wrote it!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Wonderful, especially the Hardy Society article. I can hear a Finzi or Britten-like setting in my head. Thank you!

Interesting to get a Hardy love poem that is so beautifully oblique and isn’t about Emma Gifford . An unusual approach - how many of us could write about our parents’ first meeting? It’s so finely done with that throw forward to the future. Yes it would need a Britten or Finzi,

[french frank]

It doesn't seem clear, though, that Wade wrote the original text of Adeste. An interesting idea, but it fits Christian belief better than a Jacobite interpretation. Does Zon explain anywhere what 'Gestant puellae viscera' meant? Whether Wade adopted it as a secret Jacobite rallying cry is another matter: he was entitled to put it to whatever use he wanted, but without reading the entire article (and I suspect afterwards!) I remain sceptical that that was the original intended significance.

[Serial_Apologist]

It doesn't seem clear, though, that Wade wrote the original text of Adeste. An interesting idea, but it fits Christian belief better than a Jacobite interpretation. Does Zon explain anywhere what 'Gestant puellae viscera' meant? Whether Wade adopted it as a secret Jacobite rallying cry is another matter: he was entitled to put it to whatever use he wanted, but without reading the entire article (and I suspect afterwards!) I remain sceptical that that was the original intended significance.

Back at school I would certainly have wished I could have protested at being made to lead the school chapel choir in procession singing the first verse in the Latin while bearing the school cross aloft and into the chapel for the waiting congregation of pupils and parents! We would sing the first two verses a capella, the final verse being joined by the entire gathering of worshippers with the organ blasting forth for the first time, fortissimo, "Sing choirs of angels", which we certainly weren't.

[Roslynmuse]

Wonderful, especially the Hardy Society article. I can hear a Finzi or Britten-like setting in my head. Thank you!

And of course, there is The Choirmaster's Burial - which was set by Britten in Winter Words - which also alludes to the clergy's impatience with the old ways

He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
“Mount Ephraim”—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death’s dream,
Like the seraphim.

As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
“I think”, said the vicar,
“A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be.”
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.

But ’twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster’s grave.

Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.:

[Simon Biazeck]

And of course, there is The Choirmaster's Burial - which was set by Britten in Winter Words - which also alludes to the clergy's impatience with the old ways

He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
“Mount Ephraim”—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death’s dream,
Like the seraphim.

As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
“I think”, said the vicar,
“A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be.”
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.

But ’twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster’s grave.

Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.:

Yes, indeed! I've sung it many times! And Britten quotes 'Mount Ephraim' in the accompaniment. Masterful - the whole cycle.

[hmvman]

That poem's marvellous -the clergy's impatience with old ways and musicians generally? I really must listen to Winter Words again.

[Ein Heldenleben]

And of course, there is The Choirmaster's Burial - which was set by Britten in Winter Words - which also alludes to the clergy's impatience with the old ways

He often would ask us
That, when he died,
After playing so many
To their last rest,
If out of us any
Should here abide,
And it would not task us,
We would with our lutes
Play over him
By his grave-brim
The psalm he liked best—
The one whose sense suits
“Mount Ephraim”—
And perhaps we should seem
To him, in Death’s dream,
Like the seraphim.

As soon as I knew
That his spirit was gone
I thought this his due,
And spoke thereupon.
“I think”, said the vicar,
“A read service quicker
Than viols out-of-doors
In these frosts and hoars.
That old-fashioned way
Requires a fine day,
And it seems to me
It had better not be.”
Hence, that afternoon,
Though never knew he
That his wish could not be,
To get through it faster
They buried the master
Without any tune.

But ’twas said that, when
At the dead of next night
The vicar looked out,
There struck on his ken
Thronged roundabout,
Where the frost was graying
The headstoned grass,
A band all in white
Like the saints in church-glass,
Singing and playing
The ancient stave
By the choirmaster’s grave.

Such the tenor man told
When he had grown old.:

Good to hear that , for once , in a choirmaster / vicar dispute the former gets the upper hand.

[Roslynmuse]

Good to hear that , for once , in a choirmaster / vicar dispute the former gets the upper hand.