The Twelve Days of Christmas—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-‘25

                                                                                The Twelve Days of Christmas performed by Pentatonix. 

Note—As we close in on the end of our Winter Holidays Music Festival we will spend two days on the close of the Twelve Days of Christmas as observed in British tradition and the Anglican liturgic calendar on January 5.  The next day, the Feast of the Epiphany or Day of the Three Kings will wrap things up.

The Twelve Days of Christmas is an English carol—a classic example of a cumulative song, the lyrics detail a series of increasingly numerous gifts given on each of the twelve days of Christmas—the days that make up the Christmas season, starting with Christmas Day to the day before Epiphany.  Twelfth Night is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the evening of January 5th, the day before Epiphany, which traditionally marks the end of Christmas celebrations.”

The cover of Thomas Bewick's 18th Century Mirth Without Mischief which published the version of an old English carol with its now common lyrics.

The best known English version was first printed in Mirth Without Mischief, a children’s book published in London around 1780. The work was heavily illustrated with woodcuts, attributed to Thomas Bewick. The carol has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68.  A large number of different melodies have been associated with the song, of which the best known is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin.

In 1909 English composer Fredric Austin married the lyrics to an old folk melody and the song as now commonly sung was complete.

In America the song took off in popularity when Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded it in 1949.  The Ray Conniff Singers made what many consider to be the definitive version for the 1953 LP We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  As a novelty song it became a staple of many of the television holiday specials since the 1950s and was introduced to children on Sesame Street.  It is also frequently parodied.

The a capella group Pentatonix is particularly well known for their annual Christmas shows and frequent appearances on televised seasonal specials.

Today we share the version by the a capella quintet Pentatonix.

 

Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle (Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella)— Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-‘25

 Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle (Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella) by Renée Fleming and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle (Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella)

Note—Now that we have gotten past our New Year’s posts, it’s a good time to remind folks that we are still in the Twelve Days of Christmas and traditional, religious, and secular songs are still appropriate!

 

The French have a very deep tradition of Christmas carols.  In fact, the word carol comes from French country dances that celebrated events throughout the year, but especially during Christmas.  Words were put to these lively dances creating songs very different from the announcement and nativity hymns sung for masses.  Coming from the peasantry the songs often celebrated the lowly witnesses or participants in the birth story—the carpenter and his humble teenage wife, the animals in the stable, the shepherds, children, and peasants.  Thus these carols were subtly subversive, claiming the Christ child as one of their own.  Exactly such a song is the very old carol Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle—Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella.

 

                                     An illustration for Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella.

The song originated in Provence in southern France which includes not only famous vineyard country, but mountains rising to the Alps.  It was first published in 1553.  The melody now sung is attributed to Baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier a century later but he probably adapted an older folk tune,  à boire Qu’ils sont doux, bouteille jolie from the now lost collection Le médecin malgré lui.

It was first translated into English in the mid-18th Century.

The song tells the story of two peasant girls who come upon the nativity and rush back to their village to tell the people and then lead them to the scene with torches in the night.  At the stable all are awed and struck with silence so as not to disturb the baby’s sleep.

Children in Provence still lead procession on Christmas Eve singing  Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle

It is still a custom in Provence for children dressed as shepherds and milkmaids to carry torches and candles while singing the carol leading a procession on the way to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

The English translation is found in several contemporary hymnals:  

Bring a torch, Jeanette, Isabella!

Bring a torch, to the stable call

Christ is born. Tell the folk of the village

Jesus is born and Mary's calling.

Hush! Hush! beautiful is the Mother!

Hush! Hush! beautiful is her child

Who is that, knocking on the door?

Who is it, knocking like that?

Open up, we’ve arranged on a platter

Lovely cakes that we have brought here

Knock! Knock! Open the door for us!

Knock! Knock! Let's celebrate!

It is wrong when the child is sleeping,

It is wrong to talk so loud.

Silence, now as you gather around,

Lest your noise should waken Jesus.

Hush! Hush! see how he slumbers;

Hush! Hush! see how fast he sleeps! 

Softly now unto the stable,

Softly for a moment come!

Look and see how charming is Jesus,

Look at him there, His cheeks are rosy!

Hush! Hush! see how the Child is sleeping;

Hush! Hush! see how he smiles in dreams!

Today we feature a performance by famed American opera soprano Renée Fleming with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 2006.

New Year’s Day by U2—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-‘25

 

                         

                                                                    New Years's Day from U2's third album War in 1983.

I watched Irish band U2 be presented with the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2022 on the annual CBS TV broadcast with some mixed feelings.  On one hand, the super group has a long history of churning out compelling rock anthems for almost every unjust conflict, social justice and human rights crisis, and international cause of the last 40 years, almost always on the right side if sometimes fuzzy about holding some powerful interests personally responsible for the suffering they decry.  On the other hand, the smugness, preening, and self-congratulations of the band’s leaders and main writers Bono and The Edge is more than a little off-putting.  

U2 on the red carpet for the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors.

But it is natural to present today their first big international hit New Year’s Day from their third album War in 1983.  The album had an extended anti-war and pacifist theme while the song was inspired the Solidarity movement rising against Soviet domination in Poland and local Polish Communist leadership.

The band came together as students at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a secondary public school operated by the Church of Ireland (Anglican) in Dublin when 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr. posted a notice looking for fellow musicians to form a new band.  Five students responded, none of them very accomplished on their instruments.  Three of them—Paul Hewson (Bono) on lead vocals, David Evans (The Edge) on lead guitar and back-up vocals, and Adam Clayton on bass guitar—and Mullen have remained together as the band finally named U2 in 1978 ever since.  

As a post-punk high school band, the lads posed with fire arms for a publicity shot--pretending to be revolutionaries.   

Originally inspired by English post-punk, they have evolved and re-invented themselves several times while honing their musical abilities and songwriting skills with the assistance of producers like Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Nellee Hooper, Flood, Howie B, and others.

Over the course of their spectacular career U2 have released 14 studio albums and are one of the world’s best-selling music acts, selling an estimated 150–170 million records worldwide.  They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and in 2005, they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.  Rolling Stone ranked U2 at # 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.  Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and social justice causes, including Amnesty International, Jubilee 2000, the ONE/DATA campaigns, Product Red, War Child, and Music Rising.

Despite proudly proclaiming their Irish identity and supporting the Catholic minority in Ulster—Sunday Bloody Sunday was another track on the War album—and supporting Irish re-unification, they have stirred anger and resentment in Eire for sheltering their enormous income in a Dutch corporation.  Threatened with prosecution in the Republic for tax evasion, Bono and the Edge live together with their families in a Swiss castle and cannot safely return again to Dublin.

New Year's Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday were significant anthems on U2's War album.

They have also been criticized for lucrative corporate deals with iTunes, Apple, Bank of America, and others, as well as for sucking up to some powerful global oligarchs and unsavory national leaders for support of the One campaign and other global charities.

But on the whole, their body of work and real world positive impact are beyond quibbling.

Happy New Year’s Day!