Favourite Christmas Music

[Mahler's3rd]

Greg Lakes "I Believe In Father Christmas", Appolgies in advance if i offend anyone but i loved ELP, they we're really years ahead of their time, and they did a good version of Pictures at an Exhibition as well

[MrGongGong]

Greg Lakes "I Believe In Father Christmas", Appolgies in advance if i offend anyone but i loved ELP, they we're really years ahead of their time, and they did a good version of Pictures at an Exhibition as well

I've just had to endure it three times in a row while eating my dinner .......... I used to not mind it BUT it's terribly played , the synth melody (you know the bit he nicked) is out of time..... still it's not as bad as the Lennon dirge which follows in on the loop in this hotel to which I plan never to return ! (is that English ? )

[Mahler's3rd]

Problem with Christmas songs Mr Gong Gong is that generally they are so over played and have been for years we get fed up with them, sorry to hear about your hotel

[Finzi4ever]

Now there's a reasoned judgment!

You what??!?

[vinteuil]

You what??!?

... Finzi4ever - I think - given his emoticon in his #78 - and the enthusiasm shewn in his #72 - that Sir Velo was being sarcastic here. At my expense

[vinteuil]

I've just had to endure it three times in a row while eating my dinner ...

... I just hope that this was because you were having a good lengthy French dîner - say four hours - rather than that it was a teensy tape-loop which caught you out three times over a swift half-hour dish. of spag: bol: ...

[Sir Velo]

You what??!?

... Finzi4ever - I think - given his emoticon in his #78 - and the enthusiasm shewn in his #72 - that Sir Velo was being sarcastic here. At my expense

Context is all!

[Finzi4ever]

I'd meant to have quoted your message rather than Sir Velo's, so apols.

[Serial_Apologist]

..............prompted by the thread, just enjoying "Navidad Nuestro" by Ariel Ramirez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJT5GXgvqjM

..............looking for another favourite, "Black Nativity" a collection of seasonal gospel songs arranged into a show which came to London in the 60s, but no luck so I'll have to dig out my own LP see if I can't make it available.

Oh my goodness me!!! Somebody else knows of this show! Did you actually go, Clive? Iirc, at the Coventry Street Theatre. It was my intro to Gospel music, and the name of Marion Williams, ringing out from the chorus, stays with me.

[MickyD]

Lullably jubbly

On the subject of the more 'minor key' aspects of the season, I'd nominate Bax's setting of "This Worldes Joie". Lovely performance from King's College Choir under Cleobury http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Worldes-Joie/dp/B001JYR72U but this by Schola Cantorum is good too http://www.musicline.de/de/player_fl...0/0/50/product


Haunting text:

WYNTER wakeneth al my care,
Now this leves waxeth bare;
Ofte I sike ant mourne sare
When it cometh in my thought
Of this worldes joie, how it goth al to nought.

Now it is, and now it nys,
Al so it ner nere, ywys;
That moni mon seith, soth it ys:
Al goth bote Godes wille:
Alle we shalle die, though us like ille.

Al that gren me graueth grene,
Nou hit faleweth albydene:
Jesu, help that hit be sene
Ant shild us from helle!
For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.


GLOSS:

this leves] these leaves.
sike] sigh.
nys] is not.
al so hit ner nere] as though it had never been.
soth] sooth.
bote] but, except.
faleweth] fadeth.
albydene] altogether.
y not whider] I know not whither.
her duelle] here dwell.

Am I right in thinking that William Matthias also did a version of "This World's Joie"?

[Nick Armstrong]

Am I right in thinking that William Matthias also did a version of "This World's Joie"?

You are

[jean]

Mathias also set this medieval text:

A babe is born all of a may,
To bring salvation unto us.
To him we sing both night and day.
Veni creator Spiritus.

At Bethlehem, that blessed place,
The child of bliss now born he was;
And him to serve God give us grace,
O lux beata Trinitas.

There came three kings out of the East,
To worship the King that is so free,
With gold and myrrh and frankincense,
A solis ortus cardine.

A fair song that night sung they
In worship of that child:
Gloria tibi Domine.

A babe is born all of a may,
To bring salvation unto us.
To him we sing both night and day.
Veni creator Spiritus,

O lux beata Trinitas,
A solis ortus cardine,
Gloria tibi Domine.
Noel!

I love the (very medieval) way he sets those three Latin verses against each other in the final stanza.

.

[Nick Armstrong]

Mathias also set this medieval text:

A babe is born all of a may,


I love the (very medieval) way he sets those three Latin verses against each other in the final stanza.

It's a winner Oft heard in King's on 24/12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKKEI1KwXd4

(I'm also a fan of his "Sir Christèmas")

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

.....still it's not as bad as the Lennon dirge which follows in on the loop in this hotel to which I plan never to return !

I too am sorry to hear this. I hope you told the management this. They tend not to realise how crass it makes them seem.

[Chris Watson]

I couldn't possibly choose a favourite, but the Mathias A babe is born was definitely a highlight when we sang it in Durham. It might be that it had something to do with the bombardes on that organ though!